NEWSLETTER WINTER 2018/19
Season’s Greetings from our new office! CCDC now has a base in Coigach Community Hall so you can visit us in our new quarters in the Community Room (except Wednesday mornings when we make way for the doctor’s waiting room).
As this is the season of goodwill and giving, we are delighted to announce that the Community Fund is open and money is flowing into the community! Under our Small Grants Fund for Organisations (up to £5k) we have already supported:
- Coigach Community Hall for a new and exciting activities programme – check out what’s on!
- Achiltibuie Primary School with £5000 funding towards the purchase of new playground equipment.
- North West Highlands Geopark which has been awarded £1660 for signage to encourage people to visit Coigach and its remarkable Geology.
Through our Supporting Children and Young People Fund we have given grants for varied purposes including university open day visits, musical instruments and driving lessons. This fund is to enable Coigach youngsters to access activities or obtain equipment that will support their development.
We have also distributed funds through our Education and Training Bursaries Fundfor training courses and further education – including driving lessons for adults; and the Wellbeing Fundis there to support people in Coigach to participate in a range of arts, cultural and natural heritage, leisure and recreations and scientific events, non-certificated/informal life-long learning courses and activities. We are also pleased to be supporting Christine McCallum’s plans for a community open day in the new year with advice and information for everyone, especially senior citizens on matters such as power of attorney, living wills, advance planning and personal wishes. Keep an eye on the Ullapool News for further developments!
And for our youngest citizens we have the Coigach Baby Fund– a gift to all new babies to welcome them to the community – and this year we were thrilled to be able to present this to three bouncing recipients!
If you would like know more about how our grants could benefit you please get in touch.
Housing Needs Survey. Our fledgling Housing Working Group met in October and enjoyed an informative presentation and discussion with Morven Taylor of Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust. The group will shortly be circulating a housing needs survey as the next step towards establishing some community owned housing in Coigach. We are moving forward with a croft we have been offered for this purpose and are looking at other possible sites. If you would like to be involved in the Housing Working Group – either as someone who needs housing, or a supporter please get in touch. And if you have any land you could offer at reasonable price then we’d love to hear from you!
New Development Plan. When we wrote our original development plan, we had a vision for 2020 and various projects the community wanted us to work on. With 2019 nearly here, it’s time to review it and look at the next 10 years. As part of that process we’d like to speak to people in the community and we are holding a community drop in event and Burns Lunch on Saturday 19thJanuary in Coigach Community Hall. The lunch is being organised by Achiltibuie Primary School to raise funds for their new playground equipment so we hope you will support that and share your tuppence-worth with us on your thoughts for the future.
Acheninver Path. As part of the Coigach Assynt Living Landscape project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, we have planning permission to improve the Acheninver path – down the Hostel Burn, along the beach and up again to re-join the road, forming an attractive route. The work will involve repairing erosion, culverts and ditching and waymarking to improve access. We have just reached another milestone as a project manager has been appointed to oversee the groundwork and see it through to completion.
New Directors: Following our AGM we are delighted to welcome Seumas Hitchings as a brand new director and to welcome back Ben Walton. We’d like to thank Steve Husband and Alison Macleod (who stepped down this year) for all their contributions to CCDC. There is still space on the board though if you would like to get involved! If you would like to know more or volunteer don’t hesitate to contact us.