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Happy Easter 2026
Category: News
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Making space
One more making space before Easter!
The 19th of March will be the last Thursday evening session of this block of Making spaces. They will return in April starting on the 16th of April.
May will see the summer show season begin, so our activity will be moving outdoors and around the Irish sea region. There is still time to get involved.
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Spring
The nights are getting lighter, and the catkins are forming on the tips of trees.
Soon it will be time to launch cluaran again.
If you have time to help with maintaining the boat:
Make space on Thursday evenings in the WSC workshop 7 – 9
5th, 12th, and 19th of March. Then there will be a break for Easter.
Next possible launch date will be the 16th of April – but that still needs to be discussed and decided.
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Gaelic Culture
A location, a language, a way of life – a way to interpret the landscape deeply rooted and flourishing?
Here is an interesting project and resource:
Feàrna (Alder in Gaelic) is the name given to ongoing work in Mull aimed at improving understanding and finding connections between people of Gaelic heritage and people of other heritages living on the isle of Mull.
This website is a space to share some of the things we’ve been exploring thus far through Feàrna. It’s also a warm invitation to anyone else considering these questions – in Mull or further afield – to explore them with us.
(Text taken from their introduction to their website)
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January 2026
Requests for school visits are starting to come in! If you would like to be involved and haven’t seen the e-mails please get in touch.
We are continuing the Winter break from drop in “Making Space” evenings to take advantage of the opportunity raised by The Stove with “Phanto Spectra”. If you haven’t booked already check it out.
Of course, activated members have been active throughout the holidays! Making has continued and we have gauges for sizing oars. A ply rudder blade is roughly shaped and it will be ready for testing when the ice on the water melts. Just the fittings to forge!
Activated members also help keep a roof over the Cluaran club head! In 2026 Wordsmith Crafts CIC will need to focus on the “company” side of CIC a bit more. The community tends to run on goodwill and trade, but The Workshop roof is going to need replaced and due partly to complexities in the building materials this will cost cash. We now have three years of activity reports and this will hopefully provide a basis to develop the board of directors. The aim is to hold this in the first week in February!
Have a look at the journey so far and get in touch if you reckon you have skills to contribute to keeping things afloat and on course. Annual Reports at the Bottom of this page
Drop in Making space will return on the evening of Thursday the 22nd of January. Plan is to keep Thursday evenings clear for Cluaran until the 26th of March. Check the calendar to see if it will be a club drop in at the workshop, a night at the pub, or another adventure!
Free if it is your first time, £5 towards club overheads after that. These are not taught craft workshops – but get in touch if you are interested in one of those!
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BASH
This Thursday, BASH at the riverside tap with Storytelling by Simon.
BASH are a collective who make improvised music which defies definition. They have been playing together for a while now, and occasionally have guests.
This Thursday (the 6th of November) they will be playing at the Riverside Tap in Dumfries. Simon Lidwell will be improvising some stories with them!
So this is the Cluaran event for the week. Ancient tales of the otherworld combining with music made in the moment. Autumnal poetry where semantics settle like leaves on the sound waves and decomposition warms the room, with the smell of rest surrounding the gathered company.
BASH with Simon storytelling 1900 onwards, the Riverside Tap, the Vennel, Dumfries – free gig!
Thursday evening are Cluaran evenings!
In the workshop. 19.00 to 21.00
Drop in with your own project. Share skills to try something new.
(Pay what you can/£5 contribution to the Cluaran club if you have the cash. Contributions in kind welcomed as well. Ask about Wordsmith Crafts Cluaran and Quartz memberships too!)
Thursday evening are Cluaran evenings!
Keep the evening free for hands on access to heritage. In the run up to Christmas we will be gathering for a range of activities. More details of each evening will be posted here.
Making Space:
Drop in with your own project. Share skills to try something new.
Storytelling:
In the workshop or a local pub
Boat maintenance: Many tasks needing done before the summer!
Or a community volunteering task.
We will post details of each evening here. We will start with a Making Space evening on the 30th of October. The last evening of this batch will be the 11th of December.
(Pay what you can/£5 contribution to the Cluaran club if you have the cash. Contributions in kind welcomed as well. Ask about Wordsmith Crafts Cluaran and Quartz memberships too!)
The international racing event called Skiffieworlds started on Saturday. An expeditionary party of cluaran connected people were there to see the opening ceremony.
https://stranraerwatersports.com/skiffieworlds2025/welcome-stranraer-skiffieworlds-2025
With boats from the D&G coastline, accross Scotland Ireland, England, the Netherlands, the USA, and Austrailia it was properly international. One day, perhaps, there will be a Dumfries boat there too!
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Water connects
I’m in the workshop today doing some Cluaran maintenance in preparation for a row this evening.
While I’m doing that I’m thinking about this years Nithraid. Nithraid is a festival which helps people reconnect and reimagine their relationship with the river Nith.
A few years ago I made a video about toy boat building using household materials. Instead of flushing plastic away and forgetting about it, it can be re-imagined as a valuable resource. There are projects around the world doing this on a large scale. On a small scale, we could make the components needed to turn used containers into components for toy boats.
If you are interested, please get in touch!
We may be able to contribute to this years on the green Nithraid activities (24th of August).
Of course, if you would like to row get in touch too! We are practicing on the Nith (including this evening – the 3rd of July)