Scotland - Day 2
9:00
Day 2 of our trip began as all big days should; with a large, hearty breakfast.
10:30
Upon finishing breakfast, we step out into the cold and walk across to St Georges Square to meet with Elaine Rodger and Alan Busby at the Glasgow Chambers of Commerce, where we discuss ways of promoting both the Queen’s Awards and the Glasgow Chambers Business Awards.
In a room overlooking the bustling square outside, we talked about the possibility of working with the other key chambers across the regions and how we hope to make another trip up to Glasgow early next year to attend a key event hosted by the Chambers.
13:00
After saying goodbye to Elaine and Alan, we left the chambers and made our way by train and by taxi out to Bridge of Weir Leather, our final call of the trip. When we arrived, we were immediately taken back by the size of the site and its location situated amongst the low rolling hills and fields, just thirty minutes out of the city. After finding our way to reception, we met with Managing Director Karen Marshall who, after winning 4 Queen’s Awards, had many nice things to say.
Karen talked about the motivation behind applying for their first Queen’s Award and how, because Bridge of Weir Leather exports 90% of their product abroad to internationally recognised companies, they knew that it would be beneficial to their customer base and share holders to have a prestigious and Internationally recognised Award such as a Queen’s Award attached to what they do.
And upon reflection of winning that first Award, Karen recalled how thrilled she was to be invited to Buckingham Palace to meet the Her Majesty The Queen, after mentioning that she was a very much a keen “royalist” herself.
After having a nice chat with Karen, we were left in the capable hands of Catherine Dean (Marketing Associate of Scottish Group Leather), who acted as our guide in navigating us round the maze of warehouses and their respective machinery. Here we were shown many of the mind boggling steps that go into producing Bridge of Weir Leathers, which when they are finished go on to be used mainly in the upholstery of cars.
17:25
As they say: time flies, and before we knew it we were making our way to the airport to catch our flight back to London. Our whistle-stop tour of Scotland had come to an end. We had visited 3 well-deserving Queen’s Award winning companies, each with its own story to tell and with the video footage we captured; they are stories that we hope to share soon with you too.
(We are currently in the process of editing the interviews with the Queen’s Award winning companies from our visit to Scotland, all of which will be available to view on our YouTube channel in the coming weeks!)
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