The Saltire Society
1936 - 2006: 70 years
2007 - the future!



SALTIRE SOCIETY
SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

The Society is currently seeking a new sponsor for its
2008 Scottish Book of the Year Award.
The amount of sponsorship required is in the region of £30,000.

Please click here for more information.

Interested? Please contact the Administrator.





Planning & Environment Committee

SALTIRE DIALOGUES

Second Thursday of the month at the Society's Headquarters at 10am

The committee (currently Roger Kelly, Paul Morsley, Stuart Nichol and George Pease) traditionally meet monthly on the second Thursday at 10am at the Society's headquarters at Fountain Close, opposite John Knox House in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. From December 2007 they are going to begin regular Saltire dialogues at this time and place to explore some pressing practical problems and solutions in Scotland’s planning and environment. A few interested people will join them and talk informally around the table, with a deliberate focus on what they see as the key practical issues. The Committe hope to make these dialogues available to a wider audience through the internet.

13 December 2007 : Getting people involved in planning
Petra Biberbach the Director of Planning Aid Scotland, Clare Symonds of Friends of the Earth and Alec Orr of Indigo Public Relations joined the Saltire P&E committee around the table. George Pease is a former county planner of Ross & Cromarty and retired Planning Inquiry Reporter, Stuart Nichol is Fife Council’s Director of Environment and Development Services, Paul Morsley is a landscape architect, urban designer, and lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art, and Roger Kelly is visiting teaching fellow in town & regional planning at Dundee, formerly at the Scottish Executive and responsible for the 2002 consultation Getting Involved in Planning.

10 January 2008 : Making good development happen.

Will Reid of EDI joined Paul Morsley and Roger Kelly of the Saltire P&E committee around the table. Will has long experience of planning and development in Scotland, and is a former land and planning officer of the Scottish Housebuilders’ Association. Paul Morsley is a landscape architect, urban designer, and lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art, and Roger Kelly is convener of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s Scottish Executive.

extra Thursday:17 January 2008 : Firm Foundations -the future of housing in Scotland
Karen Anderson of the Saltire Society’s Housing Award panel joined Paul Morsley and Roger Kelly of the Saltire P&E committee around the table. Karen is an architect and designer with A+DS, Paul is a landscape architect, urban designer, and lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art, and Roger is convener of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s Scottish Executive


Saltire P&E committee’s George Pease is a former county planner of Ross & Cromarty and retired Inquiry Reporter, Stuart Nichol is Fife Council’s Director of Environment and Development Services, Paul Morsley is a landscape architect, urban designer and lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art, and Roger Kelly is visiting teaching fellow in town & regional planning at Dundee, formerly at the Scottish Executive and responsible for the 2002 consultation on Getting Involved in Planning.

Future dialogues will deal with Housebuilding Quantity and Quality, Local Energy generation and distribution, dealing with waste, making our towns fit for health, transport and climate change. Future dates are
14 February 2008
13 March 2008 (RTPI Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning)
10 April 2008
8 May 2008
12 June 2008


The 2008 Patrick Geddes Lecture (jointly promoted by the Saltire Society and the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland) will be given on the early evening of Wednesday 4 June at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, George Street by Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, Harry Burns.
Previous Geddes Lectures: Jonathon Porritt, Raymond Young, Greg Lloyd, Richard Wakeford

For more information about these dialogues and the Patrick Geddes Lecture please go to Place makers


LITERARY AWARDS CEREMONY 2007

The 2007 Award Ceremony was held on
Friday 30th November
at 12.30p.m.
at The National Library of Scotland, Causwayside Building

The Winners were:

Scottish Book of the Year - A L Kennedy Day published by Jonathan Cape

Scottish First Book of the Year - Mark McNay Fresh publsihed by Cannongate

Reasearch Book of the Year was Awarded to both -

Robert Crawford Scotland's Books: The Penguin History of Scottish Literature published by Penguin
and
David Robb Auld Campaigner, A Life of Alexander Scott published by Dunedin Academic Press

2006 History Book of the Year - Bruce A. McAndrew Scotland's Historic Heraldry

2007 History Book of the Year - Christopher Whatley The Scots and the Union published by Edinburgh University Pres


CHANGE OF SPEAKER AT THE EDINBURGH BRANCH LUNCH ON
SATURDAY 1ST DECEMBER 2007
The Speaker will now be Professor Ian Campbell of THe Edinburgh University's Department of English Literature.
Professor Campbell's topic of talk is Edinburgh's 'Other' Book Festival.

TTT

TEST OF TIME: 70 YEARS OF SALTIRE HOUSING AWARDS
Exhibition to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Housing Design Awards.

