Our group provides a crucial role in reducing social isolation by providing a friendly welcome to those who enjoy physical exercise in an outdoor environment.  We attract members from Kilbirnie, Beith and as far afield as Saltcoats.  We are proud of our contribution to the regeneration of the park which is located on the site of the Glengarnock Iron and Steel Works, remnants of which can be seen to this day.  Our weekly workdays are opportunities for volunteers who share a love of the outdoors to connect with one another and strengthen community bonds; tasks have included planting trees, coppicing, creating paths and wildlife projects.

Lochshore Park is a newly created country park with a 5-kilometre tarred and hard-core path, designed for eventual use as a Saturday morning park run venue.  Our current project is to create a woodland trail through our “Enchanted Forest”.  To attract greater numbers to the park we would like to make this a magical experience for younger children with models and sculptures en route to a woodland glade with tree stump seats.

Over the winter months we intend to build bird and bat boxes and craft willow sculptures.  This will require the services of a willow weaving artist.  These activities will be open to the public with anything created by them free to be taken away.

We have secured funding to build a habitat for ground nesting bees, which will be a labour-intensive exercise.  However, many of the other projects we would like to tackle require expertise which none of us possess.  If awarded a Proportional Budgeting grant we would like to buy in support and training for our members.

Estimated Costs

Creation of Enchanted Forest    £197

Timber for bird boxes  £236

Free Public Classes  £325

Advertising  £240

We have been operating our Community Larder since Nov 2020, initially as a foodbank during the pandemic, but now aligned with NAC`s Community Larder model, where customers pay £4, for a selection of items and a variety of free short dated/best before items. Unfortunately, over the last 12 months, we have seen how the rising costs have impacted on our funding, where money doesn’t stretch as far as it once did and since the cost of living crisis started, we have seen the numbers of people attending our Community Larder steadily increase. We are now seeing more families attending, as well as more people who are working.  Local businesses have been great here, where we work in partnership with ASDA, Bookers, Co-op and Irvine`s Bakery, who supply us with a combination, of either free short dated/best before items, or items at discounted prices, but during the winter months the donations of fruit and vegetables falls off quite sharply.

Evidence shows that there are significant health benefits to eating at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables daily, particularly in the case of young people and the elderly.

Estimated Costs:

Provision of fruit and vegetables for 26 weeks - 52 larder sessions @ £25 - Total £1,300.

Garnock valley community concert band ( GVCCB Charity number  SCO43326)) is a striving and inclusive community band-  continuing  to grow and reconnect  musicians throughout the garnock valley.

GVCCB  gives public performances throughout the community such as St Margarets church in Dalry in which included a local choir, string ensemble and the children’s choirs from local schools. GVCCB also perform at the Scottish and the National concert band festivals each year ( SCBF and NCBF), being highly successful in both – lifting platinum awards each year.

This is only accomplishable with a hard working committee, fundraising throughout the year and funding made available to us.

We keep our subscriptions as low as feasibly possible, to encourage as many players wishing to return to music.

For many, music is a vital (sometimes - only) social interaction available for them – helping their mental wellness, mental agility through reading music and actively encouraging them to interact with like minded people.

We hire local practice space within the Garnock valley community campus once a week,  maintain a musical library ( costing approx £1000-£1500 per year) to keep our concerts and competition performances fresh, challenging and interesting, and hire our musical director  at £3500 per annum

We should like to put ourselves forward for the full amount possible (£1000)to go towards the cost of our musical  library .

Considering the output for so many, we can make this money go a very long way.

Our Sunshine on Beith (Summer 2025) will have a weather theme, and we will be presenting Ola Gjeilo's inspirational Sunrise Mass, for choir and strings.  We would like this grant to fund the purchase of choral sheet music, and contribute to the cost of professional musicians.

Sunrise Mass cost:  £400

Sunshine on Leith (Proclaimers) choral music arrangement:  £100

Professional Soloists £250 each = £500

Dalry Community Sports Club was founded in 2007 as a constituted group and has been a registered charity since 2014. Initially, our key aims were to advance public participation in sport in Dalry and the surrounding area by promoting and providing opportunities for a wide range of sporting and leisure activities in an accessible manner to all groups of people, and to improve the fitness and health of the persons for whom the activities are intended. Through these initiatives we have worked to generate an environment to live in which strengthens our community, recreating the levels of inclusion enjoyed by previous generations. Over recent years we have built on this and looked for additional opportunities to help address other key issues within our community, including, social isolation, food deprivation, mental health & wellbeing and cost of living issues.  We are looking to extent some of the benefits we have realised from these initiatives by launching free regular Community Cinema events with complimentary refreshments. We ran a successful trial night in the Community Centre last Christmas and have had a number of requests to repeat this. To help us realise this, we would work in partnership with Dalry Community Centre Association to deliver these free events.

Community Cinema events

Breakdown of costs:

Purchase of Equipment - £300

We would seek to purchase a DVD Player (approx. £100) and a Large Projector Screen (£200). DCSC already have a projector and speakers, Dalry Community Centre would purchase the annual film licence at a cost of around £400.

Community Centre Hall Let - £14.70 per hour x 3 hours = £44.10 (1 x 90min film plus setup/pack away time – 3 hours required for event)

Cost of living – NIL cost entry– tickets only

Food deprivation – look to provide free soft drinks/tea/coffee/biscuits ahead of the film (cost £50 per event)

Attendance – maximum 100

Total costs per event = £94.10

1 event per month = 12 x £94.10 = £1,129.20 plus equipment cost of £300.

Total cost of project - £1,429.20

Dalry Community Garden has been established for four years, providing a safe and welcoming space for visitors and volunteers.

We host various, accessible to all events throughout the year supporting local groups and organisations helping to bring our community together. As we have no permanent facilities we need to provide a toiilet for our volunteers and visitors.

Funding will allow us to provide a serviced portable toilet unit for a further year.

Cost for a serviced toilet unit for one year is £1560

As well as GVAA members the association encourages community participation with many young people who are engaged in projects in the allotment.  Some of the projects currently running are growing and harvesting produce for the Wee Pantry and Solace Cafe and young people involved in learning how to prepare areas for growing, how to sow, care and harvest produce. A primary and indispensable piece of equipment would be the installation of portable power stations in the allotment which would be used to energise various tools essential for gardening tasks. Portable power stations would ensure we have have the necessary electricity on demand. The members currently take the rechargeable batteries home to re-energise which often means that communial tools required by the members and young people are not always available to complete the task.  A portable power station capability would not only enhance efficiency but also provide the flexibility to maneuver and operate equipment throughout the plot without being tethered to fixed power sources.  The portable power stations would be charged from two solar panels thus reducing the carbon footprint of members travelling to and from the allotment to collect and deliver charged batteries and the personal costs to members associated with fuel and energy.

2 x portable power stations = Ecoflow River 2 Max + 110W portable solar panel =£1000 (GVAA will meet the costs beyond this amount)