1. Annually, during January and February Irvine Burns Club invites local primary school Primary 6 pupils (450 in 2024) to Wellwood Burns Centre & Museum to learn about the life of Burns and the pivotal role Irvine played encouraging him to develop as a poet. 2. By entering a “Champion of Champion” event, Primary Schools demonstrate their pupils’ reading and speaking skills, boosting their self-confidence and fostering an appreciation of the Scots language.

We would like to host 2 networking events to raise the profile of Irvine Community Council and other voluntary organisations of Irvine.

The Vennel Friends Irvine Discovery Group are based at the Vennel Gardens Engagement Hub. The group has been active since May 2023 and has 15 registered members. The group offers a social setting with the opportunity for participants to complete the Discovery Award, comprising of the bronze, silver and gold levels. The Group aims to enhance the lives of all those over 50 years of age and to provide an incentive, through personal challenges, to lead a happy, healthy, and active life.

Choices Community Shop is a community food project set up by volunteers in the community to provide food with dignity to those in need. The funding will be used to help reduce the impact of poverty within the community based on individual needs. Our Community Shop has capacity to support approximately 100 households per week but with over 400 registered, many have to wait. This grant will allow for more households to be able to get support when they need it by getting access as required.

Irvine Camera Club will host public photography walks in North Ayrshire, providing photographic help and advice (artistic and practical) to anyone who attends. We will follow this up with a Photography Competition open to enter to anyone residing in North Ayrshire. We will judge the competition and award prizes to the winners. As a result of this work, we propose to curate an exhibition of the best images at the Harbour Arts Centre (HAC)

We are a North Ayrshire based mental health charity that supports children and young people to rediscover hope and happiness through theraputic interventions. We intend to run a session for parents of young people that we support to promote physical and mental wellbeing. The Parent Wellbeing and Health Event will be open to adults and parents of young children.

As planned the Irvine Sharks have established in their first year a senior men’s basketball team made up of members all approaching 40 or over. Many who had been inactive over the past years. This has led to a dramatic boost in members physical and mental health. The men’s team completed the season winning the Strathclyde Basketball League Division 3 18-0 and have received promotion to Division 2.