Messages for Christmas and the New Year

Police Scotland

Chief Inspector Lee Page,  area commander in Oban, Lorn & the Isles, Mid Argyll, Kintyre & Islands 

As we approach the end of 2024, I would like to take this opportunity to thank officers, staff, the public and our partner agencies for their continued work and cooperation. The service we provide could not be achieved without that support.

Over the last 12 months, we have worked hard to reduce crime levels and keep our communities safe.

Thanks to the ongoing support from the public, we have been able to make a real difference by tackling those responsible for drug supply through targeted searches and warrant operations.

We all want to enjoy the festivities at this time of year but unfortunately some people still get behind the wheel of a car under the influence of drink or drugs.

During this time, we will be using an intelligence-led approach, with road safety data to target specific areas with patrols, arresting those who, not only put their own lives at risk but members of the public too.

If you know someone is going to drive after taking alcohol or drugs, please speak to them, your comments and influence could be lifesaving.

Policing is a job like no other and should you wish to be part of a team that serves your community, please consider applying for the role.

We look forward to doing our utmost to keep you safe and supported in your Christmas and Hogmanay celebrations. I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a safe and fulfilling year ahead.

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Area Commander Joe McKay for Argyll and Bute, East Dunbartonshire and West Dunbartonshire.
Our crew at Oban Community Fire Station has had a busy year working to keep the community safe, as well as working with local clubs, organisations and schools all year round.

Our Community Action Team has worked hard to develop partnership working with LiveArgyll and Oban High School.

The programme allows pupils to learn the skills of a firefighter and it has been a great success. We hope to reintroduce it again next year.

We were extremely proud to lead the Pride 2024 parade in the area and had a fantastic weekend working alongside our emergency service partners.

An open day was also hosted in September at Oban Fire Station where the crew invited the public to join them for a fun-filled day. They welcomed crowds from across the local area alongside emergency service and community partners.

Families enjoyed taking part in the activities as well as watching rescue demonstrations from personnel.

On behalf of everyone at the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, I’d like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Be aware of some of the festive hazards around your home to keep you and your loved ones safe.

If you’re on Christmas dinner duty this year, never leave cooking unattended and don’t mix cooking with drinking alcohol.

Keep candles away from Christmas trees, wrapped presents, decorations, and other flammable objects and never leave a candle unattended.  

Always remember to unplug fairy lights and other electrical decorations when you leave the house or go to bed.”

If the weather worsens, drive to the conditions if snow or ice present themselves and don’t make any unnecessary journeys.

We’d also ask members of the public to avoid walking near to frozen water. Remain vigilant and never walk on frozen water as it can often not bear the weight of the person on it. When planning your journey home, stick to main routes that are lit.

BID4Oban chief executive Andrew Spence:

BID4Oban Ltd would like to wish all Oban Times readers a merry Christmas and prosperous New Year. It has been a great year for the town with the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, Sea Shanty Festival and the Royal National MOD. These events were followed by Oban being awarded Scotland’s Town of the Year for 2024. This was a well-deserved accolade given how wonderful our town is.

It is not just a vibrant business community that was recognised but all the events that take place across the town and the way our community comes together to support each other, promote our town and welcome our numerous visitors throughout the year.

Now 2025 will be another challenging year for our town but with firm foundations we are sure it will be just as busy and prosperous.

We are looking forward to welcoming over 30 cruise ships including some very large high-end liners.

Stay safe readers and enjoy your festive season.

CalMac Chief Executive Officer Duncan Mackison

It is hard to believe that another year is almost over and as 2024 draws to a close, it is a good time to reflect on what has passed.

We have been open and honest about the challenges faced by customers. I have heard about these first-hand from colleagues and communities during regular visits across the network. While I did hear some positive feedback about our efforts to maintain services, we know there is more to be done.

