Barrfield Community Garden is a new space located in Largs. Though only created in the winter of 2023, already volunteers have brought in raised beds, planted a large varity of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, and harvested vegetables which were  donated to the Largs Food Bank. We have served as a site for local small projects as well as a well-being space allowing local people with varying levels of ability to work with plants. We hope to expand this site in the coming years to grow more food and create a space for local people of all ages and ability to engage with, as well as of course continue to grow tasty food and beautiful flowers to share with Largs and those who presently do not have access to healthy, locally-grown food.

At present, the site has water but no electricity. We'd love to keep a few plants growing well into the autumn and need to procure solar-powered grow lights to do so. This involves the purchase of two sets of grow lights with attached solar panels to keep our melon, pepper, lettuce and tomato harvests going into the late autumn.

Our water pipes are at present not protected from the colder temperatures that come with Scottish winter. We are seeking to insulate the water pipes and employ a local plumber to install this insulation. 

In the interest of increasing the environmental sustainability of the Barrfield Community Garden space, we would like to install drain pipes and water butts. This will allow the garden to collect and utilise rainwater for watering the garden's beds and indoor plants.

People in Largs may be aware we recently experienced vandalism to the garden. After this event, we would like to  install a motion-activated camera, as well as solar- powered, motion-activated lights for the main path into the garden.

Adequate amounts of compost will be needed for planting over the winter, including but not limited to the growing of garlic and seed potatoes.

We would in future hope to create a tiered garden on the hilly portion at the east side of the garden. The area is at present covered with thistles and weeds, so we would to cover this area with weed-killing membrane as the first step of this project.

10 Meter weed membrane roll (x10) @ £6.95 = £69.50

10w led Solar grow light (x2) @ 68.50 = £137.00

Motion sensor lights for pathway lighting (x6) @ £6.99 = £41.94

SolarCam Kit with night vision and SDCard = £85

Builders bag Compost  = £52 

Insulation for water pipes, materials and labor = £200

Water butts and guttering for rainwater collection = £400

We are a local, volunteer run club that provides instruction in the Martial Art of Shotokan Karate to adults, youth and children. Karate teaches self respect, discipline, respect for others and the importance of healthy exercise. We have run various courses bringing world class instructors to the local area as well as taking part in local, national and international events and competitions. Any money taken in fees helps fund our courses and subsidise our students competition entry fees and or travelling costs.

As a local sports club we are keen to promote positive mental wellbeing as well as physical health, we encourage our members to participate at their own level of fitness whilst providing a variety of exercises to work towards improving their overall fitness and skill level. We have a code of conduct which ensures our members are supported and have polices in place to ensure our club is an inclusive space where participants feel welcome and respected. 

The provision of t-shirts with the club logo will help to raise the profile of the local area and also instil a sense of pride and connection to the area in our students. This will help our members to develop community spirit through a sense of belonging. We hope this will also encourage new members to join enhancing our community. 

The ability to provide these t-shirts at no or little cost to the students also prevents anyone feeling  marginalised in this current difficult financial climate. This will ensure equality and finacial inclusion during the cost of living crisis. This will make joining the Karate club more accessable for those who may not have the finacial resources to access similar activites that require equipment or clothing to participate. 

As a club we are passionate about the enviromental impact. We encourage our members to walk or wheel to the club training sessions where possible as a way to promote positive change to reduce our carbon footprint and encourage enviromental awarness, to this end we are looking at ecologically sound t-shirts utilising organic and recycled materials where possible..

We would seek to purchase around 60 t-shirts as this would allow us to distribute them to our current members as well as encouraging new members to join. 

Purchase of 30 Adult T shirts with logo, including set up cost for logo £400 

Purchase of 30 Kids T shirts with logo: £300.00

Just before Easter 2024, we conducted workshops with young people and children in West Kilbride to explain and encourage them to use photographs as a means to tell stories and impart information. The children and young people then submitted their images on the theme of "Oor Hame", telling what made their home, home. These images were then exhibited in the windows of the shops and other businesses along Main Street and Ritchie Street in the village, creating an open air gallery which residents and visitors to the village could enjoy.

We wish to repeat this project during the same Easter holidays for 2025, but this time we will be running the workshops with the cooperation of West Kilbride Primary School and other youth groups (Brownies, Boys' Brigade etc). In 2024 we held the workshops at what we later realised was not an ideal time, and did not get the level of involvement of young people we believe the project has the potential to engage; that said, we did receive nearly 50 images, and the exhibition was a success, but we believe that with more targeted workshops we could easily receive 10 times the number of images, making the open air gallery that much larger and spreading the collected images around more of West Kilbride's streets.

The project in 2024 looked at what "Hame" means, as it was triggered by Mandy Edwards' documentary project of the same name. For 2025 we have yet to identify a theme (we intend to consult with the school, groups and, most importantly the children) but believe that "Oor Hame" is a good name for the ongoing project, whatever theme is adopted, as it emphasises the community nature of the project.

Funding is required for workshop facilitation (£200), purchase of single use cameras (£250) printing and presentation of images (£150), publicity material (£100)