TBI and Covid -19

18 March 2020

The following is the text of an interim newsletter issued today 18 March to explain TBI's actions in response to the Covid-19 virus situation.  It follows a special directors' meeting held on 17 March.
 
Obviously TBI has been following the Covid-19 situation and last night our directors met to consider how we should respond. In very general terms we will continue to follow all relevant guidelines from Scottish and UK governments, which means, for the time being, we will avoid any non-essential activities that involve possible spread of the virus.
In most specific cases the way to reflect that is fairly clear, but the Community Markets are more of a grey area, as they combine an essential function – food sales – with a non-essential social gathering.

For two of our markets things have already been taken out of our hands – the venues we use for the North Kessock and Cromarty community markets have already announced that they will close, but for the third (Fortrose) we are thinking about whether we can reduce the non-essential aspect to a level where we are happy to proceed – bearing in mind that we think it is really important to support our local food producers & retailers to ensure we have a resilient community in the years to come.  We don't know how long these closures will last.
 
Things are moving very quickly at the moment; we will post updates on our website, newsletters and on social media, so if in doubt, double check there! The table below shows what we are planning for events scheduled for March and April: