Friday, 17 September 2021

5 THINGS FOR A FRIDAY

LOCAL BAR, CATERING AND AUDIO-VISUAL SERVICES OPPORTUNITY

If a local business or community group wishes to consider providing bar, catering or audio-visual services for the Wildside then please get in touch – details on the website here.

Contracts for work | Stratherrick & Foyers Community Trust (stratherrickcommunity.org.uk)

We are also looking for cleaning staff at the same link.  This approach will hopefully create employment in the local area.

BOOK THE WILDSIDE CENTRE

You can now book the Wildside Centre for meetings (with the ability to speak and work with people in person and remotely), your events and any clubs and groups you want to set up.  The audio visual facility we now have helps engage people who perhaps want to have their say but can’t travel from home or helps you communicate with others on a project who don’t have the time to travel / concerned about travelling at night.  This allows your meetings to be inclusive and create social cohesion.

Prices for booking the Wildside Centre are on the booking form (link below). The Wildside Centre is built by the community for all the community and the cost of booking is heavily subsidised by the funds we receive from wind and hydro.  If you have a new idea that benefits the community we will waive the cost of booking the Centre while you establish your group.  Some already that provide a service like Soup to Go and Baby and Toddlers in free rentals that would cost £1000 at the subsidised rate. It’s a great venue to float an idea and we welcome everyone.

If you book an event for a birthday party, significant birthday, celebration or wedding you get a discount as a member of the Trust.  All the funds will go back into maintaining the building and creating local employment.  The Booking Form is here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/wildsidebooking

Of course we are not the only community facility in the area and it was great to catch up with Stratherrick Community Hall this week.  You can read more about what they are up to in the next magazine and further details here Stratherrick Public Hall | Stratherrick & Foyers Community Trust (stratherrickcommunity.org.uk)

We will share any events in both buildings here if we have the information What's On | Stratherrick & Foyers Community Trust (stratherrickcommunity.org.uk)

TRAINING FOR THE FUTURE

This week SSE facilitated Leadership Training for Trust Staff and Board Members.  It gave us an opportunity to speak to several other Trust groups and share best practice between new, growing and established community led groups.  I hope that communication will continue beyond the sessions planned so we can help each other’s communities come to solutions to similar projects and issues we face.

Stratherrick and Foyers Community Trust is moving into legacy projects phase which is quite exciting.  The Community Action Plan will guide the grant making process to ensure funded activities and funds we apply for meet the needs of the community in a strategic and evidence-based way.  At the same time we want to empower members of the community to help deliver the legacy and activities you have evidenced by engaging with the Community Action Plan in the last six months.  This may sound a little scary to some but we aim to help you in any way we can, alongside other interested stakeholders, to make things happen if they meet the outcomes of the Community Action Plan.  

RIVERSIDE FIELD

Still no word from planning for us to share with the Steering Group on Riverside Field.  When we know, you’ll know.  

All our updates can be found on the Project Page in digestible chunks.  Detailed information on Broadband will be in the magazine (coming soon).  Errogie Church Steering Group met last night to discuss Phase 1 & 2 of the project. Highland Council granted the Wildside Centre Public Entertainment Licence pending agreement on a few conditions (this has been going on for over a year due largely to Covid restrictions). Required surveys are progressing to allow a planning application to be submitted to Highland Council for the slipway.

A couple of short paragraphs.  There is a few more details on the website here Projects | Stratherrick & Foyers Community Trust (stratherrickcommunity.org.uk) which we hope to update every Thursday.  More details in the magazine.  It takes you about thirty seconds to read but behind each word there is a lot of work being done, largely by volunteers.  They are dependent on other organisations meeting their deadlines and, of course, we are sensitive to the needs of the community and the area we live in (the consideration of which adds more time to projects).  I hope you will find these updates helpful and when we are asked “Why do projects take so long” or “That happened quickly – we didn’t expect that” you will be able to see the answer.  Not forgetting that putting it all down in writing takes time by largely volunteers too!

