Alan Caldwell brought the Are You Ready? project to Colintraive Village Hall this evening. With 17 residents, Sara led an interesting and lively session looking at how we can be ready for the increasingly turbulent weather that climate change is likely to bring. The group established the outline of an action plan which the DT was tasked with taking forward. The next step is to attend a follow-up session in Edinburgh and find out how and when we might implement things. For more on this, click here.
Category: Projects
For those of you keeping an eye on our developing plans for Stronafian, we have just published the updated Business Plan on our publications page.
At the last meeting of the working group we spent two hours poring over the decision matrix we had developed in the previous session. With Donald’s ongoing and able help we were able to develop some ideas about the types of solutions we would need to look at for various initiatives.
Over the next week the remainder of the group will revisit several of the most important themes, score them and send those back to Donald for collation and summary. That summary will be then submitted to the DT board for consideration.
Its been a long process, but very well worth it, and has developed some decision points for the community which will be presented at our next appropriate public meeting.
Here is the present working document for download.
One of the ongoing discussions we have been engaged in is seeing a way forward for Glendaruel what with the CRtB on the Hotel, the initial plans drawn up by the Hub Group and the ongoing progress the Village Hall Committee are making towards renewing the hall. To aid the community’s thinking we organised a session with all three groups at the Village Hall facilitated by Donald Walker and building on the decision-making matrix that the Development Trust has already developed.
Here’s Donald’s Review of the meeting:
The group listened to a short introduction of the aims and process and then heard 5 minute summaries of the activities of each of the working groups. The group were given the opportunity to ask clarifying questions and then worked through 2 set exercises which were designed to generate a consensus over next steps.
Using the presentations and the knowledge of the group, the team assembled a number of criteria which will be used to evaluate options. These criteria were forced ranked 1 to 10 although it was agreed that there could be an opportunity to combine or reclassify some of them at a later date.
The team then selected a number of “wants and needs” for the community and listed these in no particular order. The “wants and needs” were written in way that did not describe the solution; so, the community wants/needs access a licensed premises rather than the community wants/needs a pub. In this example, a pub is one possible solution to the requirement to access a location which is licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.
The team used a 1-3-9 scale to score the relationship between the “want/need” and the criteria where 1 = remote relationship/influence, 3 = moderate influence and 9 = strong relationship. This scale is designed to force a separation between items which have a big impact and those which don’t.
Next steps
The team agreed that this activity should not delay or derail any activities planned by the Village Hall team.
All those present agreed to re-convene for a further 2 hour meeting in the new year to complete the table. During this second session, the team agreed to define each of the criteria to improve clarity and to make the description more objective.
The team also agreed to complete a third session which would be designed to form solutions to each of the wants and needs. These solutions will be evaluated using the same approach as the prioritrisation matrix.
The presentation and matrix are attached so that all interested parties can see what was covered and participate in the process.
Glendaruel Discussion Presentation 5MB
This is Donald’s opening presentation outlining the method and the way outcomes are achieved.
XLS Spreadsheet
If you have Excel and would like to contribute your scores to our next discussion, please send them into us. Remember to score only 1s, 3s and 9s!
PDF of spreadsheet
For those of you who don’t have excel, here’s the pdf which you can open using Adobe Acrobat Reader, freely available from adobe.com
We’re delighted to announce that we have received approval for our application to the Investing in Ideas programme for developing our plans on the Old Shop in Colintraive. Structural and architectural assessments will be made prior to the trust and the Colintraive Steering Group reporting back to the community on the final shape this project will take.
Well done Rhona for getting this funding in place!
A quick digest on some of the projects which we are working on at the moment:
- The group looking at the Clachan pavilion or hub on the eastern end of the shinty pitch have recently received from the architect the building brief which resulted from a meeting between him and the ‘Hub Group’. Once this has been approved schematics will be produced, and then we’ll get a visual as to how this building might look and work.
- We’re moving forward with the recommendations made to us by the Ship-to-shore group and Rhona has made contact with various stakeholders.
- We’re also looking at micro-hydro schemes in Colintraive and Glendaruel and have identified with Community Energy Scotland 8 possible watercourses where this might happen. Once a desktop assessment has been made we’ll be contacting the landowners associated with the water courses to discuss possibilities.
Categories
Proposed Land Use Areas
The board met on Monday 22nd August to populate a map of Stronafian with initial proposals for where certain activities could be located in the forest. This will be passed onto our forest consultant for his comments.
You can view a Google Map of the above areas here
The board felt the amenity area should be close to the Clachan since this would form a base for people to go into the forest from. The Forest School would also be located in this area. It was decided some investigation would be required to provide access directly from the hotel to the forest. Paths to an area higher up where there is little forest cover would provide an area for views, picnic sites and possibly an area for stargazing.
The areas for silviculture were chosen based on selecting areas close to existing access routes and with relatively level topography. Activities here might involve commercial wood fuel production as well as the possibility of forest smallholdings for low impact silviculture.
It was felt the only suitable location for affordable housing on forest land was in Stronafian since this was relatively level ground, on a road and near existing housing.
We welcome your feedback on proposals below!
Over the last weeks there has been an unprecedented level of activity in the community looking at our future and the projects we might like to take forward. The ‘Ship-to-shore’ and the ‘Colintraive Gateway’ steering groups have met and made reports to the board, while the Clachan working groups have both reconvened and made recommendations as to the next steps they would like to take to further their work.
The board has also pushed forward with the process to purchase Stronafian Forest, on which we have a right to buy, as well as the community windfarm.
Russell Gill our intern has been working hard to put some shape on initiatives and ideas that have emanated in the community, and we hope to have some papers on matters as varied as mountain-biking, astronomy, and bridleways in hand by the end of the month.
Lastly, Russell and Rhona spent a very enjoyable morning with the Kilmodan school children as they had a forest school session. Both came back damp but delighted!
Our AGM begins at 2.30pm, with all the usual accoutrements to a development trust reporting back to its members. We’ll also be presenting our new local development plan and an extraordinary opportunity that we have been working on since August 2009. For more information on both, and to read the pertinent documents, please return to this site after the AGM.
For members who wish to attend, please contact us in the usual way for papers, documents and agendas etc.
Today myself and John McEwan met with Penny Cousins, the panel member for the NFLS, Malcolm Wield and Gordon Donaldson, as part of the process towards a determination on whether the right to buy Stronafian Forest should be granted to the Development Trust.
After a talking through the business plan and the full development programme the Development Trust is putting together, we walked around parts of the forest before repairing to the Colintraive Hotel for a Seafood Chowder lunch (which was delicious!).
The NFLS panel will consider our application on the 20th January, and a decision will be made by Forestry Commission Scotland’s Director, Bob McIntosh shortly thereafter. Fingers crossed.