About
Greyhope Bay
Greyhope Bay exists to connect people to place and co-create with them the change, experiences and stories that empower and re-imagine our relationship with the coast, environment and heritage
Since the days when Greyhope Bay was a dream of creating a centre in Aberdeen at one of the best spots in Scotland to watch dolphins, we have built a cafe and community facility from scratch, respecting the environment and the historical value of the site.
The Greyhope Bay Centre is now a place where people gather to share local knowledge, resources, and ideas on how to better improve our connection with the coast whilst watching dolphins and enjoying a coffee.
We operate collaboratively in an open and co-creative way whilst pushing the boundaries of the ways projects are normally delivered.
Our latest project is about expanding our facilities, capacity and programmes and creating a model in which communities and people can actively participate and co-design with us the future we want to build together for our coast, environment, heritage and communities.
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>>> We connect, empower and re-imagine the relationship between people and the coast. We launched the first off-grid cafe and learning centre in Aberdeen.
>>> We operate without connection to grid power and water and use alternative hybrid energy and circular rainwater technology.
>>> Our cafe space is the best spot in the UK for dolphin watching and the cafe with the best views in Aberdeen!
>>> We host creative and heritage-based workshops and events led by local people to share knowledge and learn new skills (greyhopebay.com/events)
>>> We run educational programmes for school groups year around (greyhopebay.com/learning)
>>> We host community Skipper meetings, a monthly meeting for people to come and co-create with us our future events and programmes. (www.greyhopebay.com/events)
>>> We work collaboratively with local businesses to provide services that creatively engage with the coast and people
>>> We create initiatives that bring community groups and local businesses together to take care of our local environment and heritage.
>>> We facilitate capacity building for communities and groups to help them further their project and ambition for the local environment, coast and heritage.
Have an idea for a workshop, event, or initiative? Contact us at hello@greyhopebay.com
You would love to collaborate and work with us if:
You love creating projects where people can have direct input.
You are comfortable with participatory rather than top-down approaches, and you favour transparency and openness over bureaucracy and opaqueness.
You don’t need to have all the answers before you start.
You love moving ideas forward and collaborating with others.
You believe in the power of travelling as a pod. You are happy recognising individual work and giving credit to the collective process when needed.
You feel comfortable with big challenges that require collective effort.
If this is you, we would love to hear from you, Join our monthly community events, become a crew member or corporate skipper
Fiona founded Greyhope Bay in late 2015 with the ambition to connect and engage communities with the marine wildlife, environment and heritage on Aberdeen’s doorstep.
Fiona is purpose driven and leads Greyhope Bay as Chief Executive by rooting the project in its core values of community empowerment, collaboration and inspiring change.
Fiona has successfully built a team around her and mobilised a community behind Greyhope Bay.
Fiona is an accomplished social entrepreneur, communicator, strategist and marine research scientist.
Fiona is available for speaking at fiona.mcintyre@greyhopebay.org.uk
Gokay Deveci has worked with Fiona since the early conceptual stages of the project, as early as 2013. Gokay has understood Fiona’s ambition for the project in terms of place making and the impact of creating a building with meaning.
Gokay’s design influence has been led by how we can create a building with resilience, a build project owned by the community that can adapt and last in changing economic, social and cultural circumstances.
Gokay holds a professorial chair at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment at the Robert Gordon University.
He has an international reputation for his expertise in affordable and sustainable low energy housing.
Frances joined the team in July 2023 to manage the Greyhope Bay Centre operations and programme development.
Frances is an Aberdeen University physiology graduate who spent the last two years managing a visitor centre in a coastal town in south west Scotland - Kircudbright. She loves the outdoors; sea swimming, rock pooling, hiking and camping.
She is looking forward to sharing her passion for the coast whilst working alongside the Greyhope Bay team to build on their fantastic programme of events.
Rachel joined Greyhope Bay in June 2022 as our engagement and learning officer. She has taken the reigns in developing outdoor learning and an engaging school's programme at the Greyhope Bay Centre.
Rachel has an extensive background in visitor engagement roles and spent 6 years working as a fish keeper in public aquariums, where she specialised in working with animals native to the UK. Rachel always loved showing visitors how incredible the wildlife on our doorstep is and Greyhope Bay is a brilliant example of this! Rachel is looking forward to bringing her experience to our education programme and continuing to foster connections between people and Aberdeen's wildlife.
Natalia has collaborated with Fiona since 2017 supporting her to understand and communicate the true drivers and story of Greyhope Bay.
She has supported the Greyhope Bay team in designing a new way of fundraising based on their values and story that allowed the project to take off.
Natalia continues to work with Greyhope Bay in communication and supporting peoples’ engagement by putting co-creation and participaton at the core of Greyhope capacity and facilities expansion in Phase 2.
James joined the Greyhope Bay team in summer 2019 with the aim of supporting our rebrand, website development and graphic design work.
James immediately understood the ethos and values of Greyhope Bay and has used his creative design skills to tell our story through thoughtful design, identity, print and even handmade ceramics.
He travels between Glasgow & Aberdeenshire and regularly supports Greyhope Bay with authentic creative ideas in both our communications and operational strategy.
Autumn manages our social media channels, creating engaging posts and communicating all that is happening at the centre and the work of our team.
Autumn has been curating our online profile since 2020.
Rosie joined the team in October 2023 as our Project Support Officer. As part of this role, Rosie identifies and secures additional funding and charitable income to further the lasting community impact of our projects.
Rosie is completing her PhD at the University of Aberdeen, researching human and nature relationships.
She loves being outside, trail running, photography, birdwatching and sharing my love of nature with others - I’m so excited to work for Greyhope Bay and I’m looking forward to helping connect more people with Aberdeen’s coastline.
