Online training offered
A range of free online courses for Stirling’s business community have been launched on a training platform set up by the city’s Business Improvement District.
The team at Go Forth Stirling, which runs the BID, has organised the virtual programme to support businesses during the Covid-19 crisis.
Two new courses are being offered each month and the May courses cover allergen awareness and fire safety.
The online training initiative is funded in association with the Covid-19 BIDs Resilience Fund which was announced by Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell in March.
The £1 million funding package aims to help Scotland’s 37 active BIDs play a vital role in supporting local businesses and town centres during the crisis.
Go Forth Stirling’s project director Danielle McRorie-Smith said:“The training platform is an important initiative which provides a practical means of supporting Stirling’s business community during this testing time.
“We’re pleased with the success of the first two courses which ran during April and were attended by 57 people – a number we hope to double this month as interest grows.”
Details of the May programme are outlined on the Go Forth Stirling website along with information about further courses which will be available over the coming months.
Ms McRorie-Smith added:“The courses are available to all Stirling businesses - not just those within the BID area.
“They offer an opportunity for ongoing training at a time when many businesses have been forced to close their doors and staff who have been placed on furlough are allowed to take part.
“We believe the initiative will help our businesses ensure a better foundation for commercial success following the pandemic and enable their workforces to emerge with more knowledge and training once Stirling is fully open for business again.”
The May courses cover the topics of allergen awareness and fire safety and businesses can register by emailing Go Forth Stirling via admin@goforthstirling.co.uk
Further courses, which will be running between June 1 and the end of September, include safeguarding children; an introduction to GDPR; safeguarding vulnerable adults and food safety awareness.
A full list of courses can be found via the link - www.goforthstirling.co. uk/business-support.
Go Forth is also working with a local partnership set up to help businesses survive the crisis. Its website - www.investinstirling.com/ investor-support/corona-virusadvice – provides Stirling-based businesses with the most accurate and up to date advice and guidance.
The Go Forth team is also working on plans to provide Stirling traders with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
An environmental charity is showing the value of recycled material as it produces PPE equipment for local health workers.
Transition Stirling, based in the city’s Stirling Arcade, is making and distributing face masks using filament from recycled plastic bottles to print the headbands.
The 30 masks - all made with appropriately sourced materials - have now been distributed to frontline staff at the Stirling Health and Care Village, based on the former Stirling Community Hospital site.
The charity isn’t planning to stop there, with the intention of making more than 100 masks for the use of health workers and those facing a high risk of exposure.
Kirill Obolenskiy, the charity’s technical director, is the person making the face masks using an on-site 3D printer.
He said: “Since Transition Stirling’s tool library and repair service have temporarily closed