Running from 2nd November until 28th November 2007 at:
Level 2
The Lighthouse
11 Mitchell Lane
Glasgow
G1 3NU


The Exhibition reviews the changing character of housing in Scotland over
the past decade and includes; archive images, interviews with residents of
award-winnning schemes and contextual material on housing policy.






THE ANDREW FLETCHER OF SALTOUN COMMEMORATION:
This year's commemoration will be held at the Scottish Parliament,
in committee room one commencing with tea at 5.15 p.m. Dr Jenny Wormald
an Honorary Fellow of Edinburgh University, will give this year's address:
A Century of Union, 1603 - 1707

Parliament requires to have the names of those wishing to attend.
To reserve a place therefore, please inform Headquarters,
by no later than 12th September.


CUNISON RANKIN, NEW CHAIRMAN OF COUNCIL.

At the AGM of the Society held at the Helensburgh Golf Club on Saturday 23rd June 2007, Ian Scott demitted office after a period of three years as Chairman of Council. Cunison Rankin is now the new Chairman of the Council being elected from among the Officers and Elected members who attended the AGM.

Mr Rankin thanked Ian Scott for all his work. Mr Rankin looked forward to progressing the Society's many activities and he also hoped to be able to raise the Society's profile among members of the general public. He stated he would greatly enjoy working with the many volunteers engaged in the work of the Society and also with its staff.

Environment and Planning comment form is now available. You can comment on items you think should be brought to the attention of the committee.





NEW PUBLICATION from the Saltire Society
George Buchanan's Law of Kingship Translated by Roger A Mason and Martin Smith was published in December 2006 ISBN 0 85411 099 2 ISBN 13 9780854110995

Book cover When do Leaders exceed their powers?
On What grounds can tyranny be resisted?
Where does Executive Power ultimately reside?

The constitutional theories of George Buchanan, Scotland's greatest Renaissance poet and thinker, are as fresh and necessary now, five centuries after his birth, as when he first began to set them down as De Lure Regni apud Scotos Dialogus - a dialogue on the Law of Kingship among the Scots.

Written in the turbulent times surrounding the overthrow of Mary Queen of Scots, his infamous Dialogue - twice banned by the State - is at core a fascinating mediation on humanity's longest-standing constitutional conundrum: who rules the rulers? Making an outspoken case, cast firmly in the Scottish mould of elective kingship, for the rights of the people over their crowned heads, it came to stand as a bold and seminal challenge to the growing doctrine of Divine Right of kings at a crucial time in Europe's political evolution. Many of Buchanan's arguments underpin the modern democratic state.

More than that, its elegant lucidity, radical confidence and unflinching gaze, together with the perennial relevance of the constitutional 'riddle' at its heart, all make the dialogue a work of great literature with power to influence beyond the politics of its own century. And just as its subject remains every bit as pertinent in an age in which executive power seeks again to attain unbridled influence, so too its answers remain every bit as vital - and contentious.

This is a definitive modern translation by Roger A Mason and Martin S Smith and has a new introduction by Professor Mason as well as detailed notes and commentary.
Roger A Mason is a Professor of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews.

The Union of 1707: Why and How Publication date March 2006
ISBN 0 85411 097 6

Although the Treaty of Union came into force on 1 St May 1707, most of the measures leading to it were carried through in 1706. The discussions in London were between 16 April and 23 July in that year and the debate in the Scottish Parliament began on 30 October and lasted, incredibly, until 16 January 1707.

The Saltire Society will shortly publish a new book by Paul Henderson Scott, The Union of 1707: Why and How, which tells this astonishing story, largely in the words of people involved at the time.

Few events in our history have had more far-reaching and long-lasting consequences; but also few have been so misrepresented and misunderstood. Paul Scott, who has studied the affairs for many years, concentrates on the clear facts as they appear in the records of the time. They are very different from the ideas which generally prevail, the consequence of centuries of propaganda.

2006 Literary Awards announced.

The Scottish Book of the Year Award
Sponsored by the Faculty of Advocates

A Lie About My Father by John Burnside published by Jonathan Cape

The First Book of the Year Awards
Sponsored by The Royal Mail Group

George Mackay Brown The Life by Maggie Fergusson published by John Murray

The Scottish History Book of the Year Award
Sponsored by Gillespie MacAndrew WS

Native Lordships in Medieval Scotland The Earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox,
c.1140-1365 published by Four Courts Press

Research Book of the Year Award
Sponsored by The National Library of Scotland

Dùthchas Nan Gàidheal Selected Essays of John MacInnes Edited by Michael Newton published by Birlinn