Successful Projects

Gordon Community Sports Field

Year Completed: 
2023

Funds Received - £2,000.00

With the aid of the grant from the Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund, the people of Gordon we were successful in purchasing the Gordon Sports Field for the community on 28th Feb 2023!

The attached photos show “Community Sports Field” clubhouse, a panoramic of the field and the field in its entirety with, in the distance, the new fencing put in by community volunteers.

 

 

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Eat Sleep Ride CIC

Year Completed: 
2023

Funds Received - £4,000.00

Eat, Sleep, Ride, CIC received £4000 from Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund to plant native woodland trees across our site and erect fencing around the area to keep the trees safe from our 4 legged friends. The funding paid for the purchase of the tress, stabs and shelters, qualified tree planter to deliver 3 sessions with 3 target groups, young people attending youth club, on alternative school provision, adult males completing community pay back orders.

Impact

1 young male became a volunteer for ESR and went on to complete his paths for all walk leader training.

1 young boy completed his NOLB contract and working in the outdoors gave him the inspiration to apply for an Outward-Bound survival camp on Loch ELI, he was accepted

1 young boy on school provision continued with ESR on a rural skills project and has an interest in working outdoors when he leaves school.

We learnt that the young people and volunteers really enjoyed working outdoors and getting their hands dirty and learning how to plant and look after trees as well as identifying tree species and why they are important for the planet. They learnt how to plant and protect a tree from wildlife, how different species of tree will grow differently, how different species like or need different soil/environments, that the 2 main ways trees are grown in a nursery, bare rooted and cell grown, the different animals that will be a pest for trees and what they do to them and how it can kill them, why tree planting is so important especially with protection to ensure a woodland can form

The greater impact for ESR is we are increasing biodiversity and habitat creation as well as providing natural screening and wind and noise barriers in the future

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Reston Junior Agri Club

Year Completed: 
2023

Funds Received - £400.00

"..I am writing to thank you firstly for your support towards giving Reston JAC funding in order to support their members in their international travels.  On a personal note I wanted to thank you for helping me get to Canada, your support was greatly appreciated.  I had a wonderful time in Canada and can't wait to go back one day.  A highlight from the trip was going to Richmond Ranch.  The Richmond family are decended from Scotland and have Aberdeen Angus and limosin cattle on their ranch, both of which we got to see on our visit.  They have their own sale every year and often welcome over 200 buyers to their farm on sale day.

Many thanks again for your support.

Lauren

Reston JAC"

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Duns Tennis Club

Year Completed: 
2022

Funds Received - £1,000.00

Firstly, I would like to thank Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund for awarding us this grant.  We have now had the courts repainted and purchased three new nets as can be seen in the attached photograph.

Over the last few months, we have been trying to attract new players to come and try tennis by running a number of free sessions.  We have run 3 ‘come and try sessions ’on a Saturday afternoon.  The first was well attended but the last one only attracted one player.   We will revisit these sessions once the schools are back.   We have also run an after school session on a Wednesday afternoon which has been well attended by secondary school pupils.  We will hope to continue to encourage young people to come and use our courts by providing sessions after school.

We also held a holiday camp at the beginning of July which was attended by 10 young people and was run by our club coach.

We still need to purchase a power washer to maintain the courts.  This will be done in the next few weeks.

Again, many thanks for your support and if there is any further information I can provide, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards,

Cath Booker

A Heart For Duns

Year Completed: 
2022

Funds Received - £5,000.00

In January we submitted an application to BWCF and had approval to spend £5,000 of a total of around c. £16,000 on new furniture for the Volunteer Hall. We also managed to secure funds from AHFD reserves and £5,000 match from SBC Community Fund.

Our expenditure was impacted on by Covid pricing, and from prices going up due to Ukraine war and Brexit, so we had to shop around for chairs and tables and trolleys. We also had to factor in some supply delays and manufacturing time impacted on by shortage of materials and labour, but have now concluded the overall process and all our new furniture is in place.

We gave away much of our old furniture offering it to local groups and residents, though some of the furniture was in such poor repair that we had to bin it.

In the end we purchased the following:

Supplier

Date

What

Notes

Nextday catering

10 June

6’ round tables x 6

1095.20

Nextday catering

10 June

6’ round tables x 13

2374.60

Office furniture

23 September

Oak folding table x 28

Table trolley x 4

 

5348.40

Office specialties

27 June

Red/black chairs x 200

Chair trolley x 2

8100

407.71

Office specialties

5 August

Sales credit

-250

Totals

 

 

17075.91

Our new furniture has been used in stages since June onwards, and with a busier post Covid set of events all of the furniture has now been used.

Attached at Annex A are some photos showing the furniture stacked and some event with furniture in use.

We’ve retained receipts showing how we spent the funds and are most grateful to BWCF for their chunky contribution to making our venue a better place.

Lindsay Wood

AHFD Development Manager

 

 

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