In brief – 16 February, 2010

More cash for Haiti

MORE money is flowing in to the Shetland effort to help the people of Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake last month.

The local Rotary Club have sent three £475 ShelterBoxes, each containing a tent for ten people, sleeping bags, water purification equipment, a cooker and many other items which are of immediate use to people who have lost everything.

A further two boxes are now being sent with the help of £771 raised from a Christmas present recycling event run by Lerwick’s St Columba’s Church Sunday school, with more on the way thanks to £300 being raised when Rotary Club president Silvija Crook gave a talk at Lerwick’s Bell’s Brae school and an anonymous donor handed in £1,000.

Debating duo

TWO pupils from Sandwick junior high school are competing against rivals from 15 other Scottish school in a national debating contest after winning through to the semi finals.

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Ceidiog Saxelby and Saibh Finlayson beat students from some of Scotland’s top schools to win in the second round of the Law Society of Scotland’s Donald Dewar Memorial Debating Tournament.

There are four semi finals and the winner of each will take part in the final on 17 June.

Hjaltland cheque

THE CREW, family and friends of NorthLink ferry Hjaltland handed over a cheque for £714.38 to Bruce Leask, of the Lerwick lifeboat, after raising the money over the festive season.

While the boat was “laid over” for two days at Christmas in Lerwick and in Aberdeen for two days at new year the crew decided to raise some funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institute.

Some 38 crew members and around 20 family and friends raised cash through pub quizzes, raffles and the sale of DVDs showing the participants in fancy dress. The most unusual fund-raiser was the blackjack table run by Hjaltland purser Kasia Stachurska, again with all proceeds going to the RNLI.