Could you hack it on the web?; Here's a chance to find out if you have what it takes to be a top on-line journalist.

ONE Young Scot is good, but can you imagine how good 33 Young Scots across Scotland would be? Well, you're about to find out as local Young Scots are setting up now all over Scotland.

This means that rather than just having one big national Young Scot like now, there will be another 32 local Young Scot organisations, one in each area in Scotland.

The past year has seen four pilot projects start up, but now it's time for the other 28 projects to get going.

This means that no matter where you live, whether you are up in Shetland, way down in the Borders or in one of the big cities, there will be a Young Scot not far away.

And even better, you have the chance to play a part in this by joining your local Young Scot group.

The local groups will be busy and exciting places to be. They'll be involved in finding new discounts, supplying local Young Scot cards, talking with local councils about policy matters which matter to young people, and much, much more.

Perhaps most excitingly of all, though, each local area will get its own website, as part of the main Young Scot portal. On these local pages you'll be able to read news and features on the area you live in, find out about events happening close to you, enter competitions and take part in online discussions on local topics. And since Young Scot is all about a site for young people and by young people, all these local pages will be researched, written and published live on the site by groups of young people like you - the Young Scot Hack Packs.

Over the next year, teams of young people from every area in Scotland will be trained to write for youngscot.org at special Hack Pack residential training weekends.

The two-day training course covers how to write for the web and how to publish articles on the Young Scot portal. But it won't be all work, work, work - it also promises to be a lot of fun!

The very first Hack Pack residential weekend took place back in March in the beautiful surroundings of the New Lanark Heritage Village and was attended by young people and youth workers from Argyll and Bute, South Lanarkshire and East Renfrewshire.

And the feedback we got from those who attended was all good.

Leanna `Leo' Sloan from Busby said: "We all had to learn how to write articles and produce them on a web page. Throughout the weekend we all learned a lot on how to use the internet and how to produce and develop articles and features for the site.

"We were given scenarios in which we had to make phone calls and give interviews face to face and we had to prepare for the questions being asked."

Shona `Showbiz' Boland, from East Renfrewshire, is going to be one of the local editors for her area.

She said: "I found the weekend away very useful and interesting and felt I learned a lot of useful information on how to produce articles for the website."

The second session took place during May in Livingston and was attended by participants from Fife, Dundee, Angus and West Lothian. This month's session is likely to take place in Edinburgh, with more young people from across Scotland attending.

So, if you would like to get involved as a web journalist on youngscot.org, or in your local Young Scot group in any way, send an email to: [e-mail].