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Issued by �۲�ӰԺ Council, Argyll and the Isles Tourism Cooperative and BID4OBAN   ScotRail’s new Highland Explorer, active travel carriage has been added to the West Highland Line to Oban making it easier for visitors to store bikes and hiking equipment and leave the car at home.   The Highland Explorer is the first five of ScotRail’s Class 153’s to be fitted out and the first of its type in the UK.  

�۲�ӰԺ Council will today launch a campaign to encourage dog owners to #maketheirpupproud and pick up after their dog. The four week social media campaign features dogs saying how they feel when their owners make the effort to clean up, or let them down by not bothering. Council staff and members of the public have shared photos and ideas for the campaign.

Parents in �۲�ӰԺ are being invited to find out whether or not they are eligible for a school clothing grant and free school meals for their child. Since 2015, all pupils in P1, 2 and 3 have been entitled to a free school meal, however, from August this year children in P4 will also be eligible. This will be extended to P5 pupils in January and P6 and P7 pupils from August 2022, as part the Scottish Government’s commitment to roll out free school meals to all primary pupils.

Issued oh behalf of the GRAB Trust Businesses large and small can get behind a new campaign to ensure locals, visitors and tourists treat beautiful �۲�ӰԺ with care this summer. The campaign designed by The GRAB Trust and �۲�ӰԺ Council, with support from Keep Scotland Beautiful, will provide information, advice and guidance to help minimise the effect of staycation tourism on littering. 

If you struggle to remember when to put your bins out, you can now call on Alexa to tell you. This is an additional feature, for those people who already use Alexa at home, and supports our online bin calendar look-up and downloadable calendar. It is part of the council’s ongoing commitment to delivering new and useful digital services. This 'skill' as it is called by Amazon, allows you to ask your smart device when your council bins will next be collected.  We will be adding other council-related information to the service over the next year.

More pupils at Rothesay Joint Campus would like to walk, scoot or cycle to school than currently do and a new project is looking at ways to help them achieve that – but we need your help too. Rothesay’s New School Run is an exciting and ambitious new design project to define what changes are needed, post-pandemic, to allow young people in Rothesay to get to school differently.

Employers in �۲�ӰԺ are being reminded that a work permit is required for all young people aged between 14 and 16 who work part-time while still at school. �۲�ӰԺ Council is committed to the protection of children in employment, and has a number of byelaws which state the rules and regulations governing the employment of children – one of which is a valid work permit. The work permit is free of charge and must be signed by the head teacher from the young person’s school, as well as a parental guardian and employer.

Are you considering becoming a childminder but anxious about the impact it could have on your own children? Think again.Rachael Handy from Kilcreggan has been childminding for 18 years and believes that her job has not only benefitted her, but also her two children. “I honestly believe both my children have learned many valuable social and emotional developmental skills during my career due to the adjustments that must be made while having other children in the house,” she said.

From amateur swimming clubs to Climate friendly action groups, outdoor activities to community gardens and woodlands – these are just some of community projects set to benefit from the Council’s Supporting Communities Fund. The Fund is available to a range of groups including voluntary, charities and social enterprises. This year the council received 93 applications. A list of all the awards can be found on the Council website at 

�۲�ӰԺ Council has approved a proposal to provide free milk for all pupils in the area’s primary schools. The decision comes ahead of the roll out of free school meals in primaries from August 2021 and the adoption of new Healthy Food in Schools Guidance in April. A 10p charge was originally introduced in 2015 for all pupils who paid for a school meal with milk, the aim being to offset the higher than average purchase costs the Council paid for providing milk in schools.