…or at least a small cash prize and some glory, if you’re lucky enough to nab a CRNS award. So is it worthwhile snatching a moment to nominate your organisation? Some previous winners reflect on what the award meant to them and their work.
CRNS Member of the Year award
“There’s so many things to do at the moment – it’s a crazy time.”
Robert Sinclair’s battle with a packed schedule will find an echo in busy social enterprises across Scotland. A trial of a new cardboard recycling service for local businesses is just one of many new projects being juggled by Hebrides Alpha Trading – whose full-time staff comprises Robert and just one colleague.
Amid the frantic activity, Robert is determined to devote a few minutes to one particular task: submitting his organisation’s entry for this year’s CRNS annual awards.
Last year, on his first visit to the More Than Recycling event, Robert was “delighted” to take away the Member of the Year trophy. Besides coming as a vote of confidence from his peers (CRNS members all have a chance to vote), the award brought further benefits – not least in forging new contacts.
“After the award presentation, I was approached by a man from a company who offered to buy material for recycling,” Robert says. “If our cardboard trial is successful and we start baling it, we’ll be entering a partnership with him.”
Innovation award
For Lorn and Oban Reuse Initiative, which triumphed in last year’s Innovation category, the award has a highly practical use. “We use it in our marketing and publicity,” says project manager George Murray. “I’m now drawing up funding applications for the next year, and I won’t be slow to refer to the award in those either!”
Another past Innovation winner was RePaint Scotland, whose vision of recycling used paint products captured voters’ imagination. Two years on, the Glasgow-based group has active interest from major DIY retailers and is hoping for commercial contracts that would secure its long-term future.
“We were over the moon with the award,” recalls RePaint’s Maureen Menzies. “It confirmed to us that the idea we’d had was a good one. And while the cash award isn’t a big one, it’s still a thousand quid you wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
That’s a sentiment endorsed by ReJIG, based on Islay and Jura. In 2007 the group took the Innovation title for its pioneering work to create biofuels from waste cooking oil used by local hotels.
Today ReJIG no longer produces biofuels – the experiment convinced the group that it lacked the resources to make it viable – but the award helped it spread the word about the potential of this activity.
“We still use biodiesel, but we now get it from a recycling outfit in Campbeltown, which benefits from much larger-scale production,” says ReJIG’s Dave Protherough. “However, we had a lot of interest from other groups as a result of winning the award. In fact, we still have people asking to visit so they can find out more about the pros and cons of the project.
“The money side of the award wasn’t that important for us. From my point of view, it was confirmation that we were doing something that fit with the reuse ethos, rather than just spending funds because they happened to be there.
“It was a pat on the back – it made me feel we were doing something right.”
So what are you waiting for? Make a nomination.