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

It’s all been a bit Jerry Maguire around here as we await the Community Action Plan.  Papers have been prepared attempting to explain a new way of working that allows engagement at all levels with those in the community who have the skills to help with certain projects.  We appreciate some people have the time to sit on committees and others want to do stuff.  Some can deliver a task that needs to be done and that’s them and others can contribute but their time is limited.  Some individual and groups have done considerable work already but funding has been a stumbling block.  Some people just want to help.  We also want to create employment when we can.  So apologies if this ‘Five Things For A Friday’ seems overly ‘strategic’ as we’ve been working though this for many months and as the CAP is imminent it all becomes real and incredibly serious! 

SHOW ME THE MONEY TWO!

Carlene Vincent, our new Finance Officer (Frank Ellam stands down at the AGM – did we mention it’s on 24^th November?) met with all the new staff team to talk through some initial changes she hopes to implement and I followed up with changes to think about after my ‘middle of the night waking in a cold sweat’ Jerry Maguire moments above.  Sometimes it seems more like ‘Mission Impossible’ but the pillars were put in place for the Trust some considerable time ago so the foundations are quite strong to build on.  That’s the message I share everyday and although we face challenges attempting to meet the demands of everyone with the resources available to us (particularly in terms of money) the governance is strong and everyone is trying to be solution driven.  For that reason it makes my job that much easier when sharing our story to other Trusts, funders and external stakeholders who can help us deliver for the community.  Thanks to every community member actively involved who got us to this moment – and I’m sure you will help us raise the bar even more in the future.

Tony Foster

Trust Manager

2025

February (12 stories)

22 February 📣 ** TODAY ** 📣 - Forest School Meeting

Interested in the future of the Forest School building? From 2pm   Come and speak to us about your thoughts for the Forest School and wider opportunities fo...

21 February Congratulations to Whitebridge Hotel

Whitebridge Hotel are finalists in the National Hotels of the Year - Scotland awards!   The ceremony takes place in Glasgow on the 26th February at The Cr...

19 February 📣 Youth Club returns this Thursday 📣

Youth club is for anyone in P7 to S6 ✅ After a bit of a break, we are delighted to say that Youth Club is back!! ⭐ Important info ⭐ Date - Thursday 20th Februa...

19 February Communications 2025!

We are making a some improvements in the way we share important information with the community in 2025. The SFCT Board and communications team have made the dec...

13 February Mailing List Update

We hope you received your copy of the February newsletter and enjoyed reading through it. The team are busy updating our mailing list and we understand that there may ...

12 February Next Sat 22nd February

Next Sat 22nd February   Inverfarigaig Forest School, Farigaig Forestry Carpark IV2 6XR - From 2pm   Come and speak to us about your thoughts fo...

11 February ⚠️ Update regarding the upcoming works taking place at The Wildside Centre ⚠️

We can now confirm that the scheduled works on upgrading the toilet facilities in the Wildside Centre is starting this Thursday – 13th February.   The Wi...

11 February 🙌 JOIN OUR TEAM 🙌

We are currently recruiting a part-time (30 hours per week) Community Action Plan Project Officer to join our small team, based in the Wildside Centre in Whitebridge, on ...

8 February 📢 THE DAY IS FINALLY HERE 📢

Later today the Pathways Group are hosting their Community Engagement event at the Wildside Centre from 13.30pm.   For the past year, the Pathways Group has be...

6 February Errogie Church Statement

As you will be aware, an announcement was made by the Trust in mid December 2024 that we were unfortunately unable to host three events that were due to take place at Err...

6 February Wildside Wednesday Success!

🙌THANK YOU 🙌 We want to say a big thank you to those of you who popped along to our first Wildside Wednesday event yesterday! It was great to see you all 😃  ...

5 February !! WILDSIDE WEDNESDAY - TODAY !!

Join us TODAY at the Wildside Centre, between 9.30am – 12.30pm where the first Wildside Wednesday of 2025 will take place.  You can shop local, with local p...

