Scottish Enterprise Award

[Adventurelife]

Just been informed one of our Scottish businesses Splash Rafting has been accepted into the Scottish Enterprise Growth Pipeline. Support for 1 year and if we hit targets support for another 3. Never, really looked for support before as I tend to stand or fall by my own abilities but a customer recommended us so it would have been rude not to give it a go.

Hopefully I will be able to report good things going forward.

Now only if I could get some support in Morocco

[anned]

That's great news.
I thought you had to be in biotech or renewable energy these days before they would consider you

Anne

[stugster]

Nice one! Well done mate!

[barryhynd]

Hi Peter,

Great to see the business progressing. I'd be really interested in finding out more about how you achieved this if you'd be willing to share the information really to see if there's any lessons to be learned and whether other businesses could actually take advantage of this funding.

[Gouldie0]

This might not be support your looking for but Edinburgh Airport has just announced that Ryanair plan to have direct flights between Edinburgh and Morocco.

BBC News - Edinburgh airport gets new three new Ryanair flights

Kind Regards

Neil

[Adventurelife]

Originally Posted by anned

That's great news.
I thought you had to be in biotech or renewable energy these days before they would consider you

Anne

I am not 100% sure but I think all sectors are being considered

[Adventurelife]

Originally Posted by barryhynd

Hi Peter,

Great to see the business progressing. I'd be really interested in finding out more about how you achieved this if you'd be willing to share the information really to see if there's any lessons to be learned and whether other businesses could actually take advantage of this funding.

Hi Barry

I am in Morocco at present but back next week and I have a meeting with them.

Once I have kicked it off I wil be happy to post on here what I find out the good the bad and the ugly in the hope it helps others on here

No sure how you get on as like I mentinoned they approached me but I will find out and post . I had to submit various documents. Busines plan, projects, cv , etc

To issues I had to go over were that we had the infrastructure/staff etc to cope with £400k growth over 3 years we are planning for more than than so already invested. Also they had to be happy that their would be no displacement issues against other business. I will be using the support for innovative marketing projects and for staff training support

Like I say I am sure I will have to document everything as it is SE and I will be happy to share

[Adventurelife]

Originally Posted by Gouldie0

This might not be support your looking for but Edinburgh Airport has just announced that Ryanair plan to have direct flights between Edinburgh and Morocco.

BBC News - Edinburgh airport gets new three new Ryanair flights

Kind Regards

Neil

Hi Neil

You have no idea how happy that makes us. I got it off twitter when it was annouced and few bottles of good Scottish Malt was consumed on the evening with the team. It will make a huge difference to our working day as we will not lose a whole day each time we commute now.

It will also give all our lovely Scotttish clients no excuse not to come and see us in Marrakech!

You can get the May flights at £65 return I pay more than that for parking at Manchester!

We already have clients booking short breaks on the short breaks on the back of it.

It was one of the gambles that we took when we moved in here full time last March that the budget airlines would go for this place. Since then we have got new routes from a couple of London airports, Bristol, Manchester, East Midlands and now Edinburgh as well as a host of other European cities. Great when a gamble pays off. Just got to get the business making money now instead of consuming it

[Gouldie0]

Well enjoy the good news and crack on with your plans for world domination after a good celebration.

[Adventurelife]

As promised an update which I could make long and detailed but I will just cut to the main points

SE provide support on this program by

1. Free strategy days focusing on what you have decided you intend doing with your business. The one I am doing is a international development strategy day.

2. Out of the above you pull a few projects. I will be focusing on IT intergration projects to tie up our front end with reservations with accounts. I will also be running training projects

3. SE depending on project by project case and business proposition fund 20-40%ish of projects

4. They introduce you to other routes of funding depending on your direction

Will let you know how it goes when we kick off the projects in next few weeks

Peter