AS many of you will be aware from the reports in the Press, the community council elections have taken place and there have been a number of new community councillors elected.

READERS may not wish to swap Forres for the once famously corrupt South Yorkshire Labour stronghold of Doncaster. Scargill country.

GÜTEN Tag from Vienenburg. I am currently visiting our twin town in Germany as part of a visit celebrating the 25th anniversary of the twinning link between our two towns.

OVER the last 10 months, I have been busy with Councillor Anita McDonald of the Fochabers and Lhanbryde ward, working on a campaign to provide pre-school and primary school pupils in Moray up to P3 age with fluorescent armbands.

IN my August column, I had the pleasure of reporting the recent visits of the judges for the Entente Florale Competition.

SOMEONE rather unkindly said of our Parliament that 129 Scottish villages are missing their idiots.

LAST Wednesday was a big day for Forres Academy students.

DURING the last month it has been the councillors' summer recess.

AS was reported in the Forres Gazette of July 8th I said I would write to the Chief Executives of Moray Council and Scottish Water.

FORTY years ago most citizens were represented by one Member of Parliament with a salary and expenses of less than £2,000 a year, one unpaid county councillor, and one unpaid town or city councillor.

THE last month since my last column has been very busy for everyone in Forres.

LAST week, the Calman Commission reported their recommendations for continuing the process of Scottish Devolution.

I SUPPOSE, in light of the expenses scandal in Westminster at the moment, it might seem strange if I made no mention of it.

IS this the start of a much deserved hot summer?

IN 1953, my history teacher marked the tricentenary of Oliver Cromwell's 1653 speech dismissing Parliament. In 1999 its spirit dispatched Moray Council's SNP administration. Today, a lesson for Gordon Brown.

AS a person involved in politics, albeit at a low level, I feel that I should make some comment on the recent revelations regarding MPs' expenses.

THE armbands campaign that I spoke about previously has really started to take shape over the last month.

TAKING a different slant on last month's topic – misuse of taxpayers' money – the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) reports that there are now 166,420 single-parent families in Scotland, drawing, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, £2.2 billion annually in benefits.

MY column this week has been influenced by the "Connect" column in the "Public Servant" magazine, aimed at "today's public service leaders".

THE Community Garden at Bogton has gone from being a proposal to becoming a reality.

IN my last column, I alluded to a campaign that Councillor Anita McDonald and myself were trying to get off the ground to provide all pre-school children and Primary 1-3 pupils with fluorescent armbands.

MAYBE the onset of recession is concentrating minds, and, according to my postbag, taxpayers are at last waking up to the need for radical public sector reform; to question and restructure the role of the state in Scotland.

THE article in last week's "Gazette" featuring dog fouling was very interesting, as this is an issue which crops up from time to time.

COMMUNITY spirit in the Forres area, although always strong, seems even stronger than usual at the moment.

OVER the last couple of months there have been many reports in the Press regarding allotments.

WHILE Mr Salmond, ever a mouthpiece for his party's nuclear prejudices, cheerfully abandons his First Ministerial duty to provide Scotland with a properly balanced energy policy, let us examine the Danish experience – a country with which I have many years of business and personal association.

I HAVE just received an invitation to the opening of the Grant Park Pavilion on March 15.

HOPEFULLY we've seen the end of the snow and the heavy frosts which have created havoc across Scotland recently.

IN my last column I mentioned the freezing cold weather we had after New Year.

WILL 2009 finally see an end to the man-made global warming myth? Judge for yourself.

THOSE of you who enjoy visiting the beach at Findhorn during the winter may have noticed a new viewpoint in the dunes at the end of the Back Road.

NOW that the holidays are behind us, I look forward to the challenges of 2009.

ONCE again an old year is behind us and a new year has begun.

THE opening of the new steel fabrication shop had been a success and the party of directors, guests and the obligatory ribbon-cutting politician retired to the boardroom for a finger buffet and coffee.

IN THE last couple of weeks there have been many achievements in our local schools.

IT'S ONLY taken seven years but finally the Moray Hydrotherapy pool was approved last Wednesday by the planning committee of The Moray Council.

IF you ever wondered why usually forthright councillors are sometimes reluctant to speak out on certain issues, look no further than the Councillors' Code of Conduct.

OVER the last month I have been to see the progress being made with the Burn of Mosset Flood Alleviation scheme.

LAST Friday I went to Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin for my second cataract operation.

IT seems that over the last couple of months every time you turn on the radio or television or open a newspaper, there is nothing but doom and gloom about the country being in recession, banks being taken over by other banks etc.

MRS Diane Wishart, Dunfermline mother of two, is just 39.

FREDDIE Mac and Fannie Mae – how many people in Forres had heard of the two American mortgage giants until recent events in the financial world projected them on to the headlines?

THE season for holidays and recesses has now passed and it's business as usual.

IN my last column, I mentioned the proposed closure of the Forres Job Centre.

AUGUST used to be referred to as the "Press Silly Season". Now, it seems, it is a time for MSPs to say silly things about our schools' standard, intermediate, and higher grade examination results.

ALONG with other Forres councillors I was invited to join the committee of Forres in Bloom and other guests at a reception for the judges in Applegrove Primary School, last Thursday.

NOW that the so-called summer recess is over, my fellow councillors are back from their well-earned rest, ready to, once again, do their best for their constituents.

TWO very big items have come to light since my last column.

LAST week First Minister Alex Salmond declared that Executive approval of the Clyde wind farm signalled Scotland's self-appointment as Europe's "green capital".

ONE of the latest bits of nonsense to emerge from our benighted Scottish Executive is the assertion that "Scots cause five times more damage to the planet than the average Chinese".

THIS year marks 100 years of the Territorial Army and the Territorial Force Association, which was established by the Rt Hon Richard Haldane, Secretary of State for War.

AS I write this, the council's summer recess has just begun. This is the first time since I was elected that an official recess has taken place.

IN my last column I ended with campaigning to Save our Post Offices.

CASES of drunken violence on or near licensed premises are regularly brought before the Elgin Sheriff Court where justice and pithy wisdom are meted out in equal measure.