The stuff that keeps us together
Every morning at 9am, Team STA gather in for our morning pow wow. That’s how it’s been for the past (almost) six months; we’re probably a bit like you in that respect, starting off the day with a group meet, running through our plans and priorities for the day, checking in with each other and doing that once over ‘Are we all OK?’ screen sweep of faces.
We are OK. Sometimes we’re dynamically, full cylinders OK, sometimes we’re fake OK, sometimes we’re just really, really honest and when we are, great things happen.
If you know us well, you’ll know that we work extra super hard. Not just because we have a job to do; it goes way beyond that. We really do care about every single member we have, every tourism business out there and what you’re going through right now. That’s why we’re up super early doing what we do, often until late in the evening and over the weekend because quite honestly, this stuff just doesn’t stop and we need to make a lot of it better.
Every day since March has been a bit like getting up and running a marathon in a place you’ve never been before. It takes stamina, resilience, mental energy, patience and a will to keep moving in the right direction in spite of all the obstacles, challenges, curve balls and set-backs.
No day runs 100% smoothly. There will always be bits in the day that feel sticky and hard; when it feels like progress is happening too slowly, not at all, or that things have gone into reverse. We proactively look for responses and updates to our urgent asks of government, we are poised every day to respond immediately when we receive them, communicating outwards to our industry, the media and back to policy makers.
When we look back on how things were pre-Covid, it all seems a bit hazy. There is so much we took for granted. The commutes to meetings we often grumbled about now seem like exciting railway journeys to wonderful city destinations. The whole ‘taking the dishes to the kitchen and making coffee’ which seemed like such a chore at the time would be so welcome now; we would love to catch up with each other and chat about what’s going on in our lives. The mumble of office chatter which often tested the patience of those on a deadline would now be a comforting background of human voices.
It’s not been easy to disband as a team, lose two of our people for months on furlough during the peak of the crisis and settle back together again remotely, virtually for what is likely to be many months ahead, so how are we getting through it all?
Well, honesty and understanding are our two biggies.
Of course we have to fake it sometimes; that’s life and just because you’re feeling a bit ‘over it all’ at the start of the day does not mean that you’ll end the day sliding off your chair into the abyss. We’re honest when we should be and there is plenty of understanding in our little team.
We know each other well. Marc’s been here for 8 ½ years, (me) Mhairi C for 6, Gill for 6, Mhairi S for 3, Karen for 2 and Elaine has been our office rock from the very beginning.
Our lives are every bit as up and down and all over the place at times as yours probably is. Behind the STA Updates, media quotes, social media posts, minutes of meetings, emails to members, telephone calls, letters to government and all the other things we do is a small team of human beings and we’ve never really paused to introduce the STA beyond all of that.
So who are we really?
‘CEO Marc’ (the Titan of Tartan Tourism as he is affectionately known) drives the STA machine. You’ll know Marc. Everybody knows Marc. Every day he has his hands firmly gripped to the STA steering wheel (he drives quite fast…) and pushes everything in the right direction. He’s been compared to a chief conductor by many in our industry. He knows exactly who should do what, what our individual strengths are and he brings it all together. Maybe a Ringmaster sometimes – we have our circus days too, full of clowns and monkeys but quite honestly, we don’t really think we’d be in the shape we’re in if it wasn’t for Marc’s leadership. ‘At Home Marc’ is dad of five. Calum and Jamie, a hotel GM in Edinburgh have flown the nest, Sam has just got his Nat 5 results (and did really, really well), twins Alex and Mia are in S2 and Adele, Marc’s wife runs her own full-time personal training business. There’s a lot going on there with all the STA stuff on top… He meanders to the loch in Bearsden for his very early morning walks every day. Sometimes he calls us from these walks. Sometimes we answer…
‘Membership Manager Mhairi S’ is perfectly placed to do what she does; looking after each and every member business of the STA. Why? Well, because quite frankly, she’s downright lovely and she’ll put everybody else before herself, always. She’s a treasure to have in our team and she works hard to look after people. She’s got two grown up kids, Natasha and Samuel who have flown the nest, off to Uni after being home for lockdown. She’s also sleeping on the floor this week as she got rid of her bed – she moves house on Tuesday; off to her in-laws until she and Stuart find their post-kid pad. Mhairi S, we feel for you right now – thank you for always looking after us.
