Successful Projects

Interest Links

Year Completed: 
2021

Funds Received - £2,000.00

Interest Links provide peer-age volunteer befriending for children, young people and adults with learning disabilities across the Borders, who are socially isolated and have few opportunities for friendship and fun.  They received £2,000.00 from Blakchill Windfarm Community Fund for their Berwickshire Branch.  This benefited 15 members with learning disabilities and their family carers living in Duns and Longformacus, nine were in befriending groups and 4 linked 1:1.  It also provided volunteering opportunities for pupils at Berwickshire High Shool and five adult volunteers from Duns.

Activities: From March to May we continuted our distance service.  1:1 links were in contact as Phone Buddies, or by video WhatsApp, text, emails or writing cards and letters.  Members and volunteers also received a regular newsletter.

The adult members zoom "Get Together" group had materials delivered to members and volunteers homes and made gift boxes, woven placemats and Easter baskets.  There was general chat and fun and it was great to see parents and carers involved and enjoying the fun too.

Weekly zoom sessions for the younger groups included an arts project about What makes us Happy, run by a young volunteer and an art project with an external tutor about the different elements of the pandemic and peopls feelings about it.  Also mosaic workshops, cookery sessions and a Beetle Drive.

From the start of May 1:1 links started meeting face to face, much to the delight of both volunteers and members, some of whom had been very much missing their friends.

Face to face meetings for the younger groups restarted in June, initially outdoors going for walks, berry picking, on boat trips from Eyemouth and playing games.  They moved indoors in the autumn, with Halloween fun, cake baking and Wii games, followed by Christmas festivities, Bunrs Nights, pottery, music and drama sessions.

The adult group met face to face for the first time in August and resumed its usual activities of games, music, arts and crafts and later Halloween celebrations.  A multi-session Music project, originally planned for 2020 and postponed again due to Storm Arwen and the Omicron variant, finally got under way in February and the Zoom Blether group is still continuing.

The in-school groups resumed towards the end of the year and the Berwickshire High School group is now meeting straight after school at Southfields so it can have longer meetings and more intersesting activities.

A new adult group is also planned to start in Duns in March 2022.

Feedback included:

100% of memebrs with learning disavilities and carers reported benefiting from the project, see image for full details.

Members:

"The zoom calls have kept me happy during lockdown.  I've enjoyed trying all the craft activities and chatting to my friends, Thank you."

"I really enjoy seeing B.  Its nice to have a friend who isn't a carer."

"Loved seeing people on my tablet and speaking to them."

"Getting out on the boat was fantastic, best trip ever."

"It was great to be able to do normal things again after such a long time being told we couldn't go anywhere or do anything."

Carers:

"Its been tough for my son this past year but he looked forward to hearing from his friend he met through Interest Link and it put a smile on his face."

"My son and I have enjoyed being part of the group and feeling valued and cared for.  The online activities have enhanced the benefits of Ineterst Link for us and we appreciate the bond that the group has.  Thank you."

"My wife and I are pleased that our son has contact with people other than ouselves.  Its great he is now getting out to see his friends again.  In the past they have had wonderful trips out doing all kinds of interesting things together."

 

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Eat Sleep Ride

Year Completed: 
2020

Funds received - £4,090

In December 2019 Eat Sleep Ride CIC received £4090 in funding for a Volunteers Coordinator because the demand exceeded our capacity. The role included supporting and inducting our junior and senior volunteers, maintaining health and safety as well as ensuring they understood their roles whilst at Eat, Sleep, Ride. This empowered our volunteers to feel more confident and work well within a team and use their own initiative. The role coordinated our volunteers so they were able to take part in our skills and accreditation programmes and outdoor projects which where crucial when Lockdown happens and we were able to help the community recover from some of the mental health impacts of COVID. The pandemic impacted everyone’s live in just a few weeks, life as we knew it changed beyond recognition, the funding to have someone in post to coordinate and support our volunteers has been invaluable and we have grown from 35 volunteers to 71 since March 2020.

Eat Sleep Ride considered it important to provide the opportunity for youths to gain awards as the children/youths were becoming increasingly lonely, less motivated, less confident and lacked being challenged both mentally and physically, because of lockdown.