We bid a fond farewell to MV Hebridean Isles in 2024. She served the whole network admirably, and I was touched by the wonderful stories from passengers and crew past and present. This is a reminder that vessels are more than steel, but a part of the fabric of the island communities we serve.

Of course, new vessels are vital. The crew of MV Glen Sannox are hard at work putting the vessel through her paces, and we look forward to welcoming her into service in the new year. This is a massive milestone, and her arrival heralds the start of the modernisation of our fleet, with a further five new vessels joining by 2026.

In 2025, we will continue to focus on enhancing the operational resilience of the ferry service and improving the experience of every one of our customers.

Finally, I want to wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year. As we enter 2025, we can look forward to continuing to deliver to the communities who rely on us. 

Oban Community Council

Luing Community Council

The message from the Isle of Luing this year is one of hope. A year ago, we were campaigning hard against
the proposed closure of Luing Primary School.

In March we won our campaign, with the school’s mothballing extended for up to five years. It’s given us a better chance of attracting more families to live on the island. Like so many places in Argyll, Luing is beautiful and welcoming, a fantastic place for people of all ages and interests. But it has to thrive as a community and as an economy.

Luing Community Council and the Isle of Luing Community Trust are putting our hopes and efforts into a number of initiatives – improving the ferry service, increasing the availability of housing for permanent residents, tackling coastal erosion and the risks of floods, and creating opportunities for work and jobs. It often feels a very slow process, and requires a great deal of patience when promised support doesn’t materialise. Our hopes remain high for the coming year, and we send our warmest wishes to everyone for a healthy and
successful New Year!

Seil and Easdale Community Council
It has been a busy year for the community despite visitor numbers being down as a whole.

The Community Council in conjunction with the Easdale Branch of the Royal British Legion Scotland observed the 80th Anniversary of D Day with a service and wreath laying ceremony at the square in Ellenabeich and in the sea off Easdale Island.

The island’s Scarecrow Festival week was a success bringing visitors to participate in the attractions and pop-up café. The World Stone Skimming Championships as usual was a spectacular event raising money for local community groups including Easdale Primary School Parent’s Association, the village hall, Community Council as well as the Air Ambulance and Seil Biodiversity Group and Car Scheme.

Road safety has been a challenge for some time on the Seil Island roads and speeding vehicles have resulted in road traffic collisions. The Community Council have taken this seriously and have purchased a speed monitoring device that is mobile and has been sampling speeds across the islands. This has been a success as it has raised speed awareness and the data allows useful traffic numbers to be shared with Argyll and Bute Council and the Police.

Seil and Easdale Community Council would like to send Nollaig Cridheil agus Bliadhna Ur.

Rt Rev Dr Shaw Paterson, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

We are currently enjoying the season of Advent - a time of prayer and preparation for the coming of God’s Son into the world.

God had promised a Messiah and generations had prayed and hoped for the Messiah to come.

The prophecies of his birth can be found in numerous places in the Old Testament in the Bible.

We read that it was to be in the town of Bethlehem, known as David’s town and we know that there were to be signs.

But these were either ignored or missed completely.

And so, all ‘the hopes and fears of all the years’ were bound up in a little baby wrapped in what was traditionally referred to as ‘swaddling clothes’ and lying in a manger.

And the only people who visited were the shepherds and the Wise Men.

I recently discovered a completely blank post-it note in the pocket of one of my newly washed and ironed clerical shirts.

Whatever had been written on it, probably someone’s name and address for visiting, was totally washed out and I haven’t got a clue who I was meant to be visiting or where I was meant to be going.

Hopefully, I didn’t miss an appointment with someone.

It’s difficult to miss Christmas especially given that the adverts and all that go with them start so early but it’s easy to miss what is truly at the heart of Christmas, and that is individuals, families, congregations and communities.

We’ve kept that appointment, as we’ve welcomed the gift of God given to us in Jesus Christ and having received that gift we are encouraged to share it.

For the message of Christmas is not simply an annual appointment.

