The Scottish Islands Federation  History

SIN (Link)  was set up in 2001 to bring together the Scottish Islands, share good practices and facilitate information exchange, disseminate and utilise knowledge resources through the Internet and encourage intra and inter-regional island networking.

• A website was set up and a newsletter was produced which had a distribution list of 2000 readers by 2005.

• The website became the first port of call for anyone looking for information on Scottish Islands, and the newsletter became an important means of keeping in touch with island issues.

• SIN produced several case studies.

• SIN became an active member of ESIN, the European Small Isles Network, in 2001.

• In 2004, SIN took part in a 3 year ESIN inter- island exchange project, which was funded by the INTERREG 111C programme. The project in which many Scottish Islanders and island organisations participated, looked at a wide variety of themes  pertinent to island life. This enabled islanders from          6 European countries to share their experiences of sustainable development. The results which were collected have been largely disseminated to help influence national and EU policies in favour of small islands.

• The programme ended with SIN hosting the final conference on Islay in November 2006.  

• The decision to change from network to federation was taken by the SIN steering group at the Islay conference, as a need was identified for the network to develop and become a more representative body, on a par with other European islands organisations in order to continue playing an active part in ESIN.

• The SIN Steering group widened its membership to become the SIF steering group. This group worked together to identify a way forward for SIF, and presented its conclusions at the SIF inaugural conference in Mull in November 2007: “a Voice for the Islands.”