Robbie Shepherd OBE, the popular BBC broadcaster and Press & Journal columnist, will help to launch the Friends of the Elphinstone Institute on Monday, March 12 at the Queen’s Hotel. The Friends will serve to help the Elphinstone Institute become more effective in fulfilling its cultural, community, and academic remit.
The Elphinstone Institute exists to study, record and promote the cultural traditions and language of communities in the North of Scotland and in particular, the North-East. Based at the University of Aberdeen, it is also concerned with the cultural traditions of groups that have recently come to live in the region and in Scottish expatriate communities abroad.
The newly-formed Friends of the Elphinstone Institute will help to support the Institute as it undertakes projects. Some of these will include making contact with more individuals and groups whose story, lore, song or music might be recorded; launching new publications; cataloguing and curating new collections, such as that of dancer Bobby Watson; building up the sound, video, photographs, documents, and manuscripts archives; organising events and conferences, such as the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention, and increasing the Institute’s holdings of significant North East publications and recordings, such as the 78s of George Morris.
The Friends of the Elphinstone Institute will be officially launched on Monday 1 at the Queen's Hotel, Queen's Road, Aberdeen with an Inaugural General Meeting at 7.00 pm, chaired by Robbie Shepherd, followed by an informal ceilidh from 8.15 pm.
The meeting and ceilidh are free and open to the public.
For further information and to find out about becoming a Friend of the Elphinstone Institute: Mrs Sally Atkins, Secretary, Elphinstone Institute Tel (01224) 272996
University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-273778 or email a.ramsay@admin.abdn.ac.uk.