Some of the projects coordinated:
• 19 young people were put through formal British Horse Society Challenge Awards and funded the capability to do that online. This gave these young people something to work to and focus on, during a period when schools were closed and there was a lack of activities and goals for them to focus on.
• 11 families where able to take part in a nature therapy project. The attendees took part in a range of activities at our new site, focused on working outdoors, understanding the ecology and environment around them, as well as learning new skills and building feeling of achievement. The groups planted trees, built compost toilets, learned about plant management and helped to build cross country score. The average evaluation out of 10 for the attendees was 9.57, so a very successful set of workshops
• 11 Children/Youths aged between 10 and 16 years have completed their Hi 5 Challenge with Eat Sleep Ride CIC.
• Over 2000 Saltire hours have been submitted since March and 15 Young people are signed up

Case Study example
T is a 14 year old is a regular rider, a volunteer and also a yard assistant with Eat, Sleep, Ride.
They are a NEET and have a long-term health condition in the home.
T has also disclosed challenges with depression, anxiety and self-esteem.
This year they completed the British Horse Society Challenge Project.
Currently they are participating in 5 other ESR projects:
Take the Reins
Saltire
ABRS Equitation
Rein & Shine (Our in house volunteering)

You can see that for this respondent the only area to drop is “I feel like I am part of a team/community”
In the second survey T did say they would like to have more team-based activities.
This would need to be looked at by ESR. It may be due to the restrictions from Covid-19 as the surveys both took place during the lockdown period.
You can see large improvements in indicators around being supported to learn a new skill and “when I speak people listen and understand”
It is great to see improvement in both feeling safe and healthy
After each project all of our children/youths expressed a strong interest in completing another challenge in the future.

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Re-Tweed

Year Completed: 
2020

Funds Received - £3,200.00

BWCF funding was for the great tapestry project to allow women to come together with the main seamstress. Our section of the tapestry represents Berwickshire with an image of a fisher lasses and a woman who works in the textile factory.

Throughout the Covid-19 lockdown Re-tweed have been busy and provided much needed support to the wider community. Set up 2 food banks and made NHS scrubs for 8 hospitals. Set up online learning and provided online tutoring for those who could not make events. Made masks for shop keepers, volunteers and those shielding which was distributed through the local chemists. Thanks to Ramones for their help. Run 14 workshops for women who are graduates of Re-Tweed and now opened this to others. 1 place has been funded at the kilt academy.

Started first face to face volunteer day today, (12/08/2020) with reduced numbers. Our group has grown and grown, new projects emerging and replicating in other parts in Scotland. Grants, such as the Wellbeing and Business Relieve grant has allowed us to keep going and provide help such as the food banks etc. Strategic planning meeting next month to discuss how we move forward.

BWCF funding has led to us receiving funding elsewhere which totalled £110k income. New service manager has been taken on to share the workload.

Verbal report received at the AGM in August 2020

Duns Primary School

Year Completed: 
2020

Duns Primary School

Funds Received - £2,768.00

BWCF originally granted Duns Primary School £2,768.00 to help fund a residential trip for P7s however, due to Covid-19 this trip was cancelled.  A request was made to change the use of these funds which was duly granted and all funds were used to purchase rain gear. 

Every class (Nursery to P7) has benefitted from waterproofs this year.  Even more so due to the fact that PE had to be outside due to restrictions.  Moving forward, there will be a need to replace and replenish due to our growing school roll.  We are also committed to using more of the Duns community environment and the waterproofs not only allow us to acces in all weathers, there is now equity of provision so that families do not feel financial pressure when trying to kit out their children.  We are hugely grateful for the funding and the positive impact of the waterproofs has been staggering in terms of opening up opportunities. 

Here are some photos of our P1's enjoying the local woods in their waterproofs.

Martin Wilson

Duns Primary School

 

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Duns Junior FC

Year Completed: 
2020

Funds Received - £3,500.00

Duns Junior FC applied for funding from the Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund for a ride on lawnmower in May 2020.  They were awarded £3,500.00.  The need for the ride on lawnmower arose due to changes in council schedule to cutting the grass every 21 days, which meant the grass was too high for the kids to play on.  Councils seem to be maintaining public grass ares less and less which is having a knock on effect to local clubs/sports groups.  The lawnmower is currently being used approximately once a week and when needed.

Thank you Blackhill Windfarm Community Fund for your support.

Verbal report received at AGM August 2021.