The Board met one week late this month due to our Holiday travels.  Given that there seems to be conflicting information published on the internet about Ellan Vhow, the Board decided that we should take on an additional $10 per month so that we can expand to unlimited site pages and strive to be the definitive source of Ellan Vhow information.  As with other EVPF expenses, the Board will donate to cover the costs of expanding the site. 

The process of collecting and maintaining accurate information on Ellan Vhow will be on-going, but we plan to have new pages and core content by the next monthly Board meeting.

We completed the digitization of the 1995-1997 Survey photos and video and will consult Firat Archaeological Services (Fiona) about potentially publishing some of these here.

We traveled from Houston to Loch Lomond December 28-30 hoping to get out to Ellan Vhow for more measurements and more comprehensive photographs.  The weather was cold and wet all three days, but it was ultimately the high winds that foiled us.  Bill Porter was our scheduled captain and Bill advised against travel to the island those days.  Bill is well known on the loch for fast cars and speed boats (amongst many other things) and we took it seriously when he suggested that we should plan to visit another day.  We did take some photographs from various places along the shore and it was clear that the vegetation was down on the island.  We may try again in March ... hopefuly for work with the tree surgeon in April.

We did meet with Fiona Baker and exchanged materials from the June survey.  We had a casual dinner at the Ardencaple there in Rhu and caught up on progress and plans.  Fiona was so kind as to invite us to her home for tea the following afternoon.  This was a wonderful treat. We got to see some of her special artifacts and to peruse her library!   We also did a bit more planning for the next phase of preservation works after tea and reviewed next steps for preparation of the June report.

We confirmed that completion of the June 2102 Survey is required for submission of the Historic Scotland Scheduled Monument Consent.   Fiona has loaned the originals of the 1997 photographs, slides and video to us ... which we will digitize and incorporate in the electronic June update.  Both Fiona and Tom Addyman, a standing building expert, will edit and update the significant archaeological content of the report.

We did manage to have a magical Hogmanay in Edinburgh (New Year's Eve) and an equally magical visit to the University of St. Andrew's on the 1st.  A trip to the British Museum rounded out our visit. All-in-all it was a great trip!

We aim to get the next round of work started in March or April, although time and government permitting, things may get going even sooner than that. Until then, a very Happy New Year from Scotland!