Aird Community Trust (ACT)

Category: News

  • KDAA Annual General Meeting

    The Annual General Meeting of the Kirkhill District Amenities Association will be held in the Kirkhill Community Centre at 7:30pm on Thursday 10th November 2011. This is the opportunity for the community to find out about the KDAA, the Community Centre and what is involved in running this vital community resource.

    This year, there will be a presentation on the Kirkhill Centre Forward project, the redevelopment of the Community Centre. There will be a chance for discussion and feedback, so come and see the latest plans and let us know what you think.

    The agenda for the AGM will be:

    Refreshments will be available following the AGM.

  • Energy Efficiency Programme – September Update

    Renewable Energy Fair – Sat 29th October 10.00 – 14.30

    Kirkhill Primary School.

    We will be holding a renewable energy fair on the 29th October to help raise awareness of renewable energy and low carbon heating solutions. Local renewable energy kit suppliers and specialsists will be on hand to explain the different systems and help, support and advice you can get if you would like to install renewable energy in your home.

    Scottish homeowners given access to free insulation

    A £12.5 million energy efficiency scheme has been announced by the Scottish government to help thousands of homeowners cut down on the price of energy bills and lower carbon emissions. The government will launch the Universal Home Insulation Scheme next year, delivering free insulation to around 200,000 households in the country.

    It is hoped that the home improvements, which will be administered by local authorities, will stem the number of people falling into fuel poverty.  Other schemes helping Scottish households to control their energy use include the Boiler Scrappage Scheme, which offers £400 towards the cost of a new energy efficient boiler.

    Pylon design competition finalists unveiled

    A competition to find a new design for the British electricity pylon has been short listed to just six concepts, which are now on show at a London exhibition.

    With the Beauly Denny line upgrade on our doorstep, work has already started on installing the bigger pylons we will need to take the renewable energy we generate in the north of Scotland down to the central belt. A couple of years back I came across a similar Icelandic competition which generated some very interesting pylon designs. How would you feel with pylons like this in our countryside?

    Energy Assistance for Carers

    Carers who look after family and friends will now qualify for free energy assistance backed by the Scottish Government. The Government is
    extending its energy assistance package to people in receipt of carers allowance. This means that around 7,000 carers will be able to access funding for;

    • New central heating and where appropriate air source heat pumps,
    • A new boiler
    • Draughtproofing
    • Internal or external wall insulation
    • Cavity wall insulation
    • Loft insulation
    • Room thermostats and heating controls
    • Insulation of tanks and pipes.

    Home Energy Checks.

    A simple way to find out how you can make your home more energy efficient and if you will qualify for subsidised or free insulation tops ups is to complete a Home Energy Check.  These are a very simple, user friendly list of questions supplied by the Energy Saving Scotland advice centre, a Government funded team. There is a local office in Inverness who supports our Programme and they are happy to chat with residents and provide advice and information as well as the Home Energy Checks.  The office can be contacted on the following free phone number 0800 512 012

  • Tennis membership rates reduced until March 2012

    The KDAA are offering reduced tennis membership rates for the rest of the season, until March 2012. Make the best of the last of the summer (?!) weather with family membership now only £15.

    Booking forms and tariffs are available here.

  • Gala week success and hall renovation news

    Gala Week 2011 success

    Gala Week in Kirkhill has always been something of an event. The whole community getting behind a weeklong programme of events and activities culminating in Gala Day.  This year though was something special. Buoyed up by the success of the last year the Gala Committee  were determined to do better, and they did!

    The week was a nonstop whirl of activity from the family ceilidh which kicked off the week to the Gala Dance at the end. It’s difficult to single out any particular event as they were all great fun and catered for a range of ages and interests. But new for this year and a huge success was the Fashion Show held at Achnagairn House.  The Antiques Roadshow was also a great success with some people leaving with their treasures clutched a little tighter.  It also wouldn’t be gala week without the Bingo ably managed as ever by Kirkhill Bowlers and the Pet Parade this year enhanced by the dog agility course.

    After some iffy weather in the week Gala Day itself stayed fine and we had a great turnout. There was so much going on it was difficult to get round it all and there was some great music too.

    As well as being a great community get together and social occasion for all the week was also a financial success.  The amazing amount of £9300 was collected – a huge amount for a small community and it just goes to show what great community spirit we have.  And huge, huge thanks to the hard working gala committee (and all their friends and relatives that they dragged along to help), to the many other volunteers  and to everyone that came along to support the events.

    The funds will go towards the upkeep and improvement of Kirkhill Community Centre and sports facilities for the benefit of the whole community.  And we’ll need all that and more as we progress our plans to renovate and extend the hall.

