'Rock on' Competitions

‘ The ‘Rock On’ Organising Partnership has organised a number of schools competitions over the years. Before the festival became an annual event, this included competitions in years when the full festival was not running. The winning entries from some of our competitions are shown here .’

‘Rock on your Mountain’ Poster Competition 2002

The first ‘inter-year’ event was the ‘Rock on your Mountain’ poster competition organised solely for the participation of Scotland’s schools and took place in the summer of 2002.

The aim was to get school pupils to think about the forces and processes that formed their local mountain or hill. With 2002 being the International Year of Mountain the competition was designed with the theme ‘How your local mountain (or hill) was formed’. Kyle Primary School from the Kyle of Lochalsh, were the overall winners.

‘Written in Stone’ Competition 2004

In 2004, the second ‘inter-year’ event was the ‘Written in Stone’ competition for school pupils. Designed to promote Scotland’s tremendous geodiversity, raise awareness of the fact that the landscape is 3,000 million years in the making and that geological processes continue to shape the landscape, the competition drew entries from across the length and breadth of the country. The competition called for 25 words of less that said something inspirational about the Scottish landscape.

Robert Adam from Aberdeenshire won the English language category with:

Look. What can you see?
I see beauty in the lochs
I see majesty in mountains.
I see legend in rocks.
And it is ours.

Mairead MacNeil from the Western Isles won the Gaelic language category with:

Beanntan Àrda
Fo cheò
Mar chaistealan glasa
A' fleòdradh sa mhuir

…the translation:
Towering mountains
Shrouded in mist
Like grey castles
floating in the sea

Robert won the competition overall but both entries were engraved into Caithness Flagstones in the pavement outside the entrance to the Scottish Parliament.