Jesus brought into our world hope, peace, joy and love - represented by the candles lit on the four Sundays of Advent.

As we look around us, as we see the difficulties and tensions, the conflicts and wars, as we see the needs that exist all around us, this world of ours needs to experience those gifts of God: hope, peace, joy and love.

Be blessed this Christmas and I pray that there might be hope, peace, joy and love in the lives of everyone for we are all God’s children.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Dean of the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles, The Very Rev’d Canon Margi Campbell - Provost of St John’s Episcopal Cathedral

Passing on the Light

At our Christmas services we will fill St John’s Cathedral with candles, and many will find a calm and joy in the beauty and wonder evoked by these flickering lights. But we will also be aware of the fragility of the flame, the ease with which one breeze can extinguish the candle’s glow. During our services we will remember one fragile life born into a tumultuous world; mindful of how precarious life still is, as we are confronted by violence, illness, climate concerns and financial fears…what can the birth of one child, so long ago, mean in the midst of all this?

For me, the tiny spark of life born into the world in the infant Jesus, heralded a potential which even today offers a light to break through all that is so hard; the light we see when kindness is shown, care is given, in acts of generosity or selfless deeds. And in this, we are reminded how even a tiny light can illuminate a path, a room, a life. If you would like to remember someone who has brought brightness into life, we have a Memory Tree in the Cathedral Chapel where names can be placed on stars as we recall the light they brought to us and that we now can pass on to others.

I pray that you will be blessed this Christmas and find the light of Jesus shining brightly in your life, that you can share, heralding the promise of a growing light for us and all the world.

Reverend Trudi Newton, Church of Scotland Minister of Colonsay & Oronsay l/w Netherlorn

I wonder if you have a favourite Christmas tradition? It might be playing those old Christmas hits, decorating the Christmas Tree, turkey dinners, visiting friends.

Perhaps family traditions which have evolved and changed throughout the years, some which bring us joy, and some which have become special and poignant because they remind us of loved ones we miss.

Traditions have evolved for centuries, from Neolithic celebrations of the midwinter solstice, to five days of partying during Roman times. Medieval times introduced the idea of twelve days of Christmas, with Tudor courts preferring dancing and celebration of twelfth night on January 6. The Victorian era popularised much of our well-known Christmas customs today – decorating the tree, sending Christmas cards, Christmas crackers, many of our Christmas carols.

In the Bible, we have stories which tell of a baby born in Bethlehem. Written over time, they are told in different ways. We hear of there being no room for a tired couple to stay, angels singing to shepherds, Magi from the East following a star to find the baby.

The baby born in Bethlehem grew up to be a light in dark places, to make his home with the homeless, to value those whom others shunned, and to show the Divine’s Love. Those whose lives he touched continued to shine his light and that light continues to shine today.

In the midst of all the traditions which celebrate a baby’s birth, may you know that light which offers hope and peace.

Bishop Brian McGee of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Argyll and the Isles

On Christmas Eve Pope Francis will initiate a Holy Year. This is symbolised by the
opening of the ‘Holy Door’ in St Peter’s Basilica. A Holy Year is usually celebrated
every 25 years. ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ is the theme of this Holy Year. Every bishop will
then open the Holy Year in his Cathedral on the Sunday after Christmas. Therefore, I
will open the Holy Year in St Columba’s Cathedral, Oban on 29 th December.
We are all on a journey through life and therefore we are pilgrims. Life can be
wonderful and fulfilling but it can also be challenging and its difficulties may
sometimes threaten to overwhelm us. Yet we have hope. Our hope does not come
from our own abilities but rather from God’s love and mercy.
Christmas reveals the boundless depths of God’s love. In all humility the Son took on
our weak human nature to raise us up, bringing reconciliation to God and with each
other. Jesus, and Jesus, alone is the source of our deepest hope. This is what we
celebrate at Christmas. As we journey through the Christmas Season and into the
New Year may we all be pilgrims of hope.