All our group members take part in volunteering opportunities throughout the local community and help foster community spirit. Most of the group have now completed the bronze level of the award and are now working towards their silver award.

Through the Hobbies and Interests aspect of the award participants are encouraged to engage in and develop new skills, hobbies and to remain socially active. This social activity helps to reduce social isolation and improves the physical and mental wellbeing of participants.  We would like to apply for support to help us provide opportunities for our group to experience a series of new and exciting workshop activities that would contribute to lifelong learning and promote positive wellbeing. These workshops would meet the needs and interests of group members and include arts and crafts, mindfulness and meditation, relaxation techniques, outdoor learning activities and other wellbeing tools.

 Honey Bee Cottage Wellbeing Workshops @ £160 per session x 6 sessions = £1000 

With the funding, we hope to host 2 networking events to attract members to join the community council. The community council works in partnership with several other voluntary organisations across Irvine such as Friends of Redburn, Fullarton Community Association, Marymass Festival Committee and others to run events in the locality and generally foster good relations between groups. By hosting these network meetings, we hope to attract new committee members who can increase our capacity to put on events and build community spirit between voluntary organisations.

The community council previously hosted the Irvine Yuletide event in 2023 which attracted around 10,000 people to Irvine moor. This gave families a chance to take part in free festive activities at a time of year when the cost of living hits hardest. If we can attract new volunteers to the community council, we will be able to put on more events similar to this, bringing people together and creating positive change in the community.

Costing as follows: 2 events 6 months apart

Rent of venue - £200

Promotion, including paid for advertising social media £100

Catering £700 (2 events, 70 people, £5 a head.)

TOTAL - £1000

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.

Irvine Clean Up Crew is looking to continue and even increase our engagement with local schools and other community groups as we continue to promote messages of being responsible with our rubbish to protect the environment for the future. We currently have one class-sized kit of litter pickers, but often receive requests for more than one class to be out using our equipment at the one time. We also receive requests for longer term loans for environmental projects that we are currently unable to support. We are always delighted when schools and community groups reach out to us for support with litter picking activities so we would like to increase our equipment capacity so that we can support as many requests as possible. Our volunteer school’s co-ordinator will continue to provide support for litter picks and also provides opportunities to talk about the impact of litter. Seeing 41year old crisp packets generally starts some lively discussions! We also have a story that was written by two of our volunteers that is already available for schools to use in pdf format. We would like to get some copies of "Sandy's Big Adventure" printed, so that we have copies accessible for others to use out of a school setting.

We would like to use funds from the participatory budget to help us purchase another class size kit of litter pickers, hi-vis vests, gloves and buckets. We also want to arrange a school tour of our rescued "Tiger" to help share messages of being responsible with items you no longer want or need and encouraging repair/reuse rather than throwing items in the bin. Tiger (who is about to be renamed in a community competition) was rescued from the River Irvine looking worse for wear. A good wash and tidy up later and he's back to being super cuddly again. We think offering him to schools with his story and an opportunity to contribute to his ongoing adventure will encourage more conversations and promote ideas about how we can all do more to create less waste.

To help us continue to inspire the local community to take more positive action for the environment we would ask for the following:

30 x child size litter pickers: £360

5 x adult pickers: £95

30 x buckets: £60

30 x child size hi-vis vests: £150

30 x child size gloves: £110

Stationery and delivery costs to help support Tiger's school tour: £75

Printing costs for "Sandy's Big Adventure": £150

Total: £1000

The ongoing increase to food is making it harder for Choices Community Shop to maintain a full range of produce. The grant will allow for the current range of products to be continued, especially through the depth of winter, when people have to choose whether to heat or eat. 

Our older community of people are reliant on Choices Community Matters and we want to ensure that can have at least 3 good meals from what they purchase so this funding will go on the purchase of food to ensure that choice, value and dignity are preserved. Tackling food insecurity is our way of reducing poverty in our immediate community.

Food (tinned, frozen and fresh) £1000 made up of:

Ambient Food (soups, hotdogs, potatoes, peas, sweetcorn,tea, coffee, sugar, juice, stews, curry, pasta, pasta sauce, rice) - £500

Frozen Food (Veg, ready meals, chips, pizza, fish, sausages etc) £250

Fresh (milk, eggs, cheese, mince, chicken. yoghurt, ) £250

Prices in supermarkets vary so an exact order is difficult to price until the day of the order. However, tinned and long life products will make up the main purchase of the foods.

The PTA/PC have worked with the school and the parents/carers of the Glebe community to raise funds for a school trip each year. However due to the increased costs associated with this we may not be able to commit to this come the summer time.   

School trips are such a wonderful experience for the children. The whole school attends on the same day and makes each pupil feel valued. These trips outside of school are important for the children's Health and wellbeing. They have huge benefits in supporting their friendships and relationship building with their peers. 

Last school term we managed to fully fund various activities through the support of our parents/carers and we appreciate all of the support we have received to date. Some of these includes; playground markings around the whole school, Halloween party, Spring disco and a P7 leavers disco and year books.   

Coach travel estimated for June 2025 is £2,500

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