Irvine and Dreghorn Brass provides opportunities for young people in our community to learn music, play in a group and perform at competitions and concerts. Playing and experiencing music has major health and well-being benefits for participants and audiences alike.

We provide free music lessons and access to brass and percussion instruments for young people to learn. There is a learning pathway and once young people learn the basics of playing they can join our youth band. The youth band has members from various schools in North Ayrshire including Dreghorn, Glebe, Ardeer, and Springside Primaries, Greenwood Academy, Irvine Royal and St. Matthews.

We perform at 5 - 6 concerts each year, also competitions, festivals and some school events. Young people can also play with our other bands at community events e.g. Marymass parades.

Our request is for £400 to be spent as follows.

Musical instruments - £350.  Sheet music £50

Project supports health and well-being

Most of the funding would be spent on instruments that enable more people to play. Learner cornets and trombones cost between £150-200 per instrument. Demand for our services is growing and our membership has growing  significantly in the past 2 years.

This funding would be put towards our North Ayrshire sculpture competition which we host annually. This competition is free to enter and is aimed at young artists and schoolchildren across North Ayrshire, who are asked to create unique sculptures from recycled and natural materials based on the brief which changes each year. In previous years our themes have been "Our natural heritage; coasts and waters" and "Climate change; what it means to us" and we plan for this year's theme to be "From seeds to trees" to raise awareness on how to plant and grow our own foods and improve the greenery in our local community. To engage the schools and artists we will provide a prize for the winning entry, which is typically a paid-for day out provided by Beith Trust, which will be voted for by the general public via QR codes throughout the summer. To get people to vote and visit the sculpture trail, we will be hosting various free events over the summer for children and families to attend. The funding would be used to purchase materials to allow the events to be free to attend, ensuring families of all income levels can attend. These workshops would be two crafting workshops, one making clay plant pots to grow plants in and another to make bird feeders from old bottles and recycled materials. Another workshop we'd like to run would be led by a local artist and we would ask them to host a workshop teaching the children how to use nature to make art (leaf printing, flower dying, daisy chains, etc). Finally, we would like to host a stall at our National Playday event, which we run every year around our sculpture trail, allowing attendees to create their own seed bombs to take home and plant in their gardens. 

Our sculpture trail has consistently gathered numerous visitors throughout the years that we have run it, with National Playday being our biggest success with over 750 attendees last year. We would love to make these events as green as possible and use our space to teach the children how to have fun outdoors and away from screens. With a captive audience, we would like to teach green techniques and invite groups such as RSPB Lochwinnoch and Hessil Head to come along and host their own fun, nature-based stalls or activities. A breakdown on how we would use the funding is below.

Workshop materials:

10KG Air dry children's clay: £40

Variety of plant seeds: £35

Compost: £20

Materials to make recycled birdfeeders: £30 (Sticks, string, bird seeds, paints)

Materials for seed bombs: £30 (Flour, compost, water, plant seeds)

Wood-based materials for sign and box crafting: £45

Nursery plants from Gateside Garden Center: £50

Marketing and tutors:

Tutor fees: £100

Marketing materials: £50

Total: £400

In conjunction with North Ayrshire Council Music Services, Music@Wellwood would organise a Strings Masterclass with Head of Strings at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Andrea Gajic.  Andrea Gajic can provide guidance, technical advice and possible progression pathways into music for the young people taking part.  

Opportunities such as this have proven to strengthen access to music within North Ayrshire with young musicians supporting community groups and continuing to work within the community and schools promoting music as a career path and as an important educational tool which can continue to be a lifetime benefit. 

In addition to an afternoon Masterclass in the Wellwood Burns Centre & Music, the young people would be invited to attend an evening performance by Andrea Gajic in Wellwood. 

Provision of the afternoon Masterclass would cost £275.    Attendance of 10 young people (approx. number) at the evening performance in Wellwood would be £100.

Afternoon refreshments for the young people attending the afternoon Masterclass £25.  Any costs associated with the use of the Wellwood Burns Centre & Music would be met by Music@Wellwood. 

We are looking to further  strengthen the band .

By purchasing banners to promote the band at fundraising events. This will give the band a better presence , and encourage musicians from the area to come forward . 

