RUSSELL BORTHWICK
SUCCESSFUL city regions can’t rely on solely the engagement, involvement and impetus of their local authorities or other economic partners in order to thrive. They need to galvanise the power of local folk, those who live, work, study and invest in the city.
Last week we saw something really exciting happen in the North-east with the coming together of a group of like-minded people all of whom have freely given their time, passion, commitment and positivity towards making a bright future for Aberdeen and the surrounding area.
The Vanguard initiative traces back to a piece of research in 2017 which revealed the worrying statistic that three quarters of young professionals in the area felt disenfranchised and uninvolved in the future of the region.
Along with our partners, we created a platform to get people involved in real economic challenges, tasking them with coming up with fresh ideas across a wide range of real-life issues, from how we go about retaining the graduate talent that comes out of our universities, and capitalising on the North-east’s food and drink sector; to how we can make Aberdonians fall back in love with their city by creating time and space for people to appreciate what makes our city unique.
The teams have been working steadily since last summer to create, refine and progress their ideas and last week presented an overview of their work at the second annual Vanguard conference in front of an audience of business leaders.
Focused on practical solutions, their activities range from the small-scale to the highly ambitious – but all demonstrate a desire to get involved and make things happen. And contrary to some nay-sayers, it’s not pie in the sky. Vanguard is delivering tangible results, with the cluster culture initiative raised at last year’s conference resulting in funding from Skills Development Scotland and Opportunity North East and a new full time role created to promote the North-east as a hub for the life sciences sector.
Every single person who attended the event left feeling energised by what the future holds, that our region is one filled with vibrancy and passion – and that by working together we can achieve anything.
Vanguard embodies all the best bits of the Chamber’s modus operandi: Doing not talking, challenging, being a cause not a club, engaging with our future leaders and making good stuff happen in the region that otherwise, would not.
The reality is we couldn’t do it without the volunteers – and neither can any other town or city seeking a change.
Russell Borthwick is chief executive of Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here