Welcome to the 18th edition of the Coll Magazine. For this issue editorship has passed from the capable hands of Alison McVey to an assorted conglomeration of many hands, which thankfully, have been steered in the right direction by Alison. We are slowly finding our feet, figuring out who "we" are, and dividing up the many jobs entailed (Alison, how did you do it??). Our thanks go out to all those who have contributed with their writing, illustrations, actions or advertising.

In this issue you will find the usual wide variety of articles from history to natural history to current events to poetry and prose. There is a tenuous nod in the direction of producing a special Millennium edition. We've gone silvery and enlarged the numbers, but the illustration remains the same. This, perhaps, is in keeping with what seems to be a general countrywide mood of indecisiveness as to whether we should be looking backwards, forwards or a bit of both. Keeping this in mind, we have brought up to date the tradition from the first ever Coll Magazine of listing all those children involved in the "school run", and also have stories from the school run dating back to the early 70s. We have the ubiquitous articles on golf and fishing competitions, and welcome a report on our newly founded tradition of a New Year shinty game. This issue sees the last in the series Talking Trees, but we're hoping on reports for next year's issue from those folk who have been planting on the island. In our first article, there are some predictions for the future from our primary scholars. One of which is the use of solar energy, so the answer to the article on page 18 must be yes, if we are to listen to our youth.

We hope that readers enjoy this issue, and we look forward to receiving any letters, articles for the next. Thanks again to all those who contributed to this one, and to the Hebridean Centre for the use of their facilities.

Emma Grant

Editors                         Emma Grant, Fra MacIntyre

Editorial assistant          Tammy Hedderwick

Proofreaders                Anna Taylor, Romayne Wainwright, Sheila McKinnon

Typesetter                    Alison Fraser

Illustrators                    Barbara Payne, Kip Poulson, Val Smith

Finance                        Charlie Self

Typing                          Karlijn Dickison

Subscriptions                Alison McVey