Weekly update, 6th February 2017

Enabling activities:
• The “Jobs and How to Get Them” event was held in Thurso last Saturday (see https://www.facebook.com/caithnessjobs/ for event photos). It was very well attended by a range of organisations, at least 50% of whom were offering current employment/ apprenticeship opportunities. And it was good to see that members of the public came from different age groups, and included school and college students as well as unemployed and employed people keen to find out more about current and future employment. I was also delighted to see colleagues from the Beatrice Offshore Windfarm project at the event for the first time, and to hear encouraging news of their plans for an Operations & Maintenance base at Wick harbour.

• Next week sees the public opening of the NDA Nuclear Archive in Wick. The complex beside Wick John O’Groats Airport will be operated by Restore UK, and also hosts the Caithness Archive, providing 25 long-term full-time equivalent jobs.
• Good to read about the imminent start of work on the short stretch of the B876 at Killimster in Caithness, which has been an enabling project for CNSRP because of its strategic importance to the area’s economy. The work is led by CNSRP partner Highland Council.

Communications:
As part of an ongoing process of helping communicate progress with the delivery of aspects of our economic transition programme CNSRP’s partners work together to generate news stories for local, regional and national media. I also speak on a regular basis to individuals and organisations across the area to update on progress. This week:
• Congratulations to Wick High School’s Ellora James, who this week won the “One To Watch” award at Everywoman’s “Women in Technology” awards ceremony in London. At just 16 years old Ellora is MD of the Envirocache business (http://envirocache.co.uk/) set up through the Apps for Good programme run at Wick High School under the supervision of Chris Aitken. The awards were sponsored by FDM Group and featured shortlisted women from a range of major companies such as IBM, Vodafone, Sage and American Express, making Ellora’s success all the more impressive!