The directors’ met to discuss the next steps, further to their suggestion that the way forward on town centre and related community issues should be the formation of a Community Interest Company (“CIC”).
The following have been added to our Documents page:
Directors’ Meeting 28th Oct 2011
Community Interest briefing paper – 1 st draft
Here’s a contribution that might start some debate on NICE’s proposals:
Around about this time last year there were a series of meetings that were open to all members of NICE regardless of whether they were committee members/Directors or not. Since NICE came back to life you have had two directors meetings, were members invited to those meetings if they so wished to attend?
NICE has sprung back into life but with a complete change of direction. In the rush to stop the Highland Council’s initial plan it was thought a Company limited by guarantee would be the best form for NICE to take and a suggestion of a Community Interest Company was dismissed. Now almost one year on that alternative suggestion is to be revisited. Do the directors have any worries that this might be seen as a top down approach rather that something coming from the floor of the house generally? Do you have any worries that the membership may have drifted away during the long hiatus, perhaps never to return to NICE activism?
At the time of the initial few meetings it seemed that all the forces opposed to the Highland Council over the Town Centre and other planning matters had coalesced and a consensus emerged that something better had to be sought as a matter of urgency when it came to the town centre and other issues. In the light of the new landscape created by Nairnbairn’s nomination of the town to the Carbuncle Award and the recent decision of NICE to come down on one side of a planning issue that continues to divide public opinion in Nairn, do the directors feel that they can still command a public mandate given that there will obviously be considerable numbers of people that will not agree with the decision to object so strongly against the bus station proposal? Does your bus station decision carry a legacy?
If Common Good assets are given to the Community Interest Company is there a danger that should that company fail to make a profit then money could simply be lost on any payment of any wages or running expenses of the company? I suppose those questions, should anyone feel them important, will be answered to a large extent by the numbers attending the meeting on the 11th and any opinions from NICE’s membership or the public on the night. There are benefits to be had should such an ambitious exercise succeed but dangers are present too if any of the challenges proves insurmountable. The first being perhaps, obtaining a response to the Draft Brief from Highland Council. .
Would NICE be embarking on a roll of the dice? Is the proposal before the public a revolutionary mechanism that might sort the town centre and a few other problems or could it be simply a reckless leap into the darkness?