‘Digital & Events Gill’ is our sparky young go-getter – all over the tech, loves a project and a plan and lots of ticky boxes. We laugh when she writes things down on her ‘to do’ list that she’s already done, just so she can cross them out (we do that too…). She’s a dooer and a driver, into all things design and creative, likes a morning sesh at the gym. She has a partner Robbie who’s been coughing a bit more than normal but phew…he’s negative. She’s in Glasgow so she won’t be coming round for a cup of tea in the near future.
‘Tourism Strategy Karen’ will be familiar to many of you. She launched Scotland’s future tourism strategy, ‘Outlook 2030’ at our conference in March; her incredible work on co-ordinating the project was personally endorsed by the First Minister. She’s the best project manager EVER, she’s meticulous in her attention to detail, her stakeholder management skills are EXTRA and we all admire her so much for her patience, tenacity, upbeat spirit and ability to keep going when things are really tough and relentless. She’s married with twins, Ethan and Harris who are in P3. She’s juggling being a mum with being quite honestly, an STA ninja which is made all the more difficult by the fact that childcare right now is a no-no because of Glasgow area restrictions and boys can’t go to Granny’s house anymore.
‘Office Manager Elaine’ has kept us all on the straight and narrow for many, many years and performed behind the scenes magic with spreadsheets and figures and finances to keep the STA moving ahead. We haven’t seen her in real life since February and she’s retiring next week so we’re all feeling sad about that. But…we know how much she’ll enjoy a bit more tennis, being a mum, a granny and not having to chase us for our expenses.
And there’s me, Mhairi C. It would feel a bit odd to write about myself in the third person so here I am. I’m Communications Director, resident writer of (most) things, PR specialist (crisis comms anyone..?) and public affairs person. I juggle single parenting of my AMAZING son Ben (17, X-box junkie, great set of Highers and heading to Uni next year) with freelance writing for an international drinks company on my non-STA day and travel writing for The Herald and Daily Record (I’m going absolutely nowhere soon…). I love my life and I especially love what I do for the STA. I feel very, very lucky every day.
How do we get through all this?
Well, we have each other and some days that 9am Zoom call can feel like a chore and sometimes it feels like absolutely everything we needed. Like this morning. We talked about everything we needed to do in a day and then laughed at some stupid stuff, like this, courtesy of Twitter:
“As I get older I find I only need three shops – Specsavers, Boots and Greggs. My life is just specs and drugs and sausage rolls.’ Good, innit?
As a team, we laugh lots. Our humour is our common denominator just as much as our mission right now – to get us all through this, your business and ours.
We have our families and partners and friends and lives outside of our work.
We have an occasional Zoom glass with our (FANTASTIC) Board who support us – they really are the most incredible, talented and amazingly hard working individuals who give us a refresh, a boost and a laugh just when we need it.
We get out and about to support your businesses (you make much better cocktails and food than we do…).
And we have you, Scotland’s tourism industry. We are so proud to do what we do for you – you are more than businesses and members to us – you are people, friends, a community. It is a privilege to act as your voice and work as a team to navigate our way through this crisis.
And we will get through it. All of us. Things will feel really hard in bits and at other times it will feel like the world is returning to normal. We’ll change and adapt, we’ll be up and down, some days will be brighter than others but above anything, we will continue to support each other and you.
Mhairi Clarke
Communications Director – Scottish Tourism Alliance
P.S. This photo was taken in Dec 2019. We love it. We have collectively aged 600 years since then…
