Home-Start prides itself on the unique offer of volunteers providing one-to-one home visiting support for families and children. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, Home-Starts have been unable to offer this face-to-face support in people’s homes.
Home-Starts acted quickly to adapt services to provide support to families over the past six months – whether that is over the phone, video calls, or group chats. Home-Starts have also provided thousands of families with deliveries of essential supplies, doorstep visits and activity packs to keep children entertained.
However, there will be occasions where digital methods may not have been enough to engage families. There may be concerns about the mental health, wellbeing or isolation of a parent that warrant different approaches. There may be vulnerabilities or concerns in the household that a physical meeting might help identify.
As restrictions are lifted it is becoming possible to restart those face-to-face visits, in a safe and secure way for families and volunteers.
Home-Start UK has been working with local Home-Starts, national directors and our insurers and have now released guidance to enable local Home-Starts to safely return to face-to-face services if they wish to.
The decision to re-initiate any face-to-face family support services (whether home visiting or group work) remains one that must be taken by each individual Home-Start, and families and volunteers should contact their local Home-Start for details of the support that they are able to offer.
Whether it is face-to-face or remote Home-Starts are all committed to making sure families are supported through the challenges they face.
Imenco are happy to announce that they have been picked as one of the finalists in the Northern Star Business Award, Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce’s celebration of business success across the region.
We are nominated as one of four finalists in the Inspiration from Innovation category.
Open to both members and non-members of the Chamber, the Awards recognise the exceptional accomplishments of organisations across a range of fields from innovation, marketing and sustainability to people development and international growth.
This year saw a record 130 nominations submitted for the 12 categories.
The finalists in the categories are:
- Business of the Year
- Aberdeen International Airport
- Goldstar Cleaning Services
- Infinity Partnership
- Motive Offshore Group
- Customer First
- Arrowdawn
- Grace May
- Infinity Partnership
- Nimbus Blue
- Stompers Childcare Services
- Driving Sustainability (sponsored by Circular North-east)
- Glulam Solutions
- Keenan Recycling
- Legasea
- Wood Recyclability
- Family Business (sponsored by Aberdeenshire Council)
- Dalriada Luxury Lodges
- Greenwell Equipment
- Marshall Farms
- The Knowes Hotel and Restaurant
- Going Global (sponsored by Aberdeen International Airport)
- EnerQuip
- Fifth Ring
- James Fisher Offshore
- Load Monitoring Systems
- Inspiration from Innovation
- AISUS Offshore
- Ecosse IP
- Imenco
- Xergy Group
- Inspiring Futures (sponsored by DYW North East)
- Aberlour Futures Aberdeen
- Bon Accord Care
- Grampian Training Services
- University of Aberdeen Business School
- Making the Difference (sponsored by Balmoral Group)
- Charlie House
- Denis Law Legacy Trust
- NESS
- Sport Aberdeen
- Marketing Magic
- Aberdeen City Council – Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museum
- BIG Partnership and Aberdeen Football Club
- Charlie House
- University of Aberdeen
- Rising Star (sponsored by University of Aberdeen Business School)
- Cumming and Co
- Hudsons Catering
- Nucore Group
- Taxassist
- Staff Matter (sponsored by Spirit Energy)
- Brimmond Group
- Hutcheon Mearns
- Taxassist
- Texo Group
- Student Placement (sponsored by Robert Gordon University)
- BW Offshore
- Kirkburn Court Care Home
- NHS Grampian
- TAQA
The 2021 ceremony will also see a new award introduced, the Regional Contribution Award. The nominees for this award will be announced shortly.
Seona Shand, the Chamber’s membership and events director, said: “This has been a very difficult year for many businesses so it has been an inspiring and invigorating process to go through the record number of entries and the many examples of bold businesses creating opportunity in the Aberdeen city region.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has launched a new grant scheme for start-up or young (less than five years old) companies / social enterprises, the Young Company Capital Investment Scheme. This will provide grant funding of up to 50% of the costs (up to £50,000) for capital equipment.
The scheme is open to SMEs with a UK registered address, that can provide evidence of economic activity in the Highlands & Islands. Both unincorporated (sole trader, partnership, etc.) and incorporated (limited company, community interest company, etc.) forms of business can apply.
Full details of the scheme and eligibility criteria can be downloaded here. Anybody wishing to apply should contact enquiries@hie.co.uk for an application pack.
Note that businesses are required to provide various forms of evidence in support of an application. The Chamber is happy to provide advice and guidance to assist with, for example, drawing up an outline proposal or putting together cashflow projections. Simply email info@caithnesschamber.com or call us on 01847 890076 and one of our team will be happy to help.