January (22 stories)

31 January !! Next Saturday !!

On the 8th Feb The Pathways Group host their Community Engagement Day at the Wildside Centre from 13.30pm.   The group have setup a dedicated Facebook event pa...

30 January Refurbishments to toilets in The Wildside Centre

Following many months of work behind the scenes we are pleased to be able to share with you that work on upgrading the ladies toilets and creating a larger disabled toile...

30 January Fancy a sing song with Monadhliath?

The Monadhliath Choir invites all singers to a charity singing event on the 27.04.2025 at Stratherrick Public Hall. If you would be interested in join...

29 January February Newsletter

We are pleased to share that our Feb newsletter should be making its way through your door next week! 🙌   Please look out for the white envelope addressed to ...

25 January Do you use Instagram?

Did you know that Stratherrick & Foyers Community Trust are on Instagram? If you too have an account, why not give our page a follow. We’re keen to build up ...

24 January Foyers Community Fire Station

🚒 Foyers Community Fire Station 🚒   Foyers Community Fire station has a competent crew of 7 personnel, but we are in real need of new recruits, to keep the s...

23 January Wildside Wednesday is returning!

Join us on the 5th February at the Wildside Centre, between 9.30am – 12.30pm.   Here is your chance to shop local, with local produce from Lyne Mhor Crof...

22 January Loch Ness Luvvies - Traditional Burns Supper

This Friday, 24th Jan the Loch Ness Luvvies are hosting their very own Traditional Burns Supper at Stratherrick Hall, Gorthleck at 7.30pm. Tickets are £20 per he...

22 January Timings have been announced!

As you may have recently seen, The Pathways Group are running a Community Engagement event on the 8th February from 1pm at The Wildside Centre. In our previous post, t...

21 January ** Mobile Library Update **

Mark, our local librarian has kindly sent over a full list of dates when he will be stopping in the area. You can find the full list here: https://www.stratherrickcommuni...

20 January Invitation to tender - Health & Safety Consultant required

We are looking for an experienced Health & Safety professional to carry out a comprehensive survey on Errogie Church to ensure that the building is fully compliant fo...

19 January Send in your dates for the Community Calendar!

Did you know we have an online Community Calendar? If not, you can find it here: https://www.stratherrickcommunity.org.uk/calendar/   We would love to inclu...

18 January What's the next step?

For the past year, the Pathways Group has been working hard to promote the local path network, paths that lead through rich landscapes, historical sites, and biodiversity...

15 January Community Engagement Day - 8th Feb

Over the last month you may have noticed that the Pathways Group are holding a Community Engagement Day on the 8th February. You can find out all about the event by follo...

14 January Mobile Library Update

Below you will find a list of updated Dates/Times where you can visit the Mobile Library at The Wildside Centre.   We will add these dates to the Online Commu...

14 January Indoor Carpet Bowls makes it return as of today!

** TODAY ** Indoor Carpet Bowls makes it return as of today! The group return to their weekly session after the Xmas break. Please note: The group will now ...

10 January Community Engagement Event - 8th Feb

The Pathways Group invites you to a community event that explores the potential development of a pathways based app. This is your opportunity to help shape an app which w...

9 January Deadline for Jan/Feb Newsletter Content!

The deadline to send in any content for the Jan/Feb Newsletter is Friday the 17th of January 2025. Please email marketingofficer@sfctrust.org.uk with your articles inclu...

9 January Send us in your photos from the Winter Festival

A HUGE thank you to those of you who have already uploaded photos to our shared community photo gallery during the festival.   If you have any wintery snaps th...

8 January Reverse Advent Calendar Success!

Santa's little helpers would like to thank everyone who contributed in any way to the overwhelming success of this project. The generosity shown by our community was ...

8 January ** MOBILE LIBRARY VISIT TODAY CANCELLED **

Sadly, due to the current road conditions, Mark who drives the local ‘Mobile Library’ will NOT be stopping at Wildside today. All books will be renewed, and h...

7 January Welcome Back

Hello, we hope you had a relaxing time during the festivities. As it’s now time to get back to work, we thought it would be a good idea to update our online communi...