Chief officers from leisure trusts throughout Scotland met at the Clickimin Centre in Lerwick in the Shetland Isles last month for their regular Scottish region meeting.

During the three days, the group discussed green issues and professional memberships as well as regionalisation of CPD training and other seminars and conferences.

They also discussed VAT issues, particularly following the Court of Session ruling from the Highland Council V HMRC Appeal. The general consensus was that it was important all trusts stood together, headed by SpoRTA, in relation to any future cases brought forward, with a suggestion that it would be sensible for consideration for a pooling of financial support as any outcome would affect every Sporta Member.

Douglas Foreman, general manager of West Lothian Leisure, also reported back on a meeting with senior civil servants at the Scottish Parliament. “We had a great opportunity to present the great many advantages of trust status to key representative from the Scottish Executive,” he said.

“In addition, it has also opened up channels of communication and I am delighted to announce that the most senior Civil Servant dealing with leisure from the Scottish Executive has agreed to meet with us at our next meeting in Inverness.

“I am sure that we will all take this excellent opportunity to positively present the benefits we have found as operators of Leisure Trusts in Scotland but also within the wider UK scale.”

Following the meeting, host James Johnston said: “I have been delighted by the commitment demonstrated by my Scottish SpoRTA colleagues in taking this amount of time out of their busy schedules to visit Shetland.

“When you consider that our nearest main railway station is actually in Norway, this demonstrates to some degree the distance that you are from the Scottish mainland. So to say that this group are someway off their usual beaten tracks is probably an understatement.”

He concluded: “On behalf of my team in Shetland, we are delighted that we have been able to host this meeting of the Scottish Region of SpoRTA. I hope that they will have been given a decent enough sample of island life that may at some point entice them to return on a more social visit in the future.”

The next meeting of the Scottish Region of Sporta is on Tuesday 6 November 2007 in the City of Inverness, hosted by Inverness Leisure.