Our aim is to ensure every family in our school community has a safe place to meet for support and to provide a healthy meal or snack to combat the cost of living crisis.

We aim to promote health and wellbeing by running after school workshops for our families. The workshops will run over a 6 month period from January 2025 - June 2025. Each workshop will run for around an hour and a healthy snack or light meal will also be provided. 

We have collated responses from our parents and children which highlighted the following:

• parents want to feel more included in the school environment and with their child's learning
• children would like their parent/caregiver to have more involvement with their learning and for the learning to be ‘more fun’
• families would like to meet for support (from each other and from professionals)
• families would like to be more active
• children would like to learn how to cook healthy meals
• parents and children expressed an interest in attending a regular after-school club

We feel our plan for an after-school family hub would help meet the needs highlighted, we would be able to support family learning in a fun and engaging way. As well as providing a healthy snack or light meal, to help families during the current cost of living crisis.

We would work with the local community builder, the NHS, Local charities and Parent Council Volunteers to ensure a wide range of needs are met. Each ‘workshop’ at our new Family hub would have a theme, such as:

• Homework Help/ Supported Study (supporting family learning)
• Health and Wellbeing (promoting physical and mental wellbeing)

• Equality and Equity (outside agency delivering a workshop on this, with fun family games)
• Health and Fitness (physical games and activities for all ages and abilities)
• Cooking Healthy meals on a budget (community cook-a-long)
• Caring for our Community (community litter picks)

We would use the money secured from the bid to get our ‘Family Hub’ up and running.  Our predicted expenditure is £40 to buy equipment such as plates, cutlery and cooking utensils. Then a further £40 per session (for 24 sessions) to purchase the ingredients for the included healthy meal/snack.

Our clubs mission is to the give people of irvine and surrounding areas a chance to get physically active and play the sport of table tennis. Alongside playing, our club brings people together from all from all backgrounds and creates an opportunity for social interaction and physical activity which can and does improve their health and wellbeing. Table tennis and sport is one of the best tools we have to improve mental and physical health and table tennis is a sport which can be played and enjoyed by all ages regardless of ages & abilitity. Irvine TT Club priortity is the keep our costs low and affordable for everyone who attends our club night and classes. We continue to offer a FREE first night for newcomers and we have no upfront membership fee. We also provide all relevant equipment at no extra cost such as bats, balls tables and barriers to seperate the playing space. 

We would like to apply for support to assist us to keep our costs low and affordable for players playing at our club sessions. We also want to create more opportunites to play table tennis throughout irvine during the daytime. Our plans is the start a FREE weekly classes outwith the portal in a selected community centres or local schools. This will give irvine locality more opportunities to be active, socialise and interact with people within their community. We aim to call these sesssions "Bat & Chat" as this is what it will do, give people a chance to chat to each other when playing. We also will be starting up a dedicated parkinsons table tennis class at the portal for people with parkinsons to attend.

Breakdown of Costs £350 - 2 tables at £175 each £150 - 5 nets at £30 each £80 - 2 boxes of training balls at £40 each £100 - 20 beginners bats at £5 each £200 - Hall hire subsidy - 40 hours £880 - Total

To reinforce the annual school visits it is intended to produce a workbook for each pupil take away with them as a reminder of their visit.

In relation to the verse speaking “Champion of Champion” event funding is sought to provide trophies for those pupils nominated to represent their schools and performing their chosen poem.

It is intended that there will be three categories, Primaries 1-2, Primaries 3-4 and Primaries 5-7.

There are 11/12 Primary Schools in the Irvine Area, and it is hoped that all would participate.

Those nominated by their schools are also eligible to compete in the Ayrshire Association of Burns Clubs Schools’ Competition held later in the year.

We seek funding towards the printing costs of the workbooks (£500) and the purchase of 36 trophies at a cost of £20 each (£720) a total of £1220.

At Crossing Together Toddlers we aim to provide a fun, warm, safe, welcoming and accessible space for babies and toddlers to come along with their grown-ups from Bourtreehill and the surrounding areas of Irvine.  In setting up the group we initially looked at accessing funding to purchase equipment and toys however a toddler group in Troon had recently folded and they gifted us items that meant we could launch the group immediately. The group is free of charge to families to access and weekly snacks and craft materials are provided through donations and fundraising.  It is important for us to maintain a no charge policy to maximise accessibility due to the cost of living crisis and our locality being significantly impacted with regards poverty.  Weekly snacks provided are balanced with items like fruit, toast and juice/water being provided for the children and a warm drink and biscuits for the grown-ups.  As well as the weekly sessions we want to provide the families with new experiences that can include their older children and partners which will extend the community spirit that is being built in and around the group already.  These new experiences include family fun days, parties, trips and days out locally and further afield. 

Many of the families who attend the group rarely travel outwith Irvine and it would be great to improve the health and wellbeing through a summer trip to a farm park, which would provide a new experience by seeing the animals we sing about and read about at our weekly song and story time.  A Christmas Party with entertainment, hospitality and a visit from Santa would also encourage positive mental health during the festive time that brings much stress with extra financial outgoing in winter.  A weekend family fun day using the local park space would enable us to include working parents and older children and through hospitality/food and fun activities create a positive aspect to a park area that carries much saddness in the community and encourage resislience and new owership of the local space. 

For Crossing Together to provide these experiences at no cost to the families in our locality we would be applying for the PB Locality Funding to help meet these costs as well as doing additional fundraising and seeking donations.

Examples of costings to provide such experiences are:-

Farm park admission (approx 80 people includes under 2s free) = £625

Childrens Party Entertainer = £125

Gifting from Santa (approx 40 gifts) = £120

Hospitality Party/Funday = £130

Additional costings for items like craft materials and additional hospitality would be sought through donations and fundraising.

Our karate club is based in Irvine is well established and open to all. We practice in the Redburn and Castlepark community centres on Mondays, Wednesday and Saturdays. We have c. 150 members that benefit from our classes and we support physical and mental health. Our members are in all age groups and many are from deprived areas and challenged by the cost of living. Many of our members attend competitions all over the UK and we try to keep our costs low and support people so that everyone can take part. For example we already subsidise karate suits, competition entry fees etc. We’d be grateful for any funding and money would go towards equipment and suit subsidies, subsidising entry costs and occasional travel to competitions.

Estimated breakdown would be:

-        Equipment (mats, punchbags, T-shirts, etc) - £400

-        Suit subsidies – 40 suits x £10 subsidy = £400

-        Entrance fees subsidies, we pay £1600 roughly in entrance fees  – £200 

An afternoon tea with entertainment would be provided for our senior citizen members. This would allow them to meet others and help with their wellbeing and cost of living.

£600 for food and drinks 

£100 for entertainment 

£50 for hire of hall