Meet the Forum Staff.

[Steve Ashton]

As with virtually all online forums, ours has Forum Moderators that assist with questions, problems, and watch over discussions here to maintain our rules. Our current Forum Moderator roster is:

__________________________________________________ _______________

MAEL COLUIM



Name: Ern
Screen Name: MAEL COLUIM

I discovered X Marks by this t-shirt being sold at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in 2007. When I got home, I googled X Marks the Scot and the rest is history. This photo was taken on GFM in 2010 while on a kilted vacation of North Carolina. And no, the tartan is Caledonia.

In the mid-90s I was intensively involved in long distance bicycling (100-200 miles a day events) when I discovered kilted freedom when putting on a Sport Kilt after a bike ride. Thanks to an inheritance from an aunt I graduated to a tank with all the accouterments. In 2001, I married Sharon in a belted plaid. My Dad as my best man wore my tank.

Since I joined X Marks my kilt wardrobe and accessories have grown exponentially requiring me to take a 2nd mortgage on my home (just kidding). My wife does refer to me a Celtic Ken (you know Ken of Ken and Barbie fame). After a career in health care administration, I am now sliding in to retirement as a manager of a gated community of “active adults”. I wear the kilt on days of Scottish historical significance, Fridays or when the mood grabs me which is frequent.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

THISTLEDOWN



Name: Rex
Screen Name: ThistleDown

I was born in Canada of a Highland father and an English mother. My youth was spent in the best of two worlds, the Highlands of Scotland and on the lower mainland of British Columbia. My first kilt I wore -- I am told -- when I was three.

There’s no memory of that, but I do recall with great clarity numerous cold, wet kilted school tramps over the moors of eastern Inverness-shire and Nairnshire when I was seven, eight and nine. Those years must have placed more than an educational mark on me because I have worn Highland dress ever since.

I was educated in Scotland, Canada and England. Over the years I was a journalist in England and Ireland, a lecturer in Scottish history in Scotland and Canada, owned two large restaurants in British Columbia for many years, and presently own, with my Swiss-born wife, Ruth, a well-respected and busy inn in North Vancouver.

Today I spend a decreasing half the year at my home near Tomatin in Inverness-shire and an increasing half in B.C. I am a Council member of the Clan Chattan Association in Scotland and sit on the advisory committee to Simon Fraser University’s School for Scottish Studies in B.C. I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and read voraciously; I am also a woodworker, leatherworker and occasional knife-maker and have a pair of Harris hawks, a Deerhound and three Scottish Terriers.

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Squeaky McMurdo



Name: Chelsea
Screen Name: Squeaky McMurdo

I have been a member of Xmarks since September 2008. I was trying to find the tartan associated with my husband's surname and stumbled upon this forum where there was a guy with McMurdo as his username. I thought maybe we were related somehow so I joined. It turned out that we're not related but I enjoyed the forum and stayed.

Since then I found that MacPherson is our closest clan affiliation and I made my husband buy me and him wool kilts in that tartan. He didn't argue.

I'm a stay-at-home-mom and plan to work as a doula when my kids are older. I currently have 3 children, 2 dogs, and 3 ferrets. My hobbies are making baby stuff (including kilts, waistcoats, hats, and flashes), sewing, hunting, and all things birth related.

__________________________________________________ __________

Alex



Name:- Alex
Screen Name:- Cessna152towser

I was born in Scotland in 1951 and still live in Scotland although most of my relatives are in Canada. I bought my first kilt in 1993 but did not wear the kilt much until a leg injury in January 2003 put me on crutches and forced me to wear the kilt to work as I was unable to get into trousers. I was so impressed by the comfort and by all the positive comments that I began to wear the kilt almost every day and soon added more kilts to my collection.

I joined Xmarksthescot in December 2005. I worked in the legal profession in Scotland for 35 years, both in the public and private sectors and then took early retirement at age 58 in favour of less stressful part-time work driving buses, minibuses and taxis.I married Ann in 1984 and lived with her till 2009 when sadly a stroke left her paralysed from the waist down and led to her early death. Now living with my new partner Gabrielle. I have an adult daughter Laura from a previous marriage.

I am Scottish Director for Clan Cunningham International and was also secretary and treasurer of Hawick Highland Games. My other hobbies are Scottish Country Dancing, aviation history, classic vehicles and model trains.

__________________________________________________ __________

McClef



Name:- Trefor
Screen Name:- McClef

I live in South Wales UK. I have been a member of X Marks since August 2006. I am a graduate of the University of St Andrews with a Masters degree in Theology. I am an enthusiastic kilt wearer and am kilted the vast majority of the time (well with 25 kilts to choose from it would be a shame not to give them an outing!)

I have a wide range of interests including photography and travel and have gained a wide knowledge of many different subjects. I have served on these forums as Kilted Cartographer and Forum Advocate before becoming a Moderator and have had the privilege of meeting several members and I hope that I have managed to make some useful contributions to discussions both as an ordinary member as well as in my present capacity.

