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.

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

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

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

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.