100 not out: Cairn continues to build.

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It’s just over three months since our launch and Cairn continues to grow into its place on the Scottish cultural landscape. Membership now stands at over one hundred and is steadily on the up. We are even fielding membership enquiries from outside Scotland.

We, on the steering group, have been quietly working away to lay foundations and establish Cairn. Here’s what we’ve been up to.

Meetings.

The last few months has been a time of introductory meetings for Cairn. We have met formally and informally with a number of cultural and trade union organisations from Scotland and other parts of the UK who have have been extremely encouraging and welcoming to Cairn as a new, positive body representing the interests of performance professionals in Scotland.

Cairn is, of course, an apolitical organisation but we have reached out to all the main political parties in Scotland. This has so far resulted in productive meetings with the  Scottish Government’s Culture Team & the Scottish Greens Trade Union Group. It is our hope that other parties will meet with us soon and we look forward to excellent working relationships, moving forward with mutual respect and support.

Cairn in the workplace

As well as advising members, Cairn has already been part of successful interventions in the workplace, resolving several contractual matters and arranging insurance.

In July we had our first company visit at the request of Cairn members of the cast of The National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Medea. The meeting was opened up to the casts of other productions and was extremely positive, resulting in several new members.

Cairn in Education

We have planned visits to several of Scotland’s leading Further Education Institutes over the coming weeks. As our Student Membership is FREE we are hoping many students will be inspired to join and help shape Cairn as an organisation.

Cairn Drop-ins

We hosted a Drop-in at The Tron in July, weekly drop-in sessions during the Fringe and a well-attended on-line Q & A earlier this month. These sessions were a chance to connect, chat and ask questions in a really relaxed environment and were hugely beneficial

Next up is our first AGM on the 6th November at 1pm in the iconic Pearce Institute in Govan, Glasgow which will be a hybrid online/in-person event. To get involved, you can join us here; https://www.cairnunion.scot/membership-options .