Mull and Iona Chamber of Commerce.
Draft Minutes of the meeting of the Board of Management held at Craignure Village Hall at 8pm on 5th November 2007
Present: Sandy Brunton, Derek Crook, Michael Ackerley, Brendan Walsh, Georgia O'Neill.
Apologies: Jo Currie
The memoranda of matters discussed at the last two meetings were held to be correct and agreed to be regarded as the true minutes of the proceedings of those meetings. Proposed Sandy, seconded Michael and agreed nem con.
Matters arising from the minutes and not forming part of the laid agenda:
Secretarial Assistant. No progress. To be advertised again. AP Georgia
AGENDA
Venue of future meetings: Agreed that the next meeting would be held at Craignure Village Hall but that the following and all subsequent meetings should be at the Isle of Mull Hotel. Craignure Village Hall to be informed. AP Michael
Travel Expo: Georgia had heard from John Cable that Holiday Mull were trying to find someone to head up a team. John had also requested for volunteers from the Chamber to help on the co-ordinating committee. Brendan agreed to consider doing this and contact John Cable. Travel Expo details are still not available. AP Brendan
Information about publicity for Wild Islands Week for Travel Expo to be sought from Susie Chalupa at MICT. AP Georgia
Members to be emailed asking for help at Travel Expo. AP Georgia
Business To Business Networking Event.
Isle of Mull Hotel to be booked for lunchtime Wednesday (date not fixed) 12 noon to 3pm. Check with IoM H for price of soup and sandwiches for 50 (AP Michael) with request that local produce be used. No charge for members and would be members attending. The possibility of sponsored wine tasting to be investigated (AP Michael and Brendan) The format would be a white board of attendees at a meet-and- greet and space to display individual members literature and business cards. Members would be asked to bring and exchange their business cards. A recruitment pack would be available. Members attending would be asked to bring non-members and a (brief) guest speaker, possibly from Glasgow CoC to outline the services available to members from Glasgow CoC would be sought.
Pre-publicity would be by website, email as well as media.
Bag Free Island. Georgia had learned from the organisers of the campaign that with one exception all traders had received the news of the project positively and had engaged to take part. Many businesses favoured a bio-bag which would be charged for. The next step would include more publicity. The Chamber re-iterated its support.
Royal Mail Re-organisation of Postal Services on the Island. Opposition growing in all quarters and support being received from all political parties. Government
ministers and many public groups and individuals. The Chamber reiterated its opinion that the proposals would have a severe detrimental effect on the economies of Mull and Iona. Chamber to continue its opposition by all means.
AGM> AGM to be held on a date after the Networking Event, to be promoted at the Networking Event.
President’ Report. Sandy reported he had met a team from the Royal Society of Arts, Science and Commerce in Oban who were investigating the development of policy for islands and remote areas of Scotland.
Treasurer’s Report. A balance of £4457.43
Brendan reported that the development of Oban airport would likely run into severe cost over-run. Michael reported that Argyll and Bute were still not displaying travel information on their website and that the Saturday late ferry was being well-used. He also reported that Cal-Mac did not appear to be using its dispensation to hold back ferries to meet late trains and the Board asked him to write to Cal-Mac querying this and the letter to be copied to Jim Mather MSP AP Michael