£83,000 for Eskdale

NEARLY £83,000 is being pumped into Eskdale’s economy through the latest round of funding from the Ewe Hill 16 windfarm community benefit fund.
The Buccleuch Centre has received £11,250 to employ a marketing and programming support co-ordinator for two years.
The Langholm Alliance has £14,000 to employ a project assistant to help with it community action plan.
Ewes Hall committee has been awarded £16,500 for phase one of the hall’s regeneration, while Canonbie green bowling club receives £2,340 to replace the clubhouse roof.
The Langholm Initiative’s digital skills project gets £12,500, while OutPost Arts is awarded £5,000 for its Next Steps project.
A sum of £6,000 goes Langholm Pipe Band for uniforms and accoutrements.
Muckle Toon Media, which owns the E&L Advertiser, receives £15,000 for its Going Digital: A Sustainable Future for our Community Newspaper

MUCKLE Toon Media’s project will enable it to continue its core activities of publishing the Eskdale & Liddesdale
Advertiser weekly and E&L Life bi-monthly.
It will provide work experience and volunteering opportunities in the media for young and old and implement its digital development strategy by marketing a digital version of the E&L plus access to editorial content on the new E&L website.
The grant will enable the community enterprise company to manage community and visitor information on the new Welcome to Langholm website, engage with a younger audience through active use of social media and providing 16 hours a week employment.
All in all, it will help the company to move closer to becoming a sustainable enterprise.

LUCY MacLeod, creative director of OutPost Arts, said: “We’re using the funding to develop and grow our organisation so we become more sustainable as part of our Next Steps Project.
“Our objectives are to develop and strengthen our permanent High Street base, The Look Out, embedding our organisation in our community on a more permanent basis.
“We want to solidify its creative programme, delivering exhibitions and creative and cultural events on an ongoing basis.
“Strengthening education and learning programmes, delivering arts clubs, arts awards and classes, workshops and courses for people of all ages and backgrounds on an on-going basis is another aim.
“We want to broaden our scope and ambition, working with an increased number of participants to realise their full potential and achieve creative expression, opportunity and certification.
“This will further benefit the community’s health and well-being by developing a creative programme with this outcome in mind.
“We’ll build on the success of our weekly Making Space sessions, deliver an annual festival consisting of high-quality creative events, including workshops, events and talks, exhibitions and work with our schools to facilitate linked educational activities.
“This festival will be developed in partnership with key local and regional organisations, supporting the tourism growth of Langholm by attracting visitors via ‘creative place-making’.
“We’ll develop links and strengthen existing relationships with regional and national creative organisations and explore opportunities to work in partnership, for example, with the Making Connections project.
“We also want to investigate delivering creative activity and learning beyond Langholm, scoping opportunities in places, like Lockerbie.”

GAVIN Graham, chairman of the Buccleuch Centre, said the marketing person would work for three days a week for two years.
He said: “We received only half of the amount we applied for because of the number of applications the fund had so there is some match-funding to find now if we are to implement the project in full.
“The situation has changed dramatically since our application was sent and it will be a totally different scenario once the centre eventually reopens.
“My main fear is that it could be well into 2021 before we are anything like back to normal.
“Our customer base is predominately people over 60 or over 70 and this age group looks as if it will be told to isolate for many more months.”