    Hall renovation project

    Where are we now with our hall renovation plans? Well, we’ve got feedback from the community and users on what they think are the most important issues. Top of the list were improvements to the kitchen, toilets and changing rooms and increased storage and more choice of space to rent. We’ve taken this information and, working with local architect Erik Lundberg, have come up with some proposals for improvement. Ideally we’d like to extend the hall to provide toilets and a meeting room while internally renovating to provide a bigger kitchen, improved changing and a bigger vestibule. But this won’t come cheap and estimates at the moment are around £250,000. Our next step is to work on our feasibility study and business plan and identify funders that can help us with the project. It won’t happen quickly but we’ll keep you informed about how the project is progressing. In the meantime if you got any bright ideas about how to raise more money let us know!

    If you’d like to help with this important community project get in touch with Alasdair Morrison on 831185.  We particularly need people with building, project management , administration or financial skills.

    Kirkhill MUGA

    One year on and the multi use games area (MUGA) is being well used and the tennis membership has been successful. To help young people benefit from the facility we’re please to offer limited after-school sessions. These are free sessions for young people on Thursdays from 4pm to 6pm from now until the October holidays. The court will be opened and closed by an adult but the activities will be unsupervised. This is for a trial period and any abuse of equipment or unacceptable behaviour may result in the sessions being stopped.

    AGM

    Kirkhill District Amenities Association AGM will be held on Thursday 10th November at 7.30 in the Community Centre.  This will be a great opportunity to hear about our renovation plans and the gala success and have a cup of tea and a chat. We promise we won’t twist any arms to come on the committee (…but if you are interested call Ken MacDonald on 831429).

  • Summer fun for Aird Scouts

    In mid June, twenty-one scouts from the Aird section of Kirkhill Scout Group attended an action-packed and hugely enjoyable weekend camp at the Brora Scout campsite.  Somehow, in just two days, we managed to pack in a huge range of activities including map skills, hill walking, raft building, swimming (in a chilly loch), abseiling and collecting bizarre objects for the ‘nature table’ (mainly sheep bones).  The highlight for many was the chance to abseil down a sheer rock face.  In addition, we formally welcomed and invested eight new scouts and of course enjoyed the traditional camp-fire, complete with charred marsh-mallows.

    The campsite itself is fantastic, set in a valley beside Loch Brora.  The weather was mainly dry and the midges stayed away – we did however have to take cover when a herd of cattle decided to invade the campsite.

    The weekend culminated in a raft race to an island in the loch (see photograph) in which, against all expectations, both rafts stayed afloat (unlike most of the scouts).

    The camp marked the end of a hugely successful and varied summer term in which the scouts have participated in a wide range of land and water-based activities and have worked towards achieving the Forester badge

    Thank you to Brora Scouts for organising the abseiling at the camp and to Karen Blagden and Jill Kent for helping out with transport.  And, a special thanks to Muirton Sea Scouts for hosting our canoeing sessions and to Ged Church for organising the woodland evenings.

    Helen Cowan, Assistant Scout Leader

  • Community Council elections 2011

    Elections for 153 Community Councils across the Highlands, including Kirkhill & Bunchrew, will be held in November this year. A local election, by postal vote, will take place where the number of valid nominations exceeds the maximum number of members each Community Council is allowed. The deadline for voting is 5pm on Wednesday 16 November.

    The election of Kirkhill & Bunchrew Community Council has not had to go to a vote for many years because the number of nominations has not exceeded the number of available seats, which is currently 8.

    For the first time anyone aged 16 or 17 at the time of the election is eligible to stand for election and to vote. Persons taking part in the election must be listed in the current Electoral Register for the Community Council area or, if aged 16 or 17, must have completed a voter registration application, unless their head of household has already registered them. (Registration as a Community Council voter or elector is not the same as nomination as a candidate for election.)

    Community Council voter registration forms and copies of the Highland Council’s Scheme for the
    Establishment of Community Councils (which includes a blank nomination form on the last 2 pages) can be obtained in person from any Council Service Point, or from the Council’s Service Centre (tel. 01349 886606). These
    documents can also be downloaded here.

    To be able to stand as a candidate at the election, 16 or 17 year olds must submit the completed registration form to the Election Office in Dingwall by Wednesday 31 August.

    16 or 17 year olds who just want to vote in the election have to submit their registration form by Friday 30 September.

    Nomination forms from all candidates for election must be lodged by Tuesday 4 October.

    A full election timetable is available here. More information about the Kirkhill & Bunchrew Community Council election should be provided here in due course.