to find out more about The Promise in Aberdeen, contact

Gette Cobban

Senior Development Officer (The Promise)

ACVO TSI

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Oct 4, 2024

October update from Gette Cobban –  Senior Development Officer (The Promise), ACVO TSI

#KeepThePromise in Aberdeen Campaign Display Boards on Tour

Many of our readers attended the Promise event back in June and there you will have seen our #KeepThePromise in Aberdeen Campaign display boards which highlighted just some of the work being done around The Promise in Aberdeen.

These boards have recently been on display at the Aberdeen Vaccination Centre within the Bon-Accord Centre and have just recently moved to Marischal College. They will be on display at Marischal College until mid-October.

You can find out more about the campaign and hear stories from the local organisations involved at acvo.org.uk/keepthepromise. If you have a venue that could host these boards please get in touch, we’d love to keep the tour going!


Visit from Kevin Stewart MSP

ACVO Funding Officer, Claire Shaw, and myself hosted Kevin Stewart MSP and his assistant Blair Fulton on Friday 6th September.

We had a great conversation about the current Promise work within the city and Kevin was able to add his experience of work across Scotland.

He tells us that he hears very positively about work in Aberdeen and it’s great to hear that our third sector is being noticed at Scottish Government level. Kevin raised a motion in The Scottish Parliament recently to mark The Promise celebration event ACVO hosted over summer to highlight the third sector work in being done in Aberdeen to #KeepThePromise.


Promise Plan 24-30: Where are we now, where do we need to get to and how are we going to do it

You will likely all know already about the recent launch of the Plan 24-30 to help us move forward and take the final steps towards working to #KeepThePromise.

Whilst the plan still focuses on the same five foundations ie. Voice, Family, Care, People & Scaffolding there is a great deal of focus on what we need to do now to make sure we do keep the promise made by 2030.

If you haven’t already had a look or you would just like a refresh have a look at the Plan 24 – 30 website (plan2430.scot/what-is-plan-24-30) which gives a useful refresh. It is entitled “Reflect, Refocus, Reset”. This is a good refresher and to help get folks starting to think about where we are now and what we need to do next. You can also easily get from there to the actual plan itself and have a look through.

Something I would suggest you take a look at and get your team involved is the section around ‘Understanding progress’ This will give you a chance to look at where we are now and think about what we need next to move forward.

Within this same section you can have a look at and download some ‘What matters questions’. These are interesting to read just as questions themselves but also perhaps a useful resource for working with your wider team as an exercise or activity to get everyone involved.


Aberdeen Celebrating Success Awards 2024

I was delighted to get an invitation to the Aberdeen City Celebrating Success Awards on 11th September at Get Active at Westburn.

These awards celebrate and recognise the efforts and achievements of our local care experienced young people in S3 to S6 and those who have gone on to achieve beyond school.

The session was led by Larissa Gordon, Virtual Head Teacher, who was so proud of the achievements of every single one of “her kids” and that pride was so obvious for all who were there. A lovely presentation from both Shona Milne (lead officer for Education) and Graeme Simpson (lead officer for social work) also added to the warmth of the afternoon. I sat with a few folks from one of the local schools and one very proud mum who was drawn to tears as 2 of her children won awards for their efforts.

One of my abiding memories of the afternoon will be of a young person approaching Forrest Templeton (who recently retired from the Young People’s Rights Service) challenging him to a game of archery. Our conversation was forgotten and he was off to the Archery area. Despite the rain he and the young person who obviously really rated him as a person were off for their archery challenge. I was left standing, totally forgotten.

to find out more about The Promise in Aberdeen, contact

Gette Cobban

Senior Development Officer (The Promise)

ACVO TSI

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