Tour guide training pilot in Lairg to celebrate 'inspirational' local area
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Are you interested in local heritage? Would you like to learn how to plan, research, write and deliver guided tours?
Those are the questions Lairg & District Learning Centre will be asking as they prepare to host a "sold out" pilot course later this month, providing training on how to run guided tours in Sutherland.
Working in collaboration with Keep Scotland Beautiful's "Our Heritage, Our Future" team, the learning centre will host the free four-week online course starting on Wednesday, January 31.
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Lairg & District Learning Centre manager Aileen Ogilvie said: "The programme aims to inspire communities to consider how their historic environment can both benefit from, and be a driver for, local action. Lairg & District Learning Centre are delighted to be collaborating with Keep Scotland Beautiful on this opportunity which offers people in Lairg and wider Sutherland area the chance to develop their own skills using their local area as inspiration.
"We hope that those who attend the training will be able to put their skills into practice by delivering guided tours in their local area and share their knowledge with local people and visitors to the area. Participants may also learn new things about their local area when they carry out their research tasks.
"The training is accredited so could lead to those who attend going onto gain a further qualification in the heritage sector. Other benefits include getting people in the outdoors and exploring their area’s heritage, supporting mental health and wellbeing by connecting with place and environment and possible economic benefits to the area through increasing activities for visitors to participate in."
The centre hope that a successful pilot could result in further courses.
Ms Ogilvie added: "This training opportunity had limited spaces for this time round and is actually now fully booked with a waiting list. We would like to hold more courses, but as this is a pilot project being delivered by two third sector organisations, any future opportunities would rely on securing funding for delivery."
The initiative is part of KSB's Our Heritage, Our Future programme which has been made possible with support from Historic Environment Scotland and The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery Players.
