Our project for the School is to promote outdoor relaxation and wellness within the community. We currently have tables and benches for the senior end.

This space gives the children somewhere to sit and relax. This has also proved beneficial in allowing the seniors within our community to share any worries or concerns they may have. As there is always an adult within the vicinity this be can reacted to appropriately to ensure they get proper support.

We now want to Mirror this in the infant area to give every child the chance to have a safe relaxing space to promote wellness across our community.  We are also looking to add umbrellas to the senior end tables and benches. In addition adding umbrellas to the new infant end benches; this would help keep the children safer on the warmer days. 

Some of the positive feedback from the children from the infant and senior end.

• Colourful

• Restful 

• Fun

• Great for chatting in privacy away from class

• Durable

• Chill out area

• Comfortable

• Nice to read books

Junior 3 seated bench -£ 299.99

Grounds Fixtures - £ 17.45

Fitted by NAC - £ 300.00

Umbrellas  & Stand X6 -£371.88

Total - £989.32

It has been proven that engaging with photography can have a dramatic and positive impact on one's mental health.  It encourages mindfullness and fulfilment.  It can be a solitary activity but it can also be practised in the company of others in a social setting.

Irvine Camera Club (ICC) has a proven record of working with vulnerable people to deliver positive mental health outcomes.  Our latest initiative was a collaboration with Ayrshire & Arran NHS to provide photography workshops for patients in recovery in order to give them a new focus in their lives.  This was very successful.  We are also an active contributor to the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.  We work closely with NAC Arts & Culture Team team to support their wider activities and to provide photography services for their activities. Our proposal is that ICC will host a series of photowalks during the summer of 2025, on weekday evenings and at weekends.  These walks will be free for anyone to attend and will mainly take place North Ayrshire.  We intend to advertise the walks on social media.  We will use our regular pages in the Irvine Herald to advertise the photowalks, again at no cost.

The club has the facilities to gather the submissions and to evalutate them.  ICC will self fund modest prizes for their chosen overall winner and runners up.  

The costs of this project will be in the production of gallery edge-to-edge prints to be displayed at the HAC.  We estimate that this will be in the region of £20 for printed artwork on A2 foamex board.  We would aim to curate and exhibit 50 images at the HAC.

The overal funding required is therefore £1000. 

Once the exhibition at the HAC has finished the art work will be available to be exhibited at other venues across North Ayrshire.

We are a community brass band organisation based in Dreghorn. We run 3 bands (a contest brass band, a community and a youth band) and we provide free or low cost after school music lessons for young people. We have over 100 members in our organisation and thousands of people are entertained by us each year at gala days, Christmas events and community concerts. We also support fundraising of other charities. People who participate in our bands and our audiences obtain mental well-being and educational benefits from musical activity. Each year we compete in several brass band contests and festivals all over Scotland. Any funding obtained would go towards our (2025) travel costs, entry costs, and other costs for competitions such as music, extra rehearsals etc. Participating in these event will inspires, motivates and develops our players, entertains audiences and we also represent North Ayrshire in an important cultural events.

We are applying for £1,000 for our adult groups competing costs

Cost breakdown would be:

• Travel cost subsidies – bus hire £600
• Entry fees - £200
• Music, extra rehearsal costs - £200

Each year we compete at the Scottish Brass Band Championships in Perth (March 2025) and for this contest alone a bus costs c. £700 and other costs (music, entry, rehearsals) c. £500. As we attend 3 - 4 contests per year the costs incurred for all competitions is c. £3,000. Contests / festivals are important for our groups development and the band would fundraise or meet the gap from reserves.  

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 

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.

Barnardo's Stronger Families provides support across North Ayrshire to Kinship families. We have funding in place for core staff to facilitate groups, sessions and activities however we require funding to provide for resources, refreshments and if we wish to work with local artists. We worked with local artists recently on graffiti projects and creative arts groups with young people and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Those young people recommended that other young people and adults get to experience groups/sessions similar to those that they took part in. Benefits of creative arts sessions are socialisation, reducing isolation, positive communication, learning new skills and discovering artisitic talents. It can build confdence and self-esteem. For Kinship carers it will allow them to take some time for themselves, relax, spend time with other people in a similar situation to them and to build up positive peer relationships and supportive networks. For Kinship families to take part in sessions together, it will allow them to spend quality time as a family, having fun, communicating, supporting each other and relaxing together. Barnardo's will provide the staffing and promotional materials for these sessions.

Costs for 10 sessions:

Venue hire - £150 (2 hours per session)

Refreshments - £100

Creative arts resources - £450

Local artist time - £300

We would like funding to contribute towards the costs of running the club which helps young people and adults alike. For younger members, it takes them off the streets, teaches them how to look after their physcial and mental wellbeing. It also teaches them discipline and how to conduct themselves in the community. 

The club is open Monday to Friday and has a membership fee of £4 per session or £10 to attend 5 nights in one week. We would like to keep this cost as low as possible for families so it's accessible to young people, so by getting this funding will help us subsidise the costs. 

Taking part in the club helps improve members health and wellbeing through exercise and building relationships between members. The funding will also help towards the cost of living crisis for members as it will reduce the costs of taking part in this activity which is invaluable to members of the Vineburgh and Redburn neighbourhoods. 

Ring hire - £360 Insurance - £640

TOTAL - £1000

In March our cricket square and cricket wickets are fully refurbished after our end of season repairs and regrowing and replenishment project. In April we cut and manicure them to allow cricket matches to take place for both juniors and seniors. The area is also used for training and game development. As the season progresses we are maintaining, reparing every wicket used through the methods mentioned above. After the work is complete we use our cricket covers to help speed up the process of germination, keep it dry and free of wind. After this has happenned we then start the same process on the next cricket wiicket, that has been used for games, to allow us to constantly maintain and repair and cause as less damage to the land as possbile. This process lasts until the end of August. In September we then do an overall deep scarify, re-dress the whole area reseed and fertilise the whole area in preperation for the next season.

The members of the club are heavily involved in this project with us, regenerating, regrowing and maximising the area we have, doing as much as we can by hand, labour and to be as green as we possibly can. The cricket wicket covers are in 3 sections that cost £2000 brand new. These last the club 10+ years. These covers are a key part of the work we are able to do on the ground and allow us to continue to play the sport and keep the area workable, renewable and fit for purpose. These covers have been badly damaged in recent high winds, the wheels are buckled and broken, the tops have become ripped, perished and the waterproof tops are no longer doing their job. These covers can be split into 3 areas for growth and regeneration or together as one to protect cricket wickets for matches. We currently have £1100 towards this project and the £900 would allow us to replace in February 2025 for the new season.