Drummond Laurie have been in existence for 16 months since October 2013 and a lot has happened in that time! Our first few weeks in business are a distant memory and although very busy we managed to get ourselves organised fairly quickly. Like all new businesses, we had to find a suitable location for our new venture. We opted for offices in the Gateway Business Park which offered easy access and ample parking for our staff and clients, although there was much work required to bring the accommodation up to the quality we wanted. We moved in and then worked around the builders and in March 2014 our lovely new premises were ready.
Since we started we have progressed well and are so grateful to our clients for their valued support. We now have a team of 33 people based in Grangemouth and Perth. Feedback from our clients suggests that they are delighted with the new set-up, the services we are offering and the professionalism, approachability and friendliness of our team.
We are an ICAS registered training office and currently have two CA trainees in our team, Alana Morrison and Graeme Kelly. We were all so proud in December 2014 when Lucy Murray became the first Drummond Laurie trainee to qualify as a Chartered Accountant.
Last summer we welcomed our first summer intern, Louise Cunningham, who has agreed to re-join us as a full-time CA student when she finishes university later this year. We also look forward to two further interns joining us for this summer, Gemma Ramsay and Kelly Dawson.
As well as all the hard work, we’ve also had the chance to be sociable. We hosted a successful Client Golf Day at Auchterarder, attended the Strathcarron Ladies lunch in May, held a team quiz night in the office, whilst several of us attended the CHAS Christmas Lunch.
We’ve also had a few other firsts for Drummond Laurie in our first year or so; our first marriage was in July last year when Robert McMillan got married to Julie. We have four new additions; Mary Jack had a son Oscar, a wee brother for Dylan; Chris Todd a wee girl Isla; David Anderson a son James; whilst our newest baby is Amelia, a second daughter for Gillian Wayne. Margaret Bunyan celebrated her 30th Birthday and Linda Harvie her 40th.
We are passionate about supporting our local community and are keen to help with various initiatives and charities. We have signed a charity partnership with Strathcarron Hospice and already taking part in a few of their events. We had a team in It’s a Knockout and several of the staff ran the Strathcarron 10K.
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We are also supporting the local Foodbank and have given our time to help with the sorting out of food at the warehouse and collections at Tesco’s. We are also helping them with some of their administration functions.
We have been working with a group of other local businesses and have recently helped form, with the approval of Falkirk Football Club, a new networking club, The Bairns Business Club which launched at the Beancross Hotel on Tuesday 10th February. Any surplus raised from the business club will go back to the Football Club. We’ll be sharing more news soon about forthcoming events that will be running in the coming year.
We wish all our clients, friends, local businesses and organisations all the very best in 2015.