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original 19, just seven – nicknamed The Magnificent Seven – qualified in 1999 with a further seven planning to sit the exam in 2000. The Magnificent Seven were Mary Kemp Clarke, Marianne Everett-de-Vink, Annette Kurth, Jim Lennie, Jenny Mann, Francoise McCredie-Vermeire and Julian Ward. Five dropped out of the course because of personal circumstances. The course ran at a loss, and you can imagine, it was a bit of a co-ordination nightmare, but it was a good idea,’ said Ros. ‘Unfortunately, some university courses were cancelled forcing the trainees to travel to complete the course – this contributed to the high drop-out rate. After that the other universities dropped out, one by one, and Edinburgh University ended up being willing to do the whole thing. ‘Dr Con Gillen of Edinburgh University was awarded Honorary Membership of STGA because of his unstinting support. He was very proud of his own Blue Badge – despite having two PhDs and numerous other qualifications!! The first one we gave him was mounted on a stand but the Board decided to give him a “real one” so that he could get STGA member privileges like the occasional free coffee. He came on every single practical tour as well as leading study tours for STGA CPD and we reckoned he had completed the Blue Badge course several times over! Our geology knowledge improved as did his presentation and guiding skills!’
Back in the 1990s the target was to produce 15 new Blue Badge guides per year, or five per cent of the whole membership, to maintain a steady state allowing for retirals and semi-retirals. That decade also saw Ros expand training to Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles and the creation of Regional Green Badges again validated by Edinburgh University with support from HIE, giving official educational credibility and the award of a Certificate of Higher Education. In 2000 Scottish Enterprise had various projects with millennium funding and one was to develop tourism in what it called "The Atlantic Islands of Argyll". Ros then ran her own training company called One Step Ahead and was invited to go and run training for anybody in tourism to encourage them to develop their product.
One year she went to Mull, Iona, Coll, Colonsay, Tiree, Islay, and Gigha, to run these courses. ‘There were B&B owners, shop owners and crafts people, and my job was facilitating them to think of ways in which they could develop their businesses,’ she said.
‘You got an awful lot of, “oh but there's nothing here, but boring brown birds. Who wants to look at sheep?” The challenge was changing their mindset.
‘But in the process, a number of people were interested in setting up guided tours. So that was why I persuaded Argyll Enterprise that we should run a course down there, to train guides. We got people from
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