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One year she went to Mull, Iona, Coll, Colonsay, Tiree, Islay, and Gigha, to run these courses. ‘There were B&B owners, shop owners and crafts people, and my job was facilitating them to think of ways in which they could develop their businesses,’ she said. ‘You got an awful lot of, “oh but there's nothing here, but boring brown birds. Who wants to look at sheep?” The challenge was changing their mindset.
‘But in the process, a number of people were interested in setting up guided tours. So that was why I persuaded Argyll Enterprise that we should run a course down there, to train guides. We got people from Coll, Colonsay, and other islands and they came and did the course in Oban. They were then assessed by STGA examiners on their own island. Wilma Kelloe and Pat Dishon went round all those islands, and at the end there were about 12 guides who formed the Argyll Islands Tourist Guides Association, which became affiliate members of STGA. It was a Millennium project and the local tourist board produced leaflets, and brochures, and all sorts of stuff about the Atlantic Islands of Argyll,’ Ros continued. ‘Isabel Lennie went up to talk to a guy in Invergordon, who wanted guides trained for the cruise industry. We started offering some sort of training for them as well and that ended up as HOSTGA, Highlands of Scotland Tourist Guides Association, who are not affiliated to STGA, because they decided to operate on their own. Green Badges were formalised in 2003 and, all those people who had them, had to become individual members of the STGA as opposed to being members through their association affiliation with the STGA.
‘Jane Orde wrote the first regional workbook for trainee guides on the northern Highlands around 2000. She was a fantastic guide and it was a way of getting her vast knowledge down on paper before she died,’ said Ros. ‘She knew that, and that was what she wanted to do. The other workbooks were written by a team including Ros and Pat Dishon with the Geology provided by Con Gillen. We wrote workbooks then for every region of Scotland, and there were 13 in the end. Everybody got these workbooks when they did the course.’
Ros had also been running short courses through her own company, One Step Ahead, for guides and volunteers in various visitor attractions such as St Giles Cathedral. The STGA decided to offer a Yellow Badge for these organisations and among the first were Crathes Castle and Mercat Tours. Green Badges were formalised in 2003 and, all those people who had them, had to become individual members of the STGA as opposed to being members through their association affiliation with the STGA. Ros was elected President of the WFTGA in 2007 and by then Mary Kemp Clarke had taken over the practical day to day running of the Blue Badge guide course.
In 2008 chairman Toni McPherson reported that the latest training course, run in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh, had concluded in May and 26 students successfully completed their studies. Forty-four other students completed modules which qualified them for the Green Badge. This included students who were now qualified to guide in Russian, Mandarin and Hungarian. Financial support had been provided by VisitScotland and other funding bodies. Meanwhile 11 staff from Hill House, a National Trust for Scotland property in Helensburgh, qualified as Site Affiliates and Yellow Badge guides while two Yellow Badge Guides qualified for the Kirkwall Walking Tour in Orkney.
Former lawyer Norma Clarkson was elected as Chairperson in 2008 and in her annual report the following year she reported that the Training Committee had concentrated on developing and recording the STGA's training-related procedures, mainly the Assessment Guidelines and Appeals Procedure and the Training Ethos and Code of Conduct for Trainers to mention but a few.
Sue Gruellich and Director Morag Dunbar, Chair of the Training Committee, met the Scottish Government Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism, Fergus Ewing, in Glasgow in November 2011 to press the STGA’s case for recognition as the ‘competent authority’ for tourist guide training in Scotland within the European Internal Market System. This did not materialise although he did make a statement that is still on the STGA website.
Six green badge guides and seven Blue Badge guides qualified as accredited STGA trainers. The STGA Trainer Team now consist of 39 trainers (24 Blue Badge Guides and 15 Green Badge Guides).
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