Join us for music and dancing, and an opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones. There’s music from the Craig Mainland Band in Rousay, with traditional dances for you to try, and new dances from fiddler Lewis Hou of Science Ceilidh. There are studio guests to join in conversation, and breaks when you can sit back and chat with others from near and far.
Islands are in the frontline for challenges of environment and resources – and for finding solutions. The Virtual Island Summit (7-13 September) is this week bringing together islands worldwide to share their experiences and stories of island innovation. We join them live with stories of development projects in several Orkney islands showing how communities can shape energy developments to solve problems.
It was one of the most significant and complex civil engineering achievements of the 20th century, closing off four fast-flowing tidal channels to form causeways that sealed off the eastern side of the anchorage of Scapa Flow and link today the island communities of Burray and South Ronaldsay with the Orkney mainland. The challenge was taken on by the construction company Balfour Beatty. Civil engineer John Andrew tells the story of how they solved it, and the massive scale of the operation with its quarries and rockworks, cableways and railways.
