Bressay Development Ltd: Bressay In Aboot Da Night
Event at a glance:
Location: Shetland
Date: 31 October 2025
Number of Staff & Volunteers: 5
Number of Attendees: 22
First-time participant? Yes
Bursary support received: Yes
What they said:
We own and run a community building and run a community woodland and we hoped to use the festival as a way to highlight the things we do. We are lucky to live in a community with such great community facilities – a Public Hall, Heritage Centre, community garden, sports pitch, galley shed, woodland and community hub – this deserves to be celebrated.
We held a storytelling event at Speldiburn where we shared history, poetry and prose, all local to our island or experienced by members of the community and we accessed stories collected by the Bressay History Group. Linking heritage, community and buildings. We also used the event as a way of sharing these themes more widely through our community newsletter.
Outcomes and Community Feedback
The event was different from anything we’ve done before and was really enjoyed by those who took part. The participants included our island’s oldest resident who told stories from her younger days and a woman only recently settled here who shared her own poems written about her initial experiences of island life. We will aim to hold similar events in the future, and to document the stories we hear.
Challenges
We have had a very busy year so we do struggle to add new things onto our calendar, we are a group of volunteers so time is always our biggest issue.