Our AGM was held on Wednesday 2nd December 2020. As has become the norm this year, it was an online meeting. It was well attended but technology did not work in everyone's favour so we thought it would be useful to provide an overview of the projects and official business for anyone to browse at their leisure. 

Chairman Ross Lilley gave an uplifting and positive report of the year's achievements. Links to download project presentations and other reports can be found below Ross' report. All information in the reports was correct on the day of the AGM. 

Ross Lilley, ACT Chairman

On reviewing what ACT has achieved this past year for this AGM I can’t believe how positive a story we have to tell.  In any normal year our performance has been beyond our expectations when we last reviewed our business plan this time last year. 

But this has not been a normal year.  We would have been happy to have just kept the organisation solvent and kept our current projects just ticking over whilst we all dealt with Covid19 limitations on our work.  But, to the contrary, ACT has thrived through Covid. 

• Who’d have thought we would have shifted our income from largely project based grant funds to almost 50% non-grant income.
• We all shifted to a home working environment seamlessly and all credit to the staff for making this happen and continuing to deliver their work and projects
• We also recruited 7 (yes 7!) new staff during lockdown. More than doubling our staff
• We built up our core team to give them more capacity to support our project officers and develop new projects and funding streams.
• We secured more funding for our work and built the bank balances to a more robust and resilient state.
• We continued to deliver mental health support through virtual engagement with 400 participants in our Branching Out and Moving On projects
• We set up a new climate action initiative working with communities in mid-Argyll to take practical action to reduce our emissions and address climate change.
• We continued to manage the restoration of peatlands on Islay and Colonsay through our CANN project and rhododendron removal in Glen Creran
• We set up MAKI Pups and launched our new outdoor nursery which is now signing up children for the new term.
• We took on Blarbuie Woodland and started to develop our plans for its continued use as a hub for engagement with the community, Branching Out/Moving On participants, volunteers and trainees.  

So this year, of all years, we have very much proven our worth and value in what ACT does.

Indeed, Covid lockdown brought home to people more than ever the importance of having quality natural environments to live and work in.  As we come out of the Covid period there is an expectation that the environment and our sustainability within it is more centre stage to our lives than before.  That puts ACT’s work even more centre stage than we have been before.

I think you will find as we work our way through today’s agenda that ACT is a hugely successful, efficiently run and active charity that is in a good place despite a very challenging year.  I am very grateful to all the staff and my fellow board members for their hard work in making our organisation what it is.  We are looking forward to continue building on this performance to embrace the potential that a green recovery from Covid can bring to our work.  We are uniquely placed to demonstrate what sustainable living, communities and environment looks like in Argyll.    

Core news and official business

ACT core business overview 2020

ACT Treasurers report 2020

ACT Accounts 2020 (FINAL)

ACT AGM 2020 minutes (DRAFT)

Project reports and updates

Branching Out Argyll project presentation 2020

MAKI Pups project presentation 2020

ACT Now project presentation 2020

CANN project presentation 2020