Recognition for P&S Trust

The work of Point and Sandwick Trust over the course of the pandemic has been recognised at a special event bringing together the UK’s social enterprise community.
Donald John Morrison GM of Point and Sandwick Trust. Image: sandiephotos.comDonald John Morrison GM of Point and Sandwick Trust. Image: sandiephotos.com
Donald John Morrison GM of Point and Sandwick Trust. Image: sandiephotos.com

As part of this recognition, the community wind farm charity has been named in Social Enterprise UK’s Roll of Honour.

Social Enterprise UK’s alternative to a traditional awards ceremony in this most unusual of years, the Roll of Honour “acknowledges those individuals and businesses which, over the course of an extremely challenging year, have demonstrated the strength, passion and resilience which is so characteristic of the social enterprise sector”.

In addition to being named in the Roll of Honour, Point and Sandwick Trust have also been invited to make a short presentation during the Social Enterprise Futures event – a two-day digital summit taking place online on Wednesday and Thursday this week, which aims to bring the social enterprise sector together to look back at its achievements over the past year and to plan for its future.

Around 20 social enterprises have been invited to speak during the summit and Point and Sandwick Trust’s general manager Donald John MacSween will be participating on behalf of the wind farm, which responded to the pandemic with the launch of various projects to support the community such as free meals, a grocery delivery service and the production of PPE (personal protective equipment) in partnership with Lews Castle College.

The objective of the digital summit is to celebrate what the sector has achieved in keeping going, keeping open and mitigating the worst impacts of Covid on people and society.

The summit also aims to shape the future of the social enterprise sector – which in Britain pays more corporate tax than Google, Amazon and Facebook combined – as it seeks to build back better from the pandemic through inspiration, provocation and discussion.

Two years ago, Point and Sandwick Trust won the title of UK Environmental Social Enterprise of the Year at the UK Social Enterprise Awards, in what completed a hat trick of awards for the community wind farm charity in 2018.

Then, wind farm developer Calum MacDonald picked up the award at the event in the Guildhall in London and admitted he was “very surprised” but “delighted” to have won.

This year, although the circumstances are so different, Calum said the recognition was again to be welcomed. He said: “This has been an incredibly difficult year for Point and Sandwick. We started with the lowest prices we had seen since we started, then came the Covid effect on the economy and income hit rock bottom, and finally we lost the cable to Skye and couldn’t get any income at all!

“Yet through it all the Point and Sandwick Trust kept delivering for the community and even now they are working on new ways to get us back to full strength as quickly as possible. This citation is a great tribute to our fantastic Board and team who just keep going, regardless of the challenges they are faced with.”

Donald John MacSween said he was looking forward to taking part in the digital event – and added that this year’s pandemic had focused everybody’s mind on how society needed to change.

He said: “I am really pleased that the work we have done with our community council partners and all those volunteers who stepped up so willingly to help us deliver services to our community during lockdown has been recognised at national level.

“Their response was inspirational, and we will use the lessons learnt to plan for the future.

“The community have shown that they are ready to respond, in a positive way, to very challenging circumstances in the absence of any coherent political leadership at local or national level.

“The social enterprise movement will build back, post pandemic, in imaginative ways, and we can depend on community support in that process.

“And the way human society is organised has to change. Hunger, food banks, child poverty, inequality, homelessness is just as much a killer as any pandemic.”

Other speakers at Social Enterprise Futures will include former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has said there is “no route to the future that does not have social enterprise at its centre”.

Peter Holbrook, chief executive of Social Enterprise UK, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed and exacerbated the deep inequalities within society. When the pandemic passes, we need to seriously rethink how the economy works and the role of business within in. To truly build back better we need a real step change in the uptake and adoption of social enterprise models, which show that successful businesses can put people and planet first.

“The Roll of Honour shows just how important social enterprises have been to communities’ response to the pandemic.

“They’ve been pivoting their business models to create new goods and services, getting food and essential supplies to the vulnerable, manufacturing PPE and also working on the frontline of the pandemic delivering vital health and social care services. It is this spirit that needs to be harnessed when we eventually head out of lockdown so we make sure we don’t go back to business as usual.”

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