We started up our team with a small group of kids and a few parent volunteers who agreed to become novice football coaches. 

Since then our team has expanded in popularity and we now have a small army of 38 boys and girls who train twice a week and play games in the local NASA league at weekends. Our team is ably assisted by a band of volunteer parents who help out in all weathers whether coaching, providing transport to games, setting up equipment, cheering loudly, chasing balls, administering first aid or anything else required!

As with many such local groups, funding is always a significant issue. We have always tried to keep the fees for parents as low as possible and we have been grateful so far to have the support of some kind local business owners who have helped out with the costs of match-day and training kits as well as equipment such as footballs. 

A large part of the income from fees is spent on training and match day facilities as well as replacing balls etc.  which doesn’t leave much extra to spend on gear for the kids. 

We are hoping to get funding to cover the cost of waterproof winter jackets for all of our players to use at training and games, the west coast of Scotland isn’t known for being the most forgiving places to be running around a football pitch and we’d like to keep them all warm and dry as much as possible. 

The ideal jacket we have identified is Pendle Inter Rain Jacket (black/red) which is fleece lined, wind proof, waterproof and heavy duty with a hood to cope with our winter training and games, we would be looking to get 29 kids sizes @ £24.29 plus 10 small adult sizes @ £29.29, total £997.31 which would give us one spare.

Any help you were able to offer with this would be hugely appreciated by all of the kids and our volunteers. 

The 'self-care sunday' will be open to children and young people aged 11-26, and will be inclusive of the following activities to promote physical and mental wellbeing; therapy dogs, introduction to yoga and mindfulness, introduction to reki, havening session, art therapy, journalling and gratitude workshop. A breakdown of the costs below 

- Therapy dogs £250 

- introduction to yoga and milndfullness £150 

- introduction to Reki  £150

- Havening session £150 

- arts and crafts materials £150 

- refreshments £100

- hall hire £50

We would like to apply for funding for fun activities for children and young people aged who attend Fairlie Out of School Care. These activities will take place within an out of school club and will be involve people from across the community.

The activities will include:

Crafting, involving members of the local community, the children will learn how to upcycle and craft projects, which can be repurposed across the community, for example, at Christmas the children will work with the community volunteers to make gifts which can be gifted to members of the community who may not otherwise receive a christmas present.

Gardening, will involve the children getting the opportunity to each plant a tree, supported by our wonderful community garden volunteers.  The trees will be named after the children and they, and their families will get the opportunity to be a part of the tree's growth, bringing their family (present and future) to see how the tree has grown.

Games will involve the children getting to have Board game opportunities, helping to teach the younger children how to play.

Baking will involve the children learning how to make healthy snacks, moving on to baking breads and cakes.

The funding will be utilised to support the children to have a positive impact on the environment, whilst also promoting positive mental health and active lives, through community and peer to peer relationship building.

Costs will include:

Crafting supplies = £360

Board Games / Indoor and Outdoor games = £130

Portable baking equipment/baking sets = £260

Gardening equipment, seeds, name plaques £250

Skelmorlie Parent Council are bidding for £1000 to support the purchase of the "My Happy Mind" program and resources which will help to continue the excellent work the school currently do to support pupil health and wellbeing. The cost of the programe is approx £1500 and the School and Parent Council will use fundraising to meet the additonal costs. 

 The school frequently consult with children about plans for the school and ideas for developments. The children have identified that focusing on health and wellbeing would be positive for their school and that the tools and resources look like fun to use. 

"We looked at different ideas to help build resilience and help when we feel anxious. We use Zones of Regulations in school and Myhappymind links to that too. We watched videos of other children talking about how Myhappymind has helped their school and we decided this would help us too."

Primary 7 pupil. 

My Happy Mind is an evidence based program taught across the whole school in weekly sessions, 

Meet Your Brain – Learning about how our brains work.

Celebrate – Understanding our character strengths and celebrating ourselves.

Appreciate – Developing gratitude as a habit.

Relate – Building positive relationships.

Engage – Engaging with the world.

Teaching Staff at the school will be able to use the resources to embed resillience, coping strategies and strengths based approaches into lessons across the curriculum. 

“The portal looks easy to use with the lessons being designed to “pick up and go” and the resources being at hand means this will be a very manageable way of delivering Health and Wellbeing lessons.”

“Resilience is a skill we are needing to work on in our class and the techniques this programme has look to be effective in helping children with self-regulation.”

As a community we are aware of the pressures young people face,with rising levels of poverty, inequaltiy and reduced access to vital services and we are only just understanding the with the long term impact of covid restrictions on childrens development. We believe that access to the My Happy Mind Program will support children to develop the skills and resillience to cope with any challenges they face. The school is a key part of our community, and as such has the potential to embed these approaches with families and the wider community,

"The children will share sessions with parents/carers to highlight the importance of self-care and building self-esteem, resilience, and confidence. The children hope to promote this within our community with sessions for wider public at events such as the at the Nature Festival next year." Head Teacher Lynne Cathcart

Themes: health & well-being and cost of living

The 5 day, residential trip to Ardentinny for 70 children costs £22260, £318 per child.

The Parent Counsil tried to rasie funds to reduce this cost per child.  

In addition to the Youth PB Fund, we usually manage to rasie £1500 via our school fayre and school raffle.

This reduces the cost by approximatley £35 per child. 

See video attached.

Costs

Training costs e.g. 1st Aid, Safeguarding, social media training £600

Hoodies & Tshirts £400