We have established more sustainable planting and have introduced a range of perennial plants and shrubs in several areas throughout the village. We top up during summer with colourful annuals some which we grow ourselves. We also maintain over 50 hanging baskets which bring colour to the village during the summer months. All our gardens are highly visible in the village and several have seating areas for people to rest and enjoy the plants. One of our gardens has a sensory theme and a Happy to Chat Bench. We believe that the gardens connect people in the village and give a sense of community and pride in our local environment. We work in partnership with a range of other organisations, schools and community and environmental projects who benefit from the range of habitats that we have to offer.

We would be grateful if the PB could support us to bulk buy a selection of bulbs, perennials, plug plants and hanging basket plants to plant out newer gardens and top up our existing gardens. It would also enable a bulk purchase of compost and plant feed

Largs Events’ objective is to bring events to the town that will bring pleasure for the residents and their families, whilst also increasing footfall to a popular “seaside town” which following the pandemic and consequential “Cost of Living” crisis, has seen a changing and declining landscape of choice and facilities. Increasing awareness of the available choices is key to creating a friendly and enjoyable experience to residents and visitors alike. We have managed to increase our events by use of a local partnership to facilitate markets with specific “topics” and these have proved popular. One of our foundation Events is the annual “Yuletide Night” which has always been popular, and we would like to carry this on. Last year the night cost Largs Events £3,422.00 as we continued our long-term objective of “Social Inclusiveness” and everything “Free”, and indeed all our events are wherever possible free, and across all genders and ages. As a committee we decided to refrain from approaching the troubled businesses last year because of the financial situation and will try to do that until a more appropriate time. This year we have been advised by NAC that the erection\dismantling of the Lights will need to be paid for and we are actively pursuing funding for this in order to ensure Yuletide actually happens. We have already obtained funding to buy new lights as the existing one are failing and beyond their best and hope to have this in place for this year.

Our Yuletide night is a night for all the family and we would like to ensure there is something there for all family members and here is where we are asking for help. We usually try to have an area for live entertainment ranging from choirs to some local entertainers, this we have in the past been unable to make best use of due to lack of funds and would like to ask for a sum of £1000 to hire the stage area, to accommodate the local singers, but to make better use of, we can get hire some more “established” musicians to come to Largs and people can enjoy them, again foc. Any spare funds could also be used to add extra entertainment to the event, but without current costings we cannot say at this stage.

Our normal Fundraising activities will continue with the hope of building on the last couple of years successful events, whilst maintaining our desire to make Largs a town we can all be very proud of.

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)