Thursday 1 August 2019

Great Tapestry of Scotland company formed

EXCLUSIVE by DOUG COLLIE

Three of the main players in the development and promotion of The Great Scottish Tapestry are the directors of a brand new company which changed its name this week by a Special Resolution to The Great Tapestry of Scotland Ltd.

According to information posted on the Register of Companies website the fledgling firm which started life on July 3rd 2019 as ANDSTRAT (NO 423) Ltd.has indicated the nature of business it will be involved in is "leasing of intellectual property and similar products, except copyright works".

The directors are listed as Alastair Moffat, the Borders-based author and broadcaster who has also served as joint chairman of the Great Scottish Tapestry Charitable Trust, Andrew Crummy, artist and designer of the tapestry project, and Jan Rutherford, a director of the Birlinn publishing company and managing director of Publicity & The Printed Word.

She helped to manage the exhibition and tour of the tapestry panels, dealing with publicity, merchandising and future planning. Mr Moffat was responsible for advising the tapestry trustees on historical content..

Each of the directors holds a £1 share in the new company which notified Companies House of its change of name on July 30th. The fourth shareholder is best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, the other joint chairman of the charitable trust and initiator of the project.

All four shareholders are signatories to the name change resolution now published by Companies House.

Scottish Borders Council and the Scottish Government are in the process of spending more than £6.5 million on a custom-built home for the tapestry in Galashiels. The visitor centre is scheduled to open in the spring of 2020 and is forecast to attract 50,000 visitors each year to the Borders town.

The new tapestry museum will be run by Live Borders, the organisation which manages and administers cultural and sporting venues in the region. Stirling-based Ogilvie Construction has been given the contract to build the new centre which was designed for the council by Glasgow architectural firm Page Park. 

When it was announced in April that work was to start on construction of the visitor attraction, Mr Moffat told The Southern Reporter: "The Great Tapestry of Scotland is an object not only of great beauty and power, but it will also act as an engine for renewal.

“As large-scale retail moves to the periphery of towns and cities, it is magnetic cultural attractions like the tapestry that will bring back life to the centres of these beautiful places. “The huge success of the V&A in Dundee, attracting 500,000 visitors in six months, double estimates, is only the latest example of how well this strategy works.”

Mr McCall Smith is also a director of a company called Tapestry Trading (Scotland) Ltd, founded in 2013 and, like The Great Tapestry of Scotland Ltd. registered in Edinburgh.

According to Tapestry Trading (Scotland)'s last published accounts for the year to June 2018 the company had an annual turnover of £1,229 and recorded an operating profit of £132. The business had assets worth £6,279 and 'current liabilities' of £18,247.

The other two directors are retired solicitor Lesley Kerr who is also a tapestry Trustee, and Elizabeth McCall Smith. The nature of business is stated to be "Cultural Education" and "Artistic Creation".

Financial information (income and expenditure) for The Great Scottish Tapestry Charitable Trust can be found on the Scottish Charities regulator's website.

It displays the following figures for the tapestry trust: twelve months ending June 2016 - income £96,667; expenditure £114,669; 2017 - income £8,239; expenditure £16,611; 2018 - income £7,314; expenditure £30,703; 2019 - income £0; expenditure £0.


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