Note that all completed applications must be submitted to HIE by 12 noon on 23 October 2020.
With Scottish Retailers losing nearly 1.9 billion pounds of sales in the first four months of the pandemic – ILM Highland like every other business has had to look very closely at how they promote their retail shop offering to the Highlands.
ILM Highland is a Charity and Social Enterprise based in Alness which delivers valuable services to benefit the community, economy and environment throughout the Highlands. The Electrical Retail Shop is home to new and refurbished items such as washing machines, fridges and freezers, tumble dryers, cookers, vacuum cleaners and many other electrical products and has been one of many stores to make a significant loss over the last few months.
Profits which are made from the Electrical Retail Shop support our charitable services to help keep vulnerable people living independently at home through our Care & Repair and Handyperson services. With this in mind and to ensure ILM’s offering can reach the whole of the Highland community we are delighted to announce the launch of our online retail shop!
ILM Highland Business Development Claire Weaver has said – “Having the online retail shop allows us to reach a wider audience, we get many phone calls with customers looking for stock and they are faced with concerns over budget or perhaps issues with delivery to the Highlands. Having our stock online will allow them to browse what we available and work to a budget that they have. All of our stock is also available for delivery throughout the Highlands – this can be done on the same day depending on where the customer is located. We want to make things that little bit easier for people.”
ILM Highland also offer a collection service for your electrical items – all items that are collected are recycled or reused by their Waste Electrical service – this lowers the amount going to landfill and also helps the charity fund the additional charitable services of their business.
Maree Todd MSP, enthused “It’s great to see social enterprise re-evaluate and pivot to make things easier for people who might be more vulnerable in our communities. ILM Highland offer a fantastic service to local communities within the Highlands.”
For more information on ILM Highland or to browse their Electrical Retail Shop you can visit https://www.ilmhighland.co.uk
Dounreay has awarded a major contract as the world’s deepest nuclear clean-up job gets underway.
Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL), on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, awarded the £7.5 million contract for “advanced transition works” at the 65 metre deep shaft and silo to Nuvia and its partner Graham Construction, through the site’s decommissioning framework following a competitive tendering process. Nuvia is an international nuclear engineering, project management, products and services contractor.
The work will include the rerouting of existing services as well as minor construction and demolition works, preparing the 2 waste facilities to be emptied of legacy higher activity waste.
DSRL Programme Delivery Director, David Hubbard, said:
The shaft and silo contain solid waste and sludge which must be retrieved and repackaged for safe above-ground storage. I’m very pleased that we are one step closer to the clean up of these historic waste facilities through the award of this contract.
Physical work on site is expected to take place in late autumn 2020. In the meantime the company has been delivering activities remotely.
DSRL is the site licence company responsible for the clean-up and demolition of Britain’s former centre of fast reactor research and development. A wholly-owned subsidiary of the Cavendish Dounreay Partnership, it is funded by the NDA to deliver the site closure programme.
Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) is becoming more widely available to companies across the UK with infrastructure being installed in more locations helping companies to have improved connectivity services in even some of the more remote locations. FTTP replaces the more traditional copper based broadband like ADSL with the fibre connection running the entire way from the local exchange to the property. This type of connection promises to deliver a more consistent, reliable and faster service removing the headache of drops in signal which you may be subject to when using a more traditional cooper line. The delivery method of carrying light down the fibre optic cable ensures the speeds and overall performance are unaffected by the distance between your property and the exchange.
FTTP offers the highest transfer speeds available among all contended services. FTTP is a shared contended service with other locations which can lead to speed fluctuations at peak times however users should still notice a considerable improvement in their service compared to copper based. Upload and download speeds can differ, e.g. a higher download than upload.
An easy availability checker can confirm whether FTTP is available in your area. If currently unavailable with the expansions continuing it may not be long before your company can benefit from a more reliable and faster connection.
to discuss further, get in touch with the Fibre 1 team today!
PENTLAND HOUSING ASSOCIATION ARE URGENTLY RECRUTING 3 NEW MEMBERS
Time-limited 1 year appointment
Following a strategic options review, Pentland Housing Association decided to seek a formal partnership with another housing association, and has entered into detailed discussions with Cairn Housing Association. If successful, partnership discussions should be completed in around 12 to 15 months. Pentland Housing Association need three new members to join their board, to support them through the process.
Whilst the offices are in Thurso, you don’t need to live in Caithness. Over the next year, board meetings will be held by video-conference, so you can beam in from your own home!
Ideally, governance experience, including entering into or overseeing formal partnership arrangements, would be especially helpful, as would financial management, business development or HR skills and experience.
