Aberdeen City Council wins Gold
05/03/10
Aberdeen City Council has won gold at COSLA's (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities) prestigious Excellence Awards 2010 for its Transition Extreme sports project.
Transition Extreme is an innovative youth charity centred around extreme sports.
The council's involvement in the social enterprise project, which it part-funds, won gold in the Community Planning and Local Democracy category, after being shortlisted alongside council projects in Edinburgh and Renfrewshire.
Transition Extreme, with the support of Aberdeen City Council, gets young people involved in extreme sports, arts and music as a way of helping them avoid negative recreation such as drugs, alcohol and vandalism.
The Aberdeen team gave a presentation last month [February] to a panel of 10 judges at COSLA Headquarters in Edinburgh. A short video was also filmed for the awards ceremony.
Transition Extreme is a state-of-the-art extreme and urban sports centre. It was purpose-built as part of the council's regeneration programme after the authority worked with Aberdeen's young people to find out what they wanted. The council worked with them to deliver a facility which provided even more than what they had asked for.
Facilities at the adventure centre, situated at Aberdeen's beach area, include a climbing wall and skateboard and BMX parks. There is also a vibrant café area and music rooms.
Transition Extreme general manager, Tim Rankin said: "We're absolutely delighted at the news. We faced very stiff opposition from across Scotland. We're working hard to make a positive difference in the North-east of Scotland and to win the gold award is a huge honour. Transition Extreme celebrates its third birthday next month so the timing of this is perfect".
COSLA Vice President, Aberdeen City Councillor Neil Fletcher, who chaired the judging panel, described the entries for the awards this year as truly inspiring:
"The COSLA Excellence Awards showcase and celebrate the very best of Scottish local government. Year after year we see projects which continue to live up to this billing.
"Every one of our finalists has set new standards for excellence, and demonstrated real innovation and creativity in delivering important services in an increasingly challenging environment. Their incredible results speak for themselves, but above all else, I have been struck by the commitment, enthusiasm and utter passion that council workers and our partners have for delivering better outcomes for their communities."
The COSLA Excellence Awards celebrate inspired approaches to local issues. They recognise projects that set new standards for excellence across Scotland's councils.
The 2010 COSLA Excellence Awards have honoured ten Scottish councils for outstanding quality of service to the public by Scottish Local Government