More vision for Bute 2020

Bute has held a follow-up session, building on the Bute 2020 event held in January, chaired by Jim Mather MSP, hosted by Mount Stuart. This saw people representing key organisations within the Bute community come together.

Last week a follow up meeting took place to establish a common island-wide way forward to making the Bute economy a resilient and sustainable place to live.

With the main challenge being mobilising the entire island to work together to galvanise the Bute economy sustainably, the main outcome of the session was quite radical.

There will be no committee structure – seen both as promoting a talking shop and tending to become exclusive.

The group will look for a series of ;champions, located within existing groups and organisations across the island.

In an associated parallel strategy, communications will be open and informal. The island newspaper, The Buteman, is to be asked for a regular column to pass on what is happening and to promote the island’s significant strengths.

Today’s communications are about exchange, babel sometimes -  rather than perpetuating the old transmitter/receiver model. With this in mind, the session decided to be catholic and to deploy all possible means of communication – also raising the percentage of involvement of island residents.

So standby for lures and debates enabled by a spectrum from Twitter to the poster in the shop.

The meeting was led by an independent facilitator funded by Highlands and Island’s Enterprise and attended by representatives of the Mount Stuart Trust, the Bute Community Land Company, the Tourism Marketing Group, Argyll & Bute Council, Towards Zero Carbon Bute, the Princes Regeneration Trust (who are overseeing the development of the Pavilion), and the Bute Conservation Trust who are providing the link with the Discover Bute Landscape Partnership Scheme.  Apologies were received from the Food & Craft Group.