Elgin BID awards celebrate business stars
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MORE than 3600 public votes flooded in for local businesses ahead of Elgin BID's annual AGM and awards this week.
Some 175 companies were nominated by the public for the awards, which are supported annually by the Northern Scot. On Wednesday, October 2, the finalists gathered at Moray College UHI's Beechtree Restaurant to celebrate Elgin's commercial life.
Gill Neill, Elgin BID chief executive, outlined progress being made in the BID's "Phase 2" projects designed to revitalise the town centre and reiterated how the one-voice approach has helped to effectively campaign on matters such as parking charges and business rates.
Mrs Neill told the gathered business community: "Elgin is a beautiful place and one that is bucking the national trend.
"It's not perfect – nothing ever is. But we should celebrate what we have, speak positively about our neighbours and encourage visitors to keep coming and exploring."
Finalists fell into one of eight categories, including retail; local professional services; national banking; hospitality and tourism; hair, beauty and fitness; charity and support; new business award; and long-established business award. Two other special awards recognised stand-out individuals in customer service and the Embrace Elgin "community champion".
The retail category was the closest run this year – with more than 630 nominations for 53 businesses. Only 23 votes separated the winner, Sirology on Batchen Street, from the runners-up.
Sirology's Richard Cumming said: "We work really hard to offer something different. What we really appreciate is that people have taken the time to vote for us. It's really nice to know that so many people have voted and appreciate what is happening in Elgin."
Sirology co-owner Linda Littlewood said: "It's not easy having an independent business. You have to work hard all the time.
"People's shopping habits have changed as well, so to have so many independent shops is a great achievement."
Laura Scott, owner of The Ditsy Teacup, on Thunderton Place, said: "I took over The Ditsy Teacup in November last year so it's been our first year in business. We've been really lucky, we've been supported by all our customers. The people of Elgin have really embraced us. We're really happy."
Mairi McCallum, project manager at Moray Food Plus, which started as Community Food Moray then Moray Food Bank, said: "We do emergency food provision. Traditionally that would be food bank, but we do a lot more early intervention work now so we've got things like lunch clubs, cooking sessions with children and families. We're trying to widen the way we support people. We were aware there was a stigma around the term 'food bank' so it's just to move away from that and make our services as accessible as we could."
The winners were presented with trophies and runners-up collected certificates.
WINNERS
Retail: Sirology. Runners-up – Mountain Warehouse, Pencil Me In.
Local professional: Hunted Cow. Runners-up – Grigor and Young, IT Central.
National Banking: Bank of Scotland. Runners-up – Santander, Clydesdale Bank.
Hospitality and Tourism: Cafe Kombucha. Runners-up – Spice Tandoori, Batchen Street Coffee.
Hair, Beauty and Fitness: Hair and Body Mechanics. Runners-up – Vallen Fitness Studio, Ola's Hair and Nails.
Charity and Support: Moray Food Plus. Runners-up – British Red Cross, Elgin Youth Cafe.
David Urquhart New Business Award: The Ditsy Teacup. Runners-up – Manga Hair Extensions, Against The Grain.
Long-established Business Award: Gordon and MacPhail. Runners-up – Begg Shoes and Beaver Travel.
Ian Widdowson Individual Customer Service Award: Gordon Cruickshank of Hair and Body Mechanics. Runners-up – Kathleen Shanks of The Little Lunchbox, and Brandon Grant of IT Central.
Embrace Elgin Community Champion: Euna Russell, Barnardos volunteer. Runners-up – Lindsay Welsh, Moray Food Plus, and Steve Christie, SPICE.
