Petrofac hosts Education Industry Dinner

Petrofac, the oil & gas facilities service operator, will host its 2005 education industry dinner with Kincorth Academy on Friday 6th May at the Marcliffe at Pitfodels.

The education industry partnership with Kincorth Academy and Petrofac Facilities Management started in October 1998 and this is the third fundraising dinner that they jointly organised. Pupils from Kincorth have been directly involved with the planning of the event and together with a couple of teachers will spend the day at the Marcliffe shadowing staff. The dinner dance starts at 7.30pm with a welcome from Petrofac and Kincorth Academy. Cameron Stout from Big Brother will be the guest speaker and there will be entertainment from the pupils, as well as a raffle and a silent auction.

The purpose of the event is to raise funds to support the development of KATAPULT Community Theatre. This is a performing arts enterprise designed to provide artistic activities and programmes of work accessible to and generated by the community of Kincorth. A number of successful pieces have already been performed including “The Diary of Adrian Mole” and an original work, “A Christmas Crisis”. The theatre is currently working on performing Catherine Cookson’s “The Fifteen Streets” at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with further performances taking place at the Arts Centre in Aberdeen in September.

Jim Atack, managing director of Petrofac Facilities Management, said: “Our relationship with Kincorth Academy is very important to us at Petrofac and we take our role in the partnership very seriously. Undoubtedly the partnership has benefited the school and the pupils, but as a company we too have benefited from our work with Kincorth Academy. There is a genuine feel-good factor generated by our activities, our people have acquired and developed leadership and project management skills and as importantly I think we all understand better some of the challenges facing young people today.”

He added: “Our partnership is a true celebration of what can be achieved when business and the community work hand in hand. Now in its seventh year it continues to mature and it is gratifying to all involved to have our work recognised and granted awards by Grampian Education Business Partnership for Outstanding Business, Volunteer Development Scotland for Best Ongoing Partnership and Business in the Community. We have also gained recognition at a national level from the Scottish Executive in its Determined to Succeed Programme for developing enterprise in education.”