Ecoprint banners. Budget banners with a bases 

We are  in need of new music stands, and music to add to our library. The band is now  of a high standard , but easier , more welcoming pieces are necessary in our library to invite less experienced players, or players returning after a long break We would also like to purchase some music to highlight the abilities of  the sections within the band

 orchestral music stands @  £22 each

 stand bag @ £6 each

Scores  from £50 

Money would be spent as follows 

Promotional goods £110

Replacement stands £150

Music £140

Hame is a project looking at what hame (home, for those unfamiliar with Ayrshire accents) means.

Hame is, ideally, a place of safety, warmth and shelter, but it's not just our roof and walls. For many of us, our hame is our place of belonging; it's a playground where we're free to let our inner selves be. But it's also more than that; hame is also our friends and neighbours.

Documentary photographer and West Kilbride resident Mandy Edwards has been engaging with her neighbours, to find what makes hame for them, but also to discover more about what their presence means to her own sense of hame. This is captured in a succession of images and words to be shown in the Barony during March 2024.

Alongside the exhibition, workshops are being run to encourage young people (two groups; 8-11, 12-16) to explore what makes their hame, both within and outside their own walls; the resulting responses will be exhibited in the windows of the shops in the village, so that we build a picture of the faces that make a community of our hame. We're intending to produce the images for the shop windows ready for April, and the open air exhibition will provide an attraction during the Easter holidays.

Funding would help meet the costs of renting space for the workshops in the Barony Centre (£118), purchase of single use cameras for the 8-11 group (£144), developing and printing of images (£138)

SeaSalt Streets intend to use the events to highlight awareness of Betsy Miller, Britain's 1st Female Sea Captain. born in Saltcoats. 

The project will be presented in two formats and will be run on two separate days.

(A) A pop-up exhibition / workshop, using the gazebo purchased with our successful PB award. The gallery will contain information and photographs of Betsy Miller and her life. It is hoped to include a video presentation to enhance the experience. 

(B) A short talking / guided tour, starting in Quay Street, Saltcoats, the place of Betsy's birth with display plaque. The walk will then proceed to Canal Place to the pier gates where the waggonway led to Saltcoats harbour. From there, the tour will head to Saltcoats Harbour itself and the Harbourmasters' House and a meeting with "Betsy Miller" herself. The short tour will conclude at The Heritage Centre graveyard where Betsy Miller is buried.

Breakdown of costs 

Tour guide - 2 days @ £75.00 per day =          £150 

Betsy Lookalike - 2 days @ £60.00 per day = £120 

Advertising and promotional material          = £100

This project is intended to break down barriers with people who might not normally engage with history, culture or the arts, and try to ensure their future involvement. Our target audience will be anyone visiting, working or passing through Saltcoats Town Centre at the duration of the events. Anagram quizes and  colouring in sheets will encourage intergenerational working between children, parents/carers and grandparents. All participation is at no cost. 

 Livingstone Players are looking to improve lighting in order to enhance production and enable a wider array of special effects. More professional lighting can make a huge difference to the audience experience. The plan is to have another person helping behind the scenes and ideally give a younger person this experience. The would learn to create a chase effect and the illusion of movement across the stage. The equipment also has a blinder effect that can be used between scenes to disorientate the audience. The third technigue would be to use wash lights to fill a scene with colour.

The project would last the duration of equipment and we would intend to try and replace if it brokedown. 

The cost £199 each including postage so 2 are required to cover whole stage totalling £398

The funds would cover 4 x 2 hour creative sessions. Sessions would be completely free to attendees and we could facilitate 12 individuals attending per workshop. Workshops would include Silk painting, felt making, and glass painting. We are applying for £400 to cover tutor fee of £240 per 4 sessions and £160 to cover materials (Silk, paints, merino wool, glass products, glass paints for 12 attendees). The project will aim to bring people together who may otherwise be isolated. The purpose is to improve social isolation, mental health and well being, improve skills and confidence as well as create some community spirit amongst attendees.

Writing for Well-Being is a 6-week, in-person course hosted by So in Flow with Molly Murray in Ardrossan, UK.

£180 - Teaching costs, £30 x 2 hour session x 6 weeks.

£20 - Coffee & Tea Costs, x 6 weeks.

= £200 per 6 week session x 2 times per year  = £400.