IN Touch - Issue 19

Police Scotland – Have your say!

Police Scotland North-East Division are working on their Local Policing Plans for each local authority area including Aberdeen City. These plans will take effect from April 2023 through to March 2026 and will include details of their Policing priorities for each area and how they intend to deliver them in conjunction with partners.

In order to fully inform these plans, your business has the opportunity to feed into them through a very brief survey, the link to which is included below.

It is essential that you take this opportunity to comment on policing issues that affect your business in the city centre. Please complete the survey stating your business postcode and raise issues that affect the safe operation of your business, such as antisocial behaviour, youth disorder and the effectiveness of the 101 system for reporting police matters.

The more businesses that take this opportunity to flag concerns and feed into the process the greater the likelihood that resources will be prioritised to the city centre to tackle these issues in the future.

Fill out the survey here > https://lnkd.in/g4bcM44Z

Full line-up announced for Aberdeen International Comedy Festival

Comedy returns with a bang in October with a line-up of gut-busting comedians set to grace the granite city for 11 days from Thursday 6 to Sunday 16 October.

With around 50 shows taking place at over 20 venues across the city centre, comedy fans will find something for everyone in this year's star-studded line-up. Headliners include the legendary Irish funny man David O’Doherty, dead pan master of satire Jack Dee, Netflix sensation Daniel Sloss, newly single Hal Cruttenden, Britain’s Got Talent winner Daliso Chaponda and the glorious fast, funny, and absurd Milton Jones. View full programme here > aberdeencomedyfestival.com

Businesses can get involved with the festival in lots of ways. It’s a great way to treat your team, socialise with business contacts or simply get together with a group of family or friends. And with the festival marketing aiming to reaching a Scotland wide audience hospitality providers should put together deals for accommodation and short breaks, restaurants and bars can look to promote special ‘festival’ deals for food and drinks.

If you want to get in touch to make a group booking or to let us know what you’re planning to help encourage visitors to the city to stay, eat and drink during the festival days and nights, then simply get in touch by emailing - comedy@aberdeeninspired.com

Volunteer with us >

View video here >

Curated in the Quad – Call for Traders

We are thrilled to announce the return of our popular market within the Marischal College Quadrangle. The market will be organised by Charlie House for 2022.

The event will feature a unique line up each weekend in the lead up to Christmas. With gifts options including arts, crafts, clothing, jewellery and homeware along with gourmet food and drink, there will be something to suit every taste this Christmas!

Applications for the market stalls, priced at £150 for the weekend, are now open and can be submitted using the online form here.

Demand is expected to be high and interested traders should apply by 16 October 2022. For any queries regarding the event or your application, please contact curated@charliehouse.org

Aberdeen Gift Card – PA Event

In August, Aberdeen Inspired hosted an event for PAs at Orchid to promote the Aberdeen Gift Card as the only card to give staff this Christmas.

The team at Orchid took guests on a short liquid voyage where they learnt the history of the cocktail, tasted some delicious drinks on the way and the team from Chaophraya served up delicious hand-crafted Thai canapes. Local businesses and gift card partners Annie Mo’s, The Body Shop and Finnies were also there with fantastic special offers on the night!

A fun networking event, the purpose was to showcase the gift card and how it supports the city, its businesses and economy and we hope that more employers will get behind the scheme and choose to treat their team the Aberdeen Gift card this Christmas. - it really is the only card you need to give!

If you missed the event and would like to find out more about placing a corporate order or becoming a member of the scheme (which is free to be part of) please email roule.wood@aberdeeninspired.com or simply click this link here to place an order.

True North brings the music to Aberdeen!

True North Festival delivered by Aberdeen Performing Arts, is back for its 8th year will be back from Thursday 22 – Sunday 25 September to celebrate great music in all its forms and sure to attract music lovers to the city.

From soulful grassroots artists to internationally renowned musicians at the top of their game, True North brings together everything that makes the North-east music scene diverse, fresh and exciting over one unforgettable weekend.

Heading line this year's festival headliner is Scottish band Travis on Saturday 24 September. On the final evening (Sunday 25 September) of the festival, Mica Paris will present 'A Celebration of Aretha Franklin' along with Aberdeen's own Emeli Sandé and special guests.

September and October are set to be busy months with lots of fantastic events going on in the city centre. This is a great time for bars, restaurants, hotels and many more to start planning deals to benefit from the footfall these festivals will bring into our city centre. If you’re planning a deal, get in touch with us to promote it.

Whether you are discovering new artists or celebrating the greats who inspired them, True North is the festival to be at. No genres, no barriers, no worries, just great times – let’s turn the music up!

Further information and ticket booking link here.

Aberdeen Cocktail Week

Organised by Gregor Sey, this October (18 – 24), Aberdeen Cocktail Week (ACW) welcomes everyone to the city to explore, sip and shake their way through dozens of bars, cocktail events, and exclusive cocktail recipes.

Bars will be shaking up a special menu of cocktails starting from just £5 with plenty of non-alcohol options available. As well as exclusive menus, wristband holders will also gain access to a growing list of cocktail events, created especially for Aberdeen Cocktail Week. Siberia, 99 Bar & Kitchen, Orchid and BarBelow are among some of the many bars who have signed up!

Wristbands are on sale now - find out more here.

Triage Unit - Pilot Project for Belmont Street

Starting from Saturday 10 September and running for the next six weeks there will an ambulance and three staff situated on Belmont Street from 8pm on Saturday evening until 2am on Sunday morning.

