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)

The project runs along with term time, with lessons after school in half hour blocks for groups of up to five.

The tutors are paid at a rate of £40.50 per hour, and work a combined three hours each week.

40.50x3 = £121 per week.

This fund will provide tuition fees for our tutors. The feedback we have had from this project so far has been fantastic, and is only possible with continued funding & fundraising efforts.

I will upload a file documenting the feedback we have had from the first few months of the project.

We are founding the Arran International Festival of Chamber Music and Song and the inaugural festival will run from 22nd to 25th August 2024. The festival's aim is to celebrate Arran's rich natural and cultural heritage, to promote international cultural exchange by bringing leading international artists to the island and to include the local community in the creative process. There's a wealth of local talent, creativity and culture on Arran and a key part of the annual festival programme will be performances by both young and established local musicians alike.

The beauty of music and art is the power it has to bring people together across borders. The founding ethos of the festival is, 'getting across borders', in a world where so many lines are being drawn in the sand.

Last summer, in collaboration with the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust, the local business, Arran Active, and the island community radio station, Arran Sound, we organised a free concert on 18th August in Corrie and Sannox Village Hall, as a prelude, an introduction to the proposed launch of the festival. We wanted to gauge the reception of the local community to the idea of the festival and to invite members of the community to be involved from the outset. The concert was a great success, standing room only, and we received universal approval, warmth and support for establishing the festival. (documents relating to this initial concert are uploaded with this application)

The inaugural festival programme is currently in development and will be officially announced in early spring 2024. As of the submission of this application, events look as follows:

22.08

Event 1, opening concert, an evening with Richard Morrison & Company, featuring The Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson and Rantin Rovin Robin, a musical show celebrating the life and work of Scotland’s greatest literary figure, Robert Burns, through his own songs, verse and letters. Whiting Bay Hall, 7:30pm

23.08

Event 2, an afternoon chamber concert featuring a string ensemble of local musicians, artists tbc. Brodick Parish Church, 2:00pm

Event 3, a candlelit evening concert featuring local young musicians, artists tbc. Brodick Parish Church, 7:00pm

24.08

Event 4, outreach event, an illustrated talk by Dr. Sigrid Rieuwerts of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, founder of the Society for Scottish Studies in Europe. Sigrid will talk about Culture and the beauty of nations, preserving the authenticity of cultures, heritage and the importance of local voices. Arran Heritage Museum, 1:00pm

Event 5, a unique concert event at Brodick Castle, International Cellists Gary Hoffman & Lydia Shelley will play Bach’s 6 Cello Suites, in three sittings, also including the UK Premiere of a work by the French Composer, Graciane Finzi. Brodick Castle Drawing Room at 3:00pm, 5:00pm & 7:00pm.

25.08

Event 6, a farewell musical get together and free-for-all featuring guest and local musicians at the Douglas Hotel, 12:00pm - 4:00pm

Budget

Artist fees: £8400; Artist & production travel: £2800; Accommodation & catering: £2400; Venue & event production costs: £1150; Festival administration costs, including management, promotion and publicity: £2000

Total budget: £16,750

The £400 would be spent on the purchase of special candles, which will adorn Brodick Parish Church for our candlelit concert on Friday 23rd August, featuring the young artists of Arran.  We are delighted to report that a World Premiere composition by the highly regarded young Arran composer, Electra Perivolaris, will be performed that night by the young local flautist, Lucy Walsh.  The candles in question are quite specific as we can't use real candles with naked flames - and once we have purchased these candles, we will be able to use them in other festival concerts and events in coming years.  

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 project is about providing an opportunity for people to meet up and enjoy an evening of company with their friends and other community members.

It’s about experiencing a live theatre event and enjoying a wee bit of lighthearted entertainment.

There’s audience participation, there’s quietly discussing your theories so nearby tables can’t hear you and there’s plenty of laughs.

And it’s about identifying the murderer!

The event will be held in a Dalry venue and costs include:

Hall Hire  - £100

Refreshments £50

Audio and light equipment £200

Promotion £50 

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.

 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

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.