We officially launched!

Angela Prentner-Smith

Managing Consutant, This is Milk

We had our launch event on Friday and what an event it was. Months of planning and refining our business resulted in what we think turned out to be a great night. Almost 100 people attended, with representatives from many of Glasgow’s business support organisations, the residents from Orkney Street, our neighbours at Rookie Oven and a host of Scottish entrepreneurs.

A big thank you to everyone who came along, and for those of you that couldn't make it here’s a run down of the night:

Tommy Docherty of Jobs and Business Glasgow gave a grand introduction to the building, the history of Orkney Street and welcomed Nicola Sturgeon our local MSP.

Nicola Sturgeon took the stage, and opened with a joke, jibing with our Founder Angela’s mum about Albertan oil. Ever the professional, Nicola shared her support for This is Milk, noting that not only are we adding to the Scottish economy by our existence, but as we’re here to improve other businesses – this could boost the economy even further. Her words were ‘I’ll be watching this business with interest’. No pressure!

Angela Prentner-Smith, followed Nicola with a heartfelt speech. She offered her thanks for all the support and positivity the community and the room has shown to This is Milk, introduced the team, what we do, how we do it and finished with a quote from Kirstie Kelly’s Open Innovation article

Name Game
Angela also asked for some help in naming our team members – we’re not just business analysts, we don’t want to be consultants – so we opened it up to the crowd. As you'll see from our word cloud we got lots of brilliant suggestions, we're still debating the winner! ​

Getting to know the TIM team
Michelle Botia, our HR director facilitated a little game to learn more about the team.  This is what we learned:

•        Michelle fronted a heavy metal band in her youth
•        Angela wrote her dissertation on Kylie Minogue as a gay icon
•        Nicky was looked after as a baby by tap dancer Lionel Blair
•        Steven cycled around Scotland in the snow

Leah Hutcheon, an ambassador for Women's Enterprise Scotland closed the night with the story of how she came to meet Angela and become her business mentor. She offered us some inspirational words of support and we are thrilled to be working with Leah's business Appointedd soon! 

 Some of our favourite quotes from the night

“I wish I had a business, so I could work with you, but instead I married rich!” Gary Gilday
“I’m only 24 but this has been the best night of my life” Colin Adam on meeting Nicola Sturgeon
“We’re from Calgary – we have all the oil” Judith Measor to Nicola Sturgeon
“Not ALL the oil!” Nicola Sturgeon in response
"I refuse to be a business fairy" - Steven Marshall

The night wouldn't have been such a success without all the help we received, huge thanks....

• For permission to use the space and being our logistics man – James Edmonds at Jobs & Business Glasgow
• For the food and drinks – Whisk and Rona Proudfoot, the food was phenomenal and the mini white Russians went down a storm
• For the great photos – Nicola Ferguson and Mhairi Alexander
• For filming the night – Conor Reilly of Tuesday Club Film, we're really looking forward to sharing his footage
• For the design of our fabulous branded milk bottles, flyers and stands – Susan Cruickshank at Sumni Design
• For running guest registration and helping us set up – Anne-Marie Dockerill and Lesley McDowell
• For their encouraging and inspirational words - Nicola Sturgeon and Leah Hutcheon
• We’d also like to thank Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, Business Gateway, Jobs & Business Glasgow and Women’s Enterprise Scotland specifically for the ongoing support they’ve given us so far. You’ve been truly awesome.

The event in pictures

Missed it or want a reminder of what happened?  Here’s some of our favourite photos for now, and we’ll have video footage to share shortly too.

(Blog first published 11/05/2015)