CGDTThe directors of CGDT have cancelled all open and closed meetings until further notice to protect directors, staff, members and the wider community. We have notified trust members accordingly. We hope everyone has the support they need during this challenging time, and those of us that can will be volunteering with the resilience group.
If you have any queries or would like support from the Trust, please email us at cgdt@cgdt.org or via the contact form here.
Many of residents in ColGlen will have received a paper version of this survey in the Spring 2020 newsletter. For those who need more copies or who haven’t received the survey, please find the downloadable and printable PDF below:
The following message is from our Resilience Committee / Community Council Chair. CGDT has announced the cancellation of all open and closed meetings until further notice, see here.
Dear Community Member,
The next few weeks/months will be difficult for the country as Covid-19 spreads. Both the UK and Scottish Governments are putting things in place to try and slow down the spread but we as a community can also help to slow the spread down by helping those who fall ill, have to self-isolate or are vulnerable.
If you or a family member show symptoms and have to self isolate or if you are vulnerable we can help. Contact one of the numbers below and one of our volunteers will help you by:
• Collecting and delivering your shopping to your door
• Collecting and delivering medicines
• Chatting to you on the phone
• Urgent supplies
Something everyone can do:
• Phone your immediate neighbours every couple of days to check they are okay.
As the virus spreads people will become more isolated and it is important that we keep in contact and look after each other.
To get a volunteer to contact you phone our volunteers as per the attached PDF below:
As announced at public meetings and online, the CGDT AGM has been delayed until Sunday 15th December at 2pm in Colintraive Village Hall. Members will be sent out papers prior to the meeting, with agenda etc. Draft minutes are available here and published on our publications page.
After the very well-attended meeting on the 3rd October (Minutes available in Minutes & Other Essentials) the community decided in a vote on the evening to not proceed with the sale of the Solum.
Outcomes from and feedback on the meeting were:
The Development Trust will hold its Annual General Meeting on the 3rd of October, at 7.30pm. The venue will be the Glendaruel Village Hall, and all are welcome. Membership of the trust will be taken on the night, and all residents of the community can join. Those who holiday or own second homes in the ColGlen can become associate, non-voting members.
As part of the evening, and after the business of the AGM has been concluded, the Trust will be leading a discussion of the offer of purchase the community forest tenants have made for the solum of the leased commercial timber.
More details are available here:
With 500 copies distributed to the community and local businesses, we’ve now generated a downloadable version.
Included in this issue is news from the community council, the development trust, the church, our wildswimmers and the ColGlen chorus, to name but a few.
We are looking to update the map for the Summer issue, including more businesses and useful information, as well as adverts. We have 5 takers for the ad spaces so far and only another 4 are available – get yours by contacting the newsletter group through cgdt@cgdt.org
News, Information, Map and Walks for community and visitors has been published this week. Designed to inform locals, market the community and provide essential information this quarterly publication is already looking for ideas for articles for the next (Summer) issue.
This quarter’s issue includes news from the community council, development trust, ColGlen growers, the Heritage Centre, ColGlen Chorus and much more!
If you haven’t received a copy, or have an idea for an article, please let us know!
The AGM minutes has been approved by the board for publication as draft on the website here. and below is the transcript from the minute of the Chair’s report for the year ending 2018.
CHAIR’S REPORT FOR 2017-18
If I were to characterise this year for the trust I would say we have undergone a massive change, albeit one which has snuck under the radar somewhat.
In 2010 we conceived a plan to create a sustainable income for the trust and the community through the generation of renewable energy in the glen. At every turn this ambition has been thwarted – either by existing installations in the case of microhydro generation, or by the refusal of planning applications, in the case of wind.
Now, while I think we have a moral and ethical duty to do everything we can to mitigate climate change, we understand as the board we are an organisation which has been set a specific community-oriented task – to improve the lot of as many people as we can in the community through the projects we run.
We have had sterling success in this. The Warmer and Greener ColGlen projects are still, if you will pardon the pun, bearing fruit. This year we will run our third Peoples and Communities Fund Training programme in the forest, training young and unemployed folks and making them ready for work.
However, the projects we have struggle to earn income, and therefore do not contribute to our core requirement as an organisation, which is to be sustainable. With the failure of our renewables business plan, we have been working to reconfigure our approach so that we can continue to develop projects.
That’s the local context. Nationally, Brexit and the UK’s departure from the EU has made the funding landscape very difficult, and means that over the next two years we will find it very difficult to access substantial funds.
The question we have been asking is What can the trust do? And in that context What Next for the community.
Cathleen through her role as chair of the Community Council and with the support of her fellow community councillors has been pushing for a reconfigured agenda for the whole of the community, and the board of the trust completely buys into this initiative and wants to help deliver the outcomes the What Next? session identified.
Our role is to enable this. At present we employ a freelance General Manager, Amber, and we have now taken on two further freelance development officers, Sara MacLean and Nikki Brown. Amber will continue with the day-to-day, week-to-week admin, and Sara and Nikki will be tasked with bringing forward projects.
Shortly after Christmas through our development officers we will help a steering group move forward with a community newsletter, we will develop some work around the idea of trails within ColGlen and move forward with the clachan hub.
Which brings me to report on existing projects. The hub has stalled. Capacity and the reconfigurations that are going on at the moment around grant-funding have meant we need to re-examine this project and work out how to move forward. I have asked Sara to investigate how we might best spend the remaining development money to move forward.
The forest will need to be brought back into activity, both in terms of ensuring the path network is functional, but also how we are to use the asset now that we have wrapped up the CARES loan and issues around renewables. Nikki will be looking at this.
The Loch Lomond & Cowal Way, as I am sure Jim will report, has been building on the success of previous years and as we come to the end of the coastal community funding, is continuing to work towards the goal of sustainability. There is an ongoing crowdfunding campaign which will help with this. I urge you to contribute if you haven’t. Why? Well, as an example I will quote one of the outcomes of What Next? That we should market ColGlen more. The Cowal Way does this, was always designed to do this. It raises the profile of our area, but more importantly brings in customers for our accommodation providers and our visitor attractions – it is increasingly supporting our local economy. Numbers are up and that will only continue if we can continue to manage the Way proactively.
As I am sure you are aware Kyles Community Broadband closed the procurement for a community-owned network for this area without awarding a contract. This decision was the culmination of negotiations between KCB, HIE and the government and will result in our community receiving a higher priority part of the new R100 project. But more of that later.
I shall close this report with thanks to our hard-working members of staff, Stewart, Charlie and Amber, who put heart and soul into their roles. we are most thankful for their efforts. As for the board: Jm your continued energy with the Way is extraordinary and we are very grateful for it. Cathleen, many thanks for your input this year – its been invigorating for the board and has led to some really good stuff. Colin, many thanks for your input as treasurer – its been much appreciated. John, without you and Graham Curran, the community would not have the prospect of R100 so many thanks for your dogged determination. Alex your sage advice has as always been very much appreciated.
2019 looks like being a very interesting year – I just hope, for the community, it is one of successes and progress, not confusion and division as it has been south of the border these last months, thank you.
Charles Dixon-Spain, Chair