With the Scottish Ambulance Service and A&E under increasing pressure at peak times this pilot project is looking to treat and assess people in town and avoid unnecessary trips to ARI or calls to 999. The unit will be linked by radio to all hospitality venues who are part of the Safer Aberdeen radio link scheme and will be supported by the Street Pastors and their Safe Space bus which will be parked alongside.

The pilot of this project is timed to coincide with welcome week for both of our universities, beginning from Monday 12 September, which will see thousands of new students coming to our city for the first time. As they enjoy the social and cultural offering in our city centre, it is projects such as this and the strong partnership work that leads to it that led to Aberdeen being the first city in Scotland to be awarded Purple Flag status for a safe and well managed Night-time economy.

Aberdam set to launch in Glasgow

Local fast-food phenomenon Aberdam is to launch its dirty burgers and loaded fries in Glasgow. The expansion, in partnership with Deliveroo, is Aberdam’s first launch outside of Aberdeen after only launching 18 months ago! From next month, Glaswegians can order Aberdam food as the takeaway experts join Deliveroo’s new Editions kitchen.

Read more here > https://www.pressandjournal.co...

Hobbs x Alzheimer Scotland Fashion Show Fundraiser

Join Hobbs on Thursday 13 October for an Autumn/Winter Fashion show to raise money for Alzheimer Scotland. Entrance is free, and there will be a raffle and 20% discount off all purchases including sale items. All proceeds will be donated to Alzheimer Scotland. If you would like to attend, please contact Gail Dolan here > gdolan@alzscot.org

Rough Sleepers

Following various reports of rough sleepers in the city centre – especially outside restaurants/hotels and retail premises – businesses can reach out to Turning Point Scotland (TPS) to provide support to those who need it as soon as possible.

TPS have a team that will go out and work with people sleeping rough and have some resources available to deploy on the ground with the aim of providing immediate solutions. They will then work with the Council with a view to identifying temporary accommodation.

Any queries or requests can be sent direct to Aberdeenroughsleeping@turningpointscotland.com

Stagecoach Rewards 2022- Eco-driving Champions across North East Scotland

Stagecoach, the UK’s largest bus and coach operator has recognised its UK Bus eco-driving champions through an annual awards scheme held in tribute to a former employee.

Christopher Ball, Stagecoach Ecodriver Project Manager, sadly passed away in 2014. Christopher was instrumental in introducing the GreenRoad eco-driving technology to Stagecoach’s bus companies across the UK and was a respected and well-liked employee.

As a tribute to Christopher, an awards scheme in his memory was introduced in 2015 and the company has recently awarded the 2022 winners. The Christopher Ball Memorial Awards are awarded to the best performing eco-driving depot and individual within Stagecoach. Read more here.

Scottish City BIDS Group Meeting

After a recent meeting of the Scottish City Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) in Paisley, representatives from Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Inverness, Perth and Glasgow were unanimous in their call government to support businesses through the current energy crisis or risk losing hundreds of businesses across the country’s city centres.

Adrian Watson, Chair at the meeting and CEO of the Aberdeen Inspired BID, said: “Rightly there has been much talk of what support needs to be in place to help households through the winter ahead and beyond, but this has to be extended to our hard-pressed businesses across the sectors. This has the potential to be as every bit as damaging as the Covid-19 challenge and we need, for one, the incoming Prime Minister to be receptive to this”.

Roddy Smith, CEO, Essential Edinburgh added “The feedback on possible closures and with that job losses in the hospitality and retail sectors are stark. Many thousands of jobs are on the line and we need to see a similar proposed price cap on business energy bills, many of which are expected to rise at least threefold in the coming weeks, an unsustainable position for so many”.

At the meeting, there was considerable discussion around attracting footfall back into our city centres, not least encouraging more of the business community and public institutions back into the office.

The Scottish City BIDS Group represent over 5000 city centre businesses.

'Know Your Numbers' Health Shield Business Breakfast

Aberdeen Football Club and Health & Wellbeing Partner, Health Shield, are to hold their first business focused event of the new season next month on the back of ‘Know Your Numbers’ week with a focus on numbers for wellbeing.

Part of the Aberdeen FC Team Talks series which sees the football club raise relevant business-related topics for discussion and knowledge sharing, the event is set to take place on the morning of Friday 16th September 2022. Health Shield with be joined by a number of other key panellists, including, Aberdeen FC’s Official Financial Planning Partners, Gary Walker Wealth Management, Official Education Partner, Robert Gordon University, and recently announced Official Net-Zero Advisory Partners, Positive Planet. Read more here.

TEDx Aberdeen

We are proud to announce we are an official TEDxAberdeen 2022 partner!

This year's event is taking place on 12th November at Aberdeen Arts Centre, and a fantastic group of speakers will be stepping on the famous red dot to deliver insightful talks centred around the theme of 'movement'.

We are excited to be involved in helping bring this incredible event to Aberdeen!

Get involved with the Aberdeen Gift Card

With over 250 businesses in Aberdeen City already signed up, the Aberdeen Gift Card is delivering a much-needed boost directly back into local economy. Funded by Aberdeen Inspired the scheme is free to join and does not cost your business or the consumer anything, it’s simply another payment method for the goods, services or products your business sells.

If you are a business who accepts the gift card, then it is in your interest to promote that you accept it! Research shows that on average people spend 65% more on top of the value of their card when they redeem it and that their likelihood of becoming a repeat customer is over 50%.

Gifting the card is simple. You can go to the Bon Accord Centre information desk or online here with the option of an e-card being sent straight to the recipient.

If you’d like to sign your business up to be part of scheme, then simply click here and we will do the rest!

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