The Hoolit Directory celebrated its 10th birthday!

Last month saw our publication, The Hoolit Directory (or 'The Directory' as it was originally known), celebrate its tenth birthday.

As a thank you to our fabulous clients for their loyalty, we held a wee 'do' in Kaldi's on 22nd June to celebrate. Without them we would never have achieved this amazing landmark.

I find organising any kind of business event very stressful and, as this particular day consisted of a string of minor 'disasters', by the time I arrived at Kaldi's (half an hour late, as usual) I was sweating like a Sun reader at a Mensa test, teetering ungracefully in pair of heels that made me walk like a Thunderbird puppet.

So, I was extremely grateful to Grace, the member of staff I encountered on arrival, who could obviously sense my struggles and asked if I would like a drink. "Red wine, please" I panted "...large". When she handed me a 'glass' that wouldn't look out of place in my living room with a couple of goldfish swimming around in it, filled almost to the brim with a tantalising merlot, I thought "OK, this is going to be an interesting evening."

And it was. Half a glass of wine later my face returned to its normal hue and I started to relax. Mary, Agnes and I spoke to all the clients who came along and enjoyed drinks, food and our delicious birthday cake (even though the sparklers were more like damp squibs)!

Our regular photographer, Karen Muircroft, got some cracking photos and Kurtis Magic provided entertainment with some amazing close-up magic tricks round the tables.

Mary made me give a speech, which she took great delight in filming on Facebook Live, after which we presented our longest running, continuous advertiser, Jim Currens, with a bottle of champagne as he has advertised his plumbing business in the magazine since issue number 3 - August 2007!

So here we are ten years down the line and still going strong! However, we know we need to keep up with the ever-changing times, so we have launched a website and app to complement the magazine.

The new website turned into a much bigger project than we expected, but we think it will become an invaluable source of information to people in the east end and a great platform for local businesses to advertise on to reach a different audience than they do in the magazine.

Visit the website www.hoolit.co.uk or download the app for free on Apple or Android 'Hoolit Glasgow East'.

Some of the photos from our party: