25 July 2013 Geoff Leask - The Princes Trust
Thu, Jul 25th 2013 at 12:00 am - 12:00 am
Geoff Leask, head of Employment and Enterprise at the Prince's Trust gave a talk on the work of this charity in Scotland.
Last Thursday's meeting at the Westlands Hotel, heard from Geoff Leask who is Senior Head of Employment and Enterprise at Youth Business Scotland.
Geoff spent 7 years as an officer in the Merchant Navy prior to joining the Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust (PSYBT) 13 years ago. Last year, PSYBT merged with the Prince's Trust and now operates as Youth Business Scotland, part of the Prince's Trust.
He explained that the aims of the Trust were to help young people aged between 18 and 30 to equip them with the skills to help them develop their lives.
In Scotland, the Trust helps around 3,000 young people each year to come up with ideas to set up their own business and they annually fund 600 young businesses - they are aiming for 800 this year. They are particularly concerned to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Geoff explained how they provide support by loans of up to £5,000, grants up to £1,000, funding to support growing businesses up to £25,000 and provide aftercare advisers for a minimum of 2 years.
They have close links with business support networks, business gateways, local authorities, banks, accountants and colleges.
As a charity, they rely on donations for funding their loan and grant schemes and have over 700 volunteers across Scotland.
In the last 24 years, they have invested over £36.6 million supporting 11,300 businesses. More details can be found on their website: www.princes-trust.org.uk
Geoff was thanked for his talk by Billy Phillips.
In other news, the club was reminded that we would be selling crepes at the Bridge of Allan Highland Games on Sunday 4 August while a few members were taking part in the annual Pedal for Parkinson's event on the same day starting in Stirling at 9am at the King's Park.
