Friends of Duns Primary School (FDPS)
Funds Received - £3,000
FDPS received the sum of £3,000. These funds enabled the committee to purchase our very own folding tables to be used for fundraising events within the school. Historically we have had to source and transport tables from various other local halls. The tables made a great difference at our 2019 School Christmas Fair where we played host to many local businessess and charities, this being our main fundraiser for the year. Having the tables at our disposal means a great deal to both ourselves and Duns Primary School.
thanks go to Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund from all at Friends of Duns Primary School.
Kind Regards
Lisa Johnson
Secretary
POLISH SOLDIERS IN THE SCOTTISH BORDER BOOKLET
In 2019 a grant application to the Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund was submitted and successfully obtained, this amounted to £897 to pay for a further print run of 500 of the above titled booklets from the original printers.
Once the grant had been obtained the order was submitted and the booklets obtained. Since then they are being distributed/sold to interested parties to raise awareness of the long term involvement in local life of these former soldiers and their descendants leading to the erection of the Plaque in Newtown Street, the Ware Memorial in the Park and Town Twinning activities.
Duns and District Twinng Association hearby acknowledges and is appreciative of the financial support from the Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund for our project.
Jim Carnie
Secretary
Duns & District Twinning Association
August 2020
Swinton Village Festival 2019
Funds Received - £500.00
Our second "revival" Gala Day took place on Saturday 1st June 2019. It turned out to be another well-attended event with resonably good weather and once again the King and Queen of the Merse were led by the Duns Pipe Band onto the Green.
Attached is a photo of one of the new stalls in 2019 set up by the Swinton Curling Club which gave the public a "taste" (plus free burgers for the first come first served) of what it might be like to try curling.
Thank you Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund for again supporting our Gala Day and hopefully we can stage another one in 2021.
Regards
James Collin
Treasurer
FOGO NURSERY
Funds received - £1,200.00
We are pleased to say that we were able to complete our projcect of upgrading our kitchen and toilet facilities.
With the kind grant we were able to buy our Fridge/Freezer and Cooker. This has made such a difference to the children and staff that used it prior to lockdown.
Thankfully, we are now open again and supplying all children with a hot meal at lunchtime and we can get Tesco deliveries as we have the fridge/freezer to store it all in.
Please see attached photos of the equipment in place.
Everyone at Fogo is grateful to you all for the kind grant that was awarded to us for these items, which we would not have able to buy had you not.
Kind regards
Nikki Anderson
Berwickshire Youth Piping and Drumming Foundation
Funds Received - £2,200
Berwickshire Youth Piping and Drumming Foundation was set up with the mission to establish bagpipe and drumming tuition in five of the Berwickshire primary schools - Chirnside, Duns, Coldstream, Greenlaw and Swinton. Our ambition, as set out in our application, was to attract between 40-60 pupils. We have far exceeded this target with, pre Covid, around 90 pupils receiving lessons. As well as introducing pupils to the discipline of learning a musical instrument, the tuition has been successful in establishing music as a cool thing to do and built pupils sense of achievement and self worth. We believe that we are well on our way to achieving our initial objectives, which are:
The estabilishment of a school pipe band is one year closer.
The first step in estabilishing the tuition programme was to recuit a tutor and we were very fortunate to engage Andrew Warren (who also tutors at James Gillespies in Edinburgh) to deliver lessons. His enthusiasm and hard work has played a large part in the success of the programme. Lessons commenced in October, by February we were looking to intriduce another tutor to ensure that pupils could be taught in smaller groups and this would still be the plan once live lessons recommence.
The shutdown of schools in March did not mean an end to the teaching programme. Lessons and tutorials were posted on line for children to complete and we hope this will have been sufficient to sustain interest and maintain numbers once we are able to start teaching in schools again. Precisely when lessons can resume remains uncertain, however, as although schools have reopened, instrumental tuition has not restarted. If this situation was to continue, we may have to pause the programme until the new year.
The much better than anticipated numbers meant that we had to purchase more practice chanters than anticipated. We also took the decision to delay the introduciton of drummng tuition, primarly to lessen the demands on the schools timetable. We were successful in gaining significant funding from Fallago Rig Community Fund and the Scottish Schools Pipes and Drums Trust and this, combined with the generous support from BWCF (for which we are very grateful) has meant that we were able to support the more intensive teaching programme and be in a solid financial position for the coming year.
Photos to follow.
Andrew Watson