But mostly they’re looking for people keen to join them, feel they have something to contribute to the wellbeing of the tenants and the local community, share their sense of purpose, and can give time and commitment for the coming year.
For more information please click here for the application form and for the board candidate information pack please click here.
To discuss, please contact Rachel MacGregor on rachel@pentlandhousing.co.uk or on 01847 807 112.
It’s been another strange month, not just for us but for all our members and businesses nationwide. We continue to do our very best for our members as things progress in these unprecedented times and are thrilled to welcome a new member this month, Lairg Learning Centre.
An independent, charitable learning centre based in Lairg and covering Sutherland, providing community learning and educating opportunities in person and digitally. The centre’s main aim is to provide or assist in providing local facilities and resources designed to support lifelong learning and skills development. They run a range of exciting and educational courses, events and workshops on a huge variety of subjects throughout Sutherland, you can browse though all forthcoming events on their website events section.
Lairg Learning Centre also offer various business services, such as room hire, PC Clinics and office services. Please note that these services will be reduced at the moment but could prove a valuable resource for fellow members as time progresses.
To learn about how Chamber membership could benefit your business, see the Membership benefits page or get in touch with Fiona Levack, Business Development Manager to arrange an informal chat. You can email fiona here Fiona@caithnesschamber.com The Chamber offers advice and support to businesses of all sizes, at all stages and in all sectors and we would be thrilled to hear from you.
In addition to chamber membership, many of our funded projects offer support and guidance to businesses in a range of ways. See the list of options, here.
On 29th October 2020 we’re hosting a Maximise Your Membership event which will allow chamber members to learn more about the benefits of their membership. The interactive session will allow members to ask questions and remind themselves of the opportunities chamber membership offers. Learn more about it and register to attend here.
Did you know that we offer a membership referral scheme? If you refer a business who joins the chamber, you could benefit from £50 off your next renewal. Read more here.
In a report being presented to The Highland Council’s Recovery Board on 24th August, Steve Walsh, High Life Highland’s Chief Executive, has outlined the charity’s road to financial recovery thanks to its bounceback campaign.
Mr Walsh explained, “It now seems like an over-used phrase, but when the pandemic hit in March it was clear that High Life Highland, along with every other organisation was facing unprecedented challenges.
“I am pleased to be able to inform The Highland Council that our financial position continues to stabilise and improve, and we are now moving our main effort from mitigating the in-year impact of the pandemic, to strategic business planning to re-build as we look to the future.
“Our priority throughout has been to protect jobs and services. Given the importance of physical and mental health and wellbeing as we recover from the pandemic, HLH services have never been more important to Highland communities.
In March, our projected loss of income indicated a year-end deficit in the region of £11.4 million. However, I am pleased to report that through extensive mitigation measures we have managed this figure down to a reasonable worst-case scenario of £1.55 million. We will continue to pull out all the stops to improve this position.
The Chief Executive went on to explain how the gap had been bridged, “First of all, I would recognise and thank the many highlife members that continued to pay, either in full or in part, their monthly subscriptions to the charity. We will always be grateful for the contribution our members made to our bounceback and supporting us through the most challenging time since HLH was incorporated”.
“As a charity, we also welcomed the UK Government’s announcement of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and we moved immediately to access the fund to further mitigate our projected losses. Our ability to access the CJRS has enabled the charity to protect many, many jobs while at the same time maintaining the services we offer to communities across every corner of the Highlands for the future”.
“With obvious reductions and savings in other expenditure during the lockdown period, where our locations and services have not been in operation, we are projecting a financial mitigation of around 25% of the Charity’s overall turnover of £30.8 million”.
Steve Walsh continued, “High Life Highland’s report to the Council’s Recovery Board also focusses on the strong partnership working that has taken place between both organisations during the pandemic to help and support those most in need in communities across the Highlands”.
“The HLH services that support the most vulnerable in our communities; youth work, adult learning and music tuition, along with support for the local authority’s community hubs has continued throughout the pandemic. This has only been possible through close collaboration and partnership working with colleagues in The Highland Council and other partners”.
“We have been gradually re-opening our facilities to our customers and feedback has been fantastic. However, re-opening our leisure centres and swimming pools is crucially important to our financial security. We are ready to open our leisure facilities as soon as we get the go-ahead, the current date of 14 September represents a full six-months since we closed the doors”.
“We are really looking forward to playing our part and helping the people of the Highlands get fit and healthy”.
Concluding, Mr Walsh said, “Given the financial picture we were previously looking at, HLH is pleased to be able to present a substantially improved financial position to the members of the Highland Council’s Recovery Board. We look forward to welcoming our amazing customers and brilliant staff back to our facilities as we continue the Charity’s own bounceback.”