The NEN has received a cheque for £500 from The Royal Bank of Scotland. The banks’s charity committee agreed to support an application by NEN board member Eddie Thorn.
Kevin Havelock, Regional Director for Corporate and Institutional Banking at Royal Bank of Scotland, explained: “Following the difficulties that RBS experienced in recent years we are looking to reconnect with the communities that we all live and work in.”
He went on: “We are very fortunate at RBS to have many staff who have been with us for twenty, twenty-five even thirty years and many of them are active in their communities. We established a system of grants to support local charities and community initiatives nominated by our staff.
“The Edinburgh Community Partnership Board has representation from every division of the bank – there are eleven people in all on the committee, each with an equal vote. We were delighted both with the volume and the great variety of nominations that came in, and we agreed our first round of grants in October. We are supporting a very broad spectrum of good causes, from supplying sports equipment to groups to helping local health charities.”
Royal Bank of Scotland will donate £100,000 in a rolling programme in the East of Scotland, and one of the first forty grateful recipients is North Edinburgh News.
North Edinburgh News treasurer Eddie Thorn said: “The Royal Bank of Scotland is to be commended for their wide contribution to local communities. It is particularly pleasing that they recognised all that the NEN strives to achieve, and we are very grateful for the bank’s generous support – it’s much appreciated.”
Kevin added: “We will be offering practical and sometimes even physical support, too – we want the charity to get more from the bank than just a cheque. Working with and providing support to the charity is a natural progression.”
NEN’s Eddie Thorn and RBS’ Kevin Havelock are pictured outside the NEN’s base at Edinburgh College Granton Campus.
