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Birse Community Trust, BCT, is a local community business 'to promote the common good of the inhabitants of Birse parish and deliver wider public benefits'. Everyone on the Electoral Registers for Birse parish is a member of the Trust and responsible for electing the Trustees who BCT on behalf of the community. During the two years since its inaugural AGM in February 1999, the Trust has taken on an expanding range of projects to address local issues and capitalise on local opportunities (see 'What the Trust does'). BCT won the Community Business prize in the 1999 Scottish Community of the Year Awards and its success has continued to attract favourable comments from Scottish Executive Ministers and other prominent commentators. Recently, for example, the Chief Executive of Aberdeenshire Council, Alan Campbell, reported that BCT: 'is exactly the type of local community initiative which Aberdeenshire Council wants to encourage more widely throughout our area. The Council congratulates the Trust for establishing a very successful track record as a pioneering local community business.' The Trust was set up to increase the ability of the three scattered rural communities in Birse parish (Finzean, Ballogie and Birse) to tackle local issues on behalf of the community. BCT's role in developing and implementing projects as a community business complements the roles of the Finzean, Ballogie and Birse Community associations that cover the parish and represent the views of the local community. BCT is guided by the issues identified by the Associations and works in partnership with them on its projects.

1. The Old School
2. Finzean
3. Banchory
4. AB31 6NY

• Tel: 01330 850200
• Fax: 01330 850750
• Website: www.birsecommunitytrust.org.uk/

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