I enjoy working with my colleagues to continue helping X Marks be the wonderful and welcoming place it is to fellow kilt enthusiasts all over the world.

__________________________________________________ __________

CDNSushi



Name: Jim Dunlop
Screen Name: CDNSushi

"Where Everybody Knows Your Name" was the theme song from the TV sitcom Cheers. That's just the way I felt when I found and joined X Marks the Scot in 2008. It's rare to find a good group like this, and the sense of community and camaraderie are why I've stuck around so long.

So far, I've met a couple X Marks members in person, but that's not an easy feat from my corner of the world. I did however have the honour and privilege of hosting the XMarks Quaich on her maiden journey around the world -- an experience that I hope all our members have a chance to have.I

was born and raised in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, moved to Edmonton to attend university, and lived there for ten years. That is where I met my wife Bonnie. A year after we got married, we decided to undertake a new adventure. We sold everything we had, our condo, our car, our furniture, and traded it all in for two one-way flight tickets to Tokyo. We had no jobs lined up there, nor any friends or relatives living there. In fact, we didn't even have a place lined up to stay the night after we landed… We simply just decided to trust God. Almost ten years later, we are still living in Japan, in the city of Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture. I teach English at a community business college, work as a live announcer at J-1 football (soccer) matches, and freelance as a business writer.

I have many interests, hobbies, and passions. Everything from fashion, (in which kilts do play a part), to board sports, to scuba diving. Travel and photography are also activities I enjoy a lot. I'm a musician -- I play piano, guitar, and am currently learning how to play the fiddle. I love Bluegrass music, but many other genres as well. I used to be the keyboard player in a band. I love cooking, wines, whiskys, and cigars.My first kilt was a Utilikilt, which I still enjoy wearing from time to time. But it wasn't long until I got into traditional kilts as well, my first being a Nightstalker tartan from Stillwater Kilts.

That's also when my wife realized that she loved a man in a kilt. Since then I've expanded my collection somewhat, and keep about 4-5 of them in my closet. My latest acquisition was a Canadian tartan kilt from Burnett's & Struth, to mark the occasion of this tartan becoming Canada's official tartan.As they say here in Japan: Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.(Means: I hope to have a good relationship with you all)JD

__________________________________________________ __________

Pleater

Real Name: Anne
Screen Name: Pleater

I began sewing kilts for my own use when I was losing weight and found that conventional clothing was simply not adaptable to my changing shape and size. When using the internet to research the correct method of construction, I found my path directed again and again to X Marks. Before long I joined, hesitantly, I must confess, and discovered I had found a home from home.

Being wife, mother of two grown up offspring and now a grandmother time can sometimes appear insufficient for all requirements, but nature has resolved this with occasional insomnia. During those times I would sew kilts and knit or crochet, but I now add using the computer. My given name is Anne - the 'e' is pronounced by older people in my native South Yorkshire, but not so much since Princess Anne came on the scene. I have had the surnames Gillot, Winslade, and now Croucher.

These days I wear a kilt just about every day, and have quite a selection of kilts and pleated skirts but I still make more as I find the different ways of pleating them fascinating. I should construct other garments, as my output of all sorts of clothing used to be far more diverse, but somehow the kilt proves too interesting.I earn a little money from my interest in knitting machines, and I teach, repair, service and sometimes sell them, and I do make garments with them once in a while. I play my guitar and sing a little - mainly during the first week in August when I decamp to the Sidmouth folk festival in Devon from my present location close to Poole harbour, Dorset, in England.

When I have some I will edit in a photograph or two, but first I will have to devise some method to get images of myself.

Anne Croucher

__________________________________________________ __________

Father Bill
Bill White



After thirty-two years in the public elementary school system as a teacher, special education teacher, enrichment resource teacher, vice-principal and principal, Bill retired only to hear a call to the priesthood in the Anglican church less than a year later. Three years in the seminary, and voila! Father Bill, an Anglican priest with a bent sense of humour! After four years in a rural three-point parish, he came home to take a parish in his home town of London, Ontario, Canada.

Even as a little kid, Bill had a fascination for everything Scottish — the pipes, the kilts, the history, the clans, the tartans. When he was ordained, he finally had a tartan he thought he could legitimately wear as his own, and soon while in Scotland, ordered a kilt in blue clergy tartan. Bill's father was Jewish and his mother always said that her family were Saxons, but shortly after joining X Marks while doing some digging he found a path leading back to Caithness and the Orkneys, and had a hunting Sinclair kilt made up by John at Keltoi — an X Marks sponsor a short drive from home. It seems that Scotland was always hidden in his blood, and now he felt that the circle was complete!

While doing more research, Bill discovered X Marks in 2011, and now signs in almost every morning and often through the day while he works at his desk. He enjoys the discussion and repartee, and is highly appreciative of the kind, respectful discussion that characterizes the forum. The members of X Marks are considered friends!

Bill is married to his ever-beautiful freshman sweetheart, Liesel, a manager in municipal employment development. They are parents to Bill III, a municipal services engineer specializing in water treatment and purification.