The Islay Book Festival AGM took place on 18 December 2022 at the Gaelic College, and we’re delighted to announce that we’ve formed a new, enthusiastic committee, complete with new office bearers.
Lyn Rogers has been voted in as secretary, Darren Hehir as treasurer, Isla Rosser-Owen as vice-chair and Charlène Busalli as chair. The other committee members are Carolyn Ferguson, Heather Harvey, Sue Hehir, Ingrid Hill and Richard Mansbridge.
We would like to say a huge thank you to all previous committee members for their tremendous work: the Islay Book Festival wouldn’t be the fantastic event that we all know without them. We are also very grateful to Isla Rosser-Owen for remaining as vice-chair for the time being, so that we can have a smooth handover over the next few months, as we organise our first physical edition since 2019.
The festival has grown considerably over the years and that year, around 35 events were held across Islay and Jura. As an almost completely renewed committee, we have decided to scale down a bit for our 2023 edition, but the general orientation will remain the same, with both public and school events, including a Gaelic programme. Here are the dates to put down in your diaries: Friday 8 to Sunday 10 September 2023.
We look forward to working with other local organisations to make it yet another fantastic edition. If there are any writers/illustrators you would like to be considered as guest authors for future editions, do not hesitate to pop us an email at hello@islaybookfestival.co.uk. We are also open to new committee members and would be particularly keen on welcoming within our team a Gaelic speaker to help us with our Gaelic programme, a Jura resident, as well as one or two youth committee members. We’re also always on the lookout for volunteers to help us around festival time, so do give us a shout if this might be something of interest.
All of us at the Islay Book Festival would like to wish a happy, healthy, successful New Year to all Ilich, Diurich and Ileach readers on farther shores!
