Projects completed in 2022

DunsPlayFest

Year Completed: 
2022

Funds Received - £4,500.00

DunsPlayFest in 2022 was held both in the Volunteer Hall, Duns, in the first week of May, and on-line where various shows from the live festival, as well as other shows especially curated for the festival, were available to be watched for several weeks.

Both manifestations of the DunsPlayFest vision proved highly successful as the festival continued to grow and become a welcome and established presence in the year of both Duns and Scottish theatre.

Thanks to the marvellous and continued generosity of the Black Hill Wind Farm Community Fund, we were able both to fund an excellent young film-maker, Glen Shepherd, to record the shows that went on to form part of the online festival, and to provide A Heart for Duns with the finance to purchase a sign-board for the visually impaired. We want our festival to be accessible to everyone and will always do what we can to make theatre open to all.

Here is the short film that Glen made of DunsPlayFest '22: https://youtu.be/Rti3Dh-uP5s."

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A Greener Melrose

Year Completed: 
2022

Funds Received - £700.00

The grant from Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund has certainly played a major role in moving our EBGR project forwards.   We now refer to the project as the Borders Greenway.

We have formed a Community Consultation Group which is well supported by community groups along the route from Melrose to Eyemouth.   The group is led by a Steering Group which meets regularly in Gavinton Village Hall and elsewhere.

Our efforts have led to South of Scotland Enterprise and Scottish Borders Council commissioning a professional Feasibility Study of the route by Atkins Transport Consultants.   This excellent piece of work was recently completed.

Full details of the Borders Greenway project are available here.  This document includes links to a recently completed feasibility study, maps and photographs of project activities, and much else besides.

The BWCF grant has been invaluable in enabling these startup activities, and to date, we have used the fund for:

  • Venue hire and refreshments for meetings with SBC officials, consultants (Atkins) investigating, route feasibility, the Borders Greenway steering and community collaboration groups, and other community groups
  • Purchase of maps/marker pens to inform discussion on preferred existing walking and cycling routes between the main communities mainly following the old railway line from Tweedbank to Reston, and on to Eyemouth

Together with groups of local residents, we have completed a reconnaissance walk‑through of the entire route (over 50 miles) following existing paths, quiet roads, and some short sections of farmland.  We have documented our findings to inform discussion on issues which need attention before the route is safe for public use.  We will soon conduct a similar reconnaissance cycle‑through of the preferred cycle route, mainly following quiet roads.

We anticipate a significant increase in promotional activities once SBC has secured initial funding to progress the project.  Transport Scotland has assigned ten percent of their annual budget to ‘active travel’ projects, and, with a completed feasibility study, SBC considers there are reasonable prospects of the project becoming a reality.

 

 

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Parent Space

Year Completed: 
2022

                                                                                                                                  

Project Update

Period from March 2022 to March 2023

ParentSpace was awarded a total of £3243 on the 7th of March 2022

Delivery of One to One Support

Planned

Actual

Facilitator to delivery 70 sessions

£1995.00

2606.30

Travel Expenses to home visit for 60 sessions

£810.00

278.70

Venue for Volunteer Hall Meetings for 10 sessions

£80.00

0.00

Training New Facilitators

 

 

Care for the Family online facilitator training for 2 participants

£358.00

358.00

Total Award

£3243.00

3243.00

 

We are pleased to provide the following report on each of the areas.

  1. Facilitators have delivered a total of 91 one to one sessions at £2606.30 demand for the service was greater than expected.
  2. Travel expenses for 18 home visits have totalled £278.70 the need to travel to meet service users was reduced due to location of team delivering and sessions were delivered by phone where it met the service users’ need and preference.
  3. We did not deliver any sessions in the volunteer hall or another venue as meeting were at home or another free to use venue.
  4. Two participants completed their Care for the Family’s face to face online training in February 2023. One facilitator has run a Dads only course with another team member and we are planning courses for the rest of the year.

 

GFPCC

Year Completed: 
2022

Funds Received - £3,500.00

Final report on grant to Gavinton village hall.

The generator is now stored in the village hall. Insurance cover provided.

Fuel stored away from premises.

I have had meetings with representatives from three other communities to describe the installation and operation of the generator.

As a result they have all installed generators for their village halls.

One other visit pending from Duns volunteer hall reps.

Three times a year I carry out refresher training sessions for the local volunteers.

I have visited Fogo Kirk and discussed with Dane their installation.

In the event of a power cut I have road stewards across the community council area who will ensure all residents are aware village hall is open with power from generator.

I have visited the Marchmont estate and am satisfied residents on the estate have log burners and can use the main house for warmth etc if required.

 

Neil Gilmour

Resilient Community Co-ordinator

GFP Community Council.

 

Keeping Duns Bloomin Marvelous

Year Completed: 
2022

Funds Received - £920.00

I have an array of pictures from when we planted and painted back in the early part of the year up until this week plus a breakdown of the costs we incurred to offset the £920 BWCF very kindly awarded us.  The hall front certainly looks better and more welcoming now and we appreciate the help and support the windfarm gave us. 

These three pictures were taken yesterday and today so show the up to date version.  The plants are all growing well although are now in sleep mode for the winter.  The virginia creeper going up the front of the kitchen wall by the window is growing very quickly and looked lovely in the Summer and then showing Autumn colours.  It is now completely denuded of leaves but will start to trail up the wall again come Spring and I think this scruffy wall will be covered within a couple of years, which is what the Trustees requested.  The Hall front picture was at 4pm today showing the twinkly lights on the Cypress trees.  They are on a timer so go on at 4pm and go off at 10pm and are battery operated.  Everything has been source and purchased locally so has benefited small businesses in some way.

In case anyone queries the bubble wrap - the boxes are all lined with it as it helps to keep the roots warm over winter and stops the moisture leaking out too quickly.

If you need any more information please do email.

Kind regards

Candy

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