Stage 1
We are extremely pleased to tell you that Cairnbaan Community Trust has been awarded Stage 1 funding to carry out a Feasibility Study on the Forestry and Land Buildings adjacent to Lock 8.
The successful tender was from Community Enterprise. They will carry out a conditions survey of the buildings and will also look at how such an asset could be of benefit to the community. They will do this by speaking to stakeholders, carrying out an online survey with residents and examining national and local strategies. Their study will also examine potential uses for the buildings, funding streams and produce documentation to help the community to decide if:
- The buildings are in a good enough condition to consider an asset transfer
- Through communication with residents and stakeholders that indeed this is an asset that would benefit the community and would be sufficiently utilised
As work progresses we will continually keep you updated and how the outcomes of the study will be communicated with you.
Being successful at Stage 1 does not guarantee success at Stage 2 but because of the timescales for application we need to proceed with completing applications for the funding and for the Asset Transfer for this stage. We are very reliant on the information gathered at Stage 1 to populate these applications. If for any reason our community does not wish to proceed then the application will obviously not proceed but as stated earlier we would miss the deadlines if we did not prepare in advance.
Membership
As we have achieved charitable status we need to ask you to formally apply for membership. An email will be coming to you in the next few days with an ‘info@ cairnbaancommunitytrust.org’ email address. It will be very easy to complete and there are no fees for this. It is a formality that we are required to do and once completed will ensure your updates will continue. Please look out for this dropping into your inbox.
New Constitution
Last year we circulated our constitution which was approved at the inaugural meeting of the trust. Since then we have been using the advisors available at each stage as we move through the complex process. They suggested changes to our constitution, and the Charity Regulator, OSCR, also asked for amendments. As a result we have adapted the constitution in line with that advice, and it was approved by OSCR. (For anyone interested in the fine detail – The constitution is now based on the Government, instead of the original SCVO model.) We also made changes to the Purposes and other clauses to fall in line with OSCR requirements.
In summary: nothing in the new constitution stops us doing anything that we could do under the old constitution, and there are changes which increase the ease of you becