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.
Category: Projects
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:
- Inform the forest tenant that the community has declined the offer made on the Solum of the parts of the forest under commercial lease. Notification was acknowledged by the tenant on Monday 7th.
- Set a new date for the trust’s AGM. This has now been agreed by the board and booked for 2pm on 15th December in Colintraive Village Hall. Official notifications will be sent out in due course.
- Begin Open board meetings. This has been agreed by the board and the first open meeting will be on Thursday, 14th November at 7.30pm in Colintraive Village Hall. All are welcome.
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:
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
For more information on this exciting post please visit KCB’s website, here.
On Wednesday 5th October, CGDT convened our 8th community consultation meeting to discuss the Clachan Hub. While we reported on progress towards the funding application, the main business of the meeting was to consider the draft plans from our architects INCH. To that end, and to continue the dialogue regarding the building, and also, because of technical difficulties in presenting the full treatment at the meeting, CGDT are publishing INCH’s presentation here now.
The document begins with the general design treatment, how it sits in the landscape, and its appearance. It then moves onto exemplars of various kinds around materials, shape and construction. Finally, the presentation discusses the internal layout.
While CGDT is very happy with the general concept, because it embodies all the feedback we have had from the community from our previous 7 meetings, the details are still very much in discussion, particularly the location of the bar / servery area in Building 01 and the access to the changing rooms in Building 02. We would welcome any comment, positive or negative, as well as thoughts on layout and structure. And of course if you have questions, please don’t hesitate!
Here’s the PDF of the entire document, please click to download –> 122-cgdt-hub-initial-proposals-b4
All feedback to cgdt@cgdt.org
With regard to the offer made to the community council by the CGDT chair to hold a public meeting to discuss the community project to build two wind turbines in Stronafian Forest, the determination of the Development Trust board on the matter is as follows.
After much discussion the board have decided not to go ahead with a public meeting. There are several reasons for this:
1. The planning application is being processed and further discussion will not add materially to the outcome of the council’s deliberations.
2. We have invested over £120,000 in this project as part of a CARES loan. We have match-funded this investment at a rate of 5% of Forest Development Funds. This is a significant commitment for the trust, with these funds being applied for and granted in the full light of community scrutiny through AGMs, published minutes and community plans. We are bound by that commitment to follow the process through and we believe that while it is everyone’s right to have a view on a planning application, we are disappointed that the community members who are now so strenuously objecting didn’t make their views known at an earlier juncture and in a spirit of consensual community planning.
3. We are further disappointed that these concerns were not raised when the initial planning decision to allow a met mast to be constructed was made.
4. Furthermore, and in the light of 2 & 3 above we are more than content that there were sufficient public consultation meetings over the last 2 years for the community to be fully appraised of the project. The Community Council is well aware that owning and running our own renewables project has been a primary objective for the Trust since 2009.
5. We are not convinced that a further meeting will provide any level of resolution for either those who support the trust’s application or those who do not. We are concerned that if we provided a community forum in this format there is likely to be a deepening of the adversarial climate which has emerged over the issue.
6. The Development Trust has maintained a transparent stance with regard to the project, and have always encouraged members of the community to come to the board, individual directors or our staff to express concerns.
7. As we have said repeatedly at AGMs and other meetings, the Development Trust would rather those whose are dissatisfied with our progress, step up, become directors or members of working groups and help direct the trust’s agenda.
8. We stand by our assertions of the benefit of this development to the whole community: in its ability to offset many of the cuts the council is having to apply; and in its support of the development plan (redrafted in 2013) which the Development Trust is following (and which is published through the CGDT website).
9. Lastly, planning consent if we receive it, is only one step along a much longer road which involves subsidy levels, funding rounds, finance and business planning – all of which will dictate whether or not this is a viable project. To go forward this project must earn the community at least £57,500 per annum on average in combined profit and community benefit.
Wednesday 11th May 6pm until 9pm
We would like to invite you to an evening workshop about improving communication in community led projects and designing new approaches to community consultations.
The workshop will be delivered by the Institute of Design Innovation and Lancaster University as part of a research and exchange project called Leapfrog. The project looks to improve and support communication and engagement with members of the public about local area development and public services (leapfrog.tools).
The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and there is no charge to attend the workshop. If you attend all we will ask is that you come armed with experience of working in your community and a willingness to discuss the issues and challenges you have faced.
The workshop will take place at 6pm until 9pm on the 11th May at the Colintraivevillage hall.
If you want to explore new ways to engage with people, make communicating projects easier and talk about how to make projects easier to manage, all over a glass of wine then please come along.
If you would like to attend please register at our Eventbrite page by following the link below
Alternatively contact Paul Smith on p.smith@gsa.ac.uk to find out more or reserve a place. And if planning ahead isn’t your thing, please feel free to drop in on the night.