Ishbel Macfarlane and Ashley Douglas have been appointed to serve on the Scots Language Centre's Council taking up their duties with immediate effect.

Ishbel Macfarlane is an actor, performer, artist and campaigner who was educated at the University of Edinburgh. In recent years she has been touring round Scotland with her critically acclaimed one woman performance, 'O is for Hoolet'. The show explores popular attitudes to Scots and was most recently performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Ashely Douglas works at the Scottish parliament and recently graduated from the University of St Andrews where she completed research into the development of policy on Scots. 

Michael Hance, SLC Director, welcomed the appointment of the new members. “Ashley and Ishbel bring new talent to the Cooncil and we are very happy they have agreed to join us. We have been determined to increase the number of women on the board and these appointments push us in the right direction.”

In the meantime Andrew Martin from the National Library of Scotland has resigned from the Cooncil as a result of his retrial from his position at NLS. Andrew had given many years service to the Cooncil and provided a valuable and productive link between SLC and the NLS. Latterly Andrew served as SLC secretary and has been replaced in that position by Dr Warren Maguire from the University of Edinburgh.