Chasing magic, not just money: how Mairi Curle built a business with community at its heart

There’s a phrase from my conversation with Mairi Curle from Boogie Beat Edinburgh, Mid & East Lothian that really stayed with me.

“I’m a big believer in not just chasing money, but also chasing magic.”

And honestly, that sums up her business beautifully.

Mairi is a finalist for the Community Impact Award, sponsored by Socially Shared, at The Class Business Awards 2026. She runs Boogie Beat across Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian, delivering music and movement classes in nurseries, community settings and care homes.

But the story behind the business started in a very different place.

Before Boogie Beat, Mairi spent more than ten years as a primary school teacher, with a particular focus on Primary One, nurture education and outdoor learning. Then long COVID changed everything. It became clear that returning to teaching wasn’t going to be possible in the same way, but she also knew she couldn’t imagine a life where she wasn’t working with children.

Boogie Beat gave her a route into something new, while keeping hold of the part of her old career she still loved.

Building around what was actually possible

One of the smartest things Mairi did from the very beginning was accept that she couldn’t build the business around delivering everything herself.

Because she was still recovering, she knew there was a limit to what she could physically do. She also knew exactly what income she needed to replace her teaching salary and support her family, so she built the model around that reality instead of fighting against it.

She started in January and had her first team member in place by the February holidays.

That decision shaped everything that came next.

Rather than trying to prove she could do it all, Mairi focused on creating a business that could grow around a team, and nursery work became the quickest way to create the financial foundation she needed.

Once that baseline was secure, though, she started thinking about the business differently.

She asked herself where the real magic was.

And that’s where the care-home work came in.

Where the magic really happens

Mairi now runs intergenerational sessions that bring babies, young children and older people together through music, movement and play.

Some are community sessions, where families and childminders book in and join care-home residents. Others are built around nursery groups visiting care homes regularly.

What happens in those rooms is hard to measure in a neat little business metric.

Mairi talks about residents who may not normally get up from their chairs suddenly joining in because children are there. They’ll take part in snowball fights, pop bubbles, sing along and become completely engaged in the room.

At the same time, the children are learning something equally valuable. They’re developing confidence around different generations, building social skills and learning how to interact with adults they may not come across in everyday life.

That exchange is what makes the work so powerful.

The children bring energy.

The residents bring connection.

And music gives everyone something shared to meet in the middle.

Becoming the catalyst, not the centre

One of the most impressive parts of Mairi’s model is that she isn’t trying to make Boogie Beat essential to every interaction.

She’s created a structure that helps nurseries and care homes build relationships with each other, often where both sides wanted to connect but didn’t quite know how to make it happen.

Nursery teams can feel nervous about bringing children into a care-home environment. Care-home staff are already busy and don’t always have the time to design an activity for a nursery group from scratch.

Mairi steps into that gap.

She creates the safe structure, leads the session and helps both sides feel confident.

Then something really interesting starts to happen.

Those relationships continue without her.

Care homes and nurseries that first connected through Boogie Beat are now meeting for Christmas activities, Easter events and other occasions in between the formal sessions.

That’s what community impact looks like when it starts to ripple.

You create the connection, then the community carries it forward.

The business side still matters

What I like about Mairi’s story is that none of this is built on vague good intentions.

She’s very commercially aware.

She knew what she needed to earn. She knew nursery work would create the strongest base. She knew she needed a team. And she knew that if the business was going to support her family and her recovery, it had to be structured properly.

Today, the team delivers around 36 nursery sessions a week across roughly 15 to 18 nurseries, alongside the care-home and community work.

That’s a significant operation, and it’s been built through persistence more than luck.

Mairi talks openly about how she gets into nurseries. She sends thoughtful outreach, follows up, picks up the phone and does what she says she’s going to do, even though cold calling definitely isn’t something that comes naturally to her.

Her recent approach involved sending a rhyming poem and a KitKat with a message telling the nursery team to take a break and have a look at how they could work together, then telling them exactly when she’d call.

And then she called.

That follow-through is the bit people often skip.

The creative idea might get attention, but consistency is what turns attention into opportunity.

Building a team people feel safe in

Mairi now has five people in the team, and she’s really clear that managing people well isn’t just about timetables and lesson plans.

Organisation helps, of course. Everyone knows what they’re delivering, themes are planned well in advance and training resources are easy to access.

But the culture matters just as much.

Mairi wants team members to feel safe saying when something hasn’t gone to plan, when they’re unsure or when they need support. She also doesn’t expect everyone to be good at the same things.

Some people love care-home work.

Some don’t.

Some are naturally brilliant in one environment and less comfortable in another.

Instead of forcing everyone into the same mould, Mairi tries to play to people’s strengths and put them in situations where they can do their best work.

That’s a really strong leadership lesson, especially in a class business where the customer experience depends so heavily on the person delivering it.

You can’t do everything yourself

Mairi is also very open about delegation.

She still creates a lot of the marketing content herself, but scheduling is something she finds difficult, so she gets support with it.

That might sound like a small thing, but it’s a really important mindset shift.

As a business gets bigger, growth starts to depend on being honest about where your time is best spent.

You don’t get extra points for doing everything yourself.

Sometimes the smartest investment is paying someone else to take the task that drains you so you can stay focused on the work you’re actually best at.

Community impact needs a strong business underneath it

Mairi’s story is such a good example of why impact and commercial thinking don’t have to sit on opposite sides of the table.

The nursery work provides the strong financial base.

The team makes the delivery sustainable.

The systems keep everything organised.

And that gives Mairi the space to pursue the work where she sees the greatest human impact.

That’s the balance.

You need the money.

But you also need the magic.

And when the business is strong enough to support both, that’s where something really special can happen.

Watch the full interview

In our full conversation, Mairi shares how long COVID changed the direction of her career, why she built a team almost immediately, how she’s grown to around 36 nursery sessions a week and why bringing children and care-home residents together has become such an important part of Boogie Beat.

👉 Watch Mairi’s full finalist interview here.

Mairi is a finalist for the Community Impact Award, sponsored by Socially Shared, at The Class Business Awards 2026.

If you’re building a business and trying to work out how commercial growth and meaningful impact can sit together, join us at The Class Business Live on Saturday 10 October 2026 at the National Conference Centre in Solihull. We’ll be talking about growth, teams, partnerships, leadership and the decisions that help you build something that works in the real world, before celebrating together at The Class Business Awards & Afterparty that evening.

Secure your spot for The Class Business Live and Awards here.