New brooms for Kintyre Recycling?

Can you help? Kintyre Recycling is looking for new brooms, to replenish its board of directors and add some fresh skills to its management team.

If you are interested in their work and would like to find out more about how you can help, please contact Amanda Card at admin.krl@btconnect.com or call 01586 553858. Amanda is keen to hear from anyone with relevant skills and experience. She says,

"OK is helping us find local resources to support our work, but we still need more new brooms for our management team. Our directors are great and come from a variety of backgrounds but we need more. Ideally, we need people with business or environmental experience of some sort, but are happy to hear from any local volunteers with a few hours to spare who really like what we do and appreciate the importance of our work in the community."

From Birthday Party to Watering Can

Mid-March 2008 marked OK's first birthday and a full year of providing Enterprise Facilitation throughout the peninsula. To celebrate, Opportunity Kintyre held an informal networking and birthday party at the newly refurbished Burnet Building in Campbeltown. Over 55 people attended the event, including clients, panel members, friends and supporters of OK. The cake was cut by Peter Sinclair and his daughter Eilidh from Glenbarr Nursery. Peter, a very experienced and successful Kintyre businessman, engaged the services of Opportunity Kintyre to develop plans for expanding his family business to add more products and a coffee shop. He revealed,

"[OK] did a great job for us in the early stages of the project with words of wisdom and advice... The people the panel suggested [to complete our market research were] very useful too, first to have a chat and then to listen to their experiences and get questions answered on various points."

Peter added that he would be more than happy to speak to prospective clients to outline the benefits of the OK approach in developing local businesses. Peter Sinclair has been a member of Opportunity Kintyre since its inception. Now, his latest addition to the family business is open. "The Watering Can" is an excellent coffee shop tucked behind his shop in Glenbarr village.

The coffee shop opened in September and is enjoying a roaring trade. Quality meals, often using Peter's own produce from Glenbarr Nurseries, and excellent baking, mean that the tearoom is hugely popular with visitors and locals. Using his business experience, Peter had widely researched the project before going ahead, but even he was impressed by Lynn's expertise and OK's input was much appreciated.

Beautifully designed, with a sheltered patio for alfresco eating, The Watering Can is well worth a visit. And there's more: Peter also stocks a wide range of local arts and crafts and customers can enjoy browsing when they visit. Some of the artists are OK clients as well. A further venture is in the pipeline. Peter's Farm Shop will be opening in the spring of next year. Watch this space....

Morag leads the way

The members of Opportunity Kintyre elected Morag Duff as their Chairperson at their AGM on 16th. December.

Morag hails from Clachan and has been a core member of the OK Panel from the start. The OK Board of Directors now comprises: Morag Duff (Chairperson); Pamela Galbraith; Archie Macmillan; Katherine McGlynn; Isobel Murphy (Secretary); Trevor Oxborrow (Vice-chair); Rob Reid (Treasurer); Lori Silvan; Mary Turner.

Social Accounting

There is lot more value in the work that organisations like Opportunity Kintyre do than can be expressed simply in terms of money. Social Accounting provides a structured view of the aims and values of an organisation, presenting them in a form comparable to "normal" accounts.

This year, OK is compiling its first set of Social Accounts to be published alongside its yearly Financial Accounts.

Your idea?

If you'd like to explore your business ideas in confidence, call Lynn (Enterprise Facilitator) on 07901 550 928. New members are always welcome - send an enquiry today to get more information about joining.