About Giglets
Company Background
Giglets Limited comprises five university and college students, all of whom live in Ayrshire, Scotland. The company was originally started as the basis of a Young Enterprise Scotland (YES) project in our 6th year at secondary school and we ended up finishing a close runner-up in the YES National Awards; after realising the potential in our business, it was thereafter continued and established as a Limited Company on 31st August 2007.
It was in September 2006 that Giglets was created as part of the YES Company Programme at Loudoun Academy in Ayrshire. In the beginning there were a whopping 20 or so people involved in the company.
We quickly realised that we wanted Giglets to be a YES company that did not produce some of the run of the mill products that had been produced in the past by so many.
We wanted to really do something quite unique and something that would allow us to really give something back to not only our school but our local and national community as a whole.
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During this period of consultation over the direction of our venture, the less committed individuals started to become more exposed. We quickly went from having over 20 people involved to just 12. We reorganised the business slightly and decided to continue.
It was at this stage we came up with the character Tam O’Haggis. This was originally thought of as being just a joke but quickly became a reality after realising the character’s true potential.
Our inspiration for the creation of Tam O’Haggis really came from our own educational experiences and of course Ayrshire’s very own Robert Burns - our national Bard. Robert Burns is possibly Scotland’s greatest icon and one which has helped form our nation and what we stand for today. We also recognised that his works, in the eyes of many youngsters, may have become seen as somewhat outdated and uninteresting, which we wanted to change.
For example, when we were all at Primary School we remembered that in January we would always be given Burns poetry to memorise and perform in front of the class, if not the school, such as “To A Mouse” or To A Louse”. As young children we did not always understand the language involved and for that reason we did not always appreciate it as well as we could have. As a result, we felt put off by Burns and his works almost from day one.
Giglets (which means laughing/giggling children in old Scots) knew that this had to change and that Robert Burns was a hugely important part of our history, culture and heritage. So, on that basis we decided to use Tam O’Haggis to simplify things and to make it all more fun and exciting, using arguably Burns’ most famous poem “Tam O’Shanter” - fitting isn’t it?
We are sure you will agree that it all sounds very exciting and positive at this point but unfortunately not all was well. To take us through this period of development we had a Managing Director who did not believe that this product would be a success. In the best interests of the business he was forced to resign as Managing Director and shortly after he left the company altogether leaving us with 11 “employees”.
By this stage it was October and we knew we had to move very quickly to ensure our success. After a stern talking to from our business advisors Robert McCallum, Paul Casey and Brian Hill we started to get our “house” in order.
Firstly, we elected our new Managing Director; Louise Bennett who did an excellent job in getting our company moving positively. We allocated the tasks to remaining team and got cracking. We were very fortunate to have talented writers, illustrators, musicians, speakers, IT specialists and managers involved in the business.
After a stressful few months we managed to get our book ready for print. To be able to do this financially, we raised money through getting pre-orders for our book by showing sample pictures from it to prospective customers and also by holding “Live at Lunch” concerts. This was where we got “talented” teachers to come in and perform for the pupils who paid to come in and see it. This allowed us to get our first print run of 1000 books delivered just three days before Christmas. We had a mad rush to make sure we got the books to our customers before the holidays, which involved a lot of walking, driving and map reading!
After Christmas we really began to expand our idea and business. We got our books into the Borders bookstore in Glasgow, we attended the West Sound Burns Supper- one of the largest in the world, and moreover, we appeared on West Sound and West FM radio as well as Scotland Today on the 25th January 2007- the Bards birthday.
In addition, we met Rolf Harris and even the First Minister at the time Jack McConnell, which gave us the opportunity to go and visit the Scottish Parliament and discuss our vision for wee Tam on a one to one basis with Jack.
With our books selling well, we quickly approached the regional YES awards. To our delight we won the Ayrshire awards. We came away with 7 out of 11 awards including best innovation and best presentation, a fantastic achievement for us.
During this time we also made contact with an organisation called EDpaX. EDpaX is a group of experienced educationalists. Drawing on a wealth of experience and skills gained in the teaching profession. They aim to support the busy teacher in promoting quality teaching and learning using the Interactive Whiteboard to deliver the full curriculum.
Today, we have worked well with EDpaX and developed our own Interactive Whiteboard Software package for the classroom. To find out more please see our product pages...
After our success at the Ayrshire finals we then took part in the National Finals in June 2007. Sadly, we did not manage first prize but we came a very close second whilst taking away best report and second best presentation. Not coming first however certainly did not faze us! We went ahead with our plans and incorporated as a Limited Company on the 31st of August 2007. When we decided to take this business ahead we had to give a lot of consideration as to who we would want on the team. After much discussion we felt that we were going to have to ask three of our members to no longer continue with the business. This was nothing personal but purely down to the needs of the business and what these individuals could offer us at the time.
This of course meant the 8 of us would be taking Giglets ahead into the “real” world. As such, we organised the business and appointed a new Managing Director: Craig Johnstone who has led the company over the past 2 years and Louise became Craig’s Assistant Managing Director until June 2008 when she decided to step down from the organisation. With our vision in mind we keenly started marketing Giglets as “a small company with untold potential”
At the time of writing (August 2009) we are in a time of major change, in our organisational structure, product development and direction for the future. Giglets now has an excellent team of 5 committed individuals who strive to make Giglets the best independent publisher of Scottish Children’s books in the country and of course allowing Tam O’Haggis to grow and through his adventures allow him to be; “opening a learning gateway to Scotland”.
© 2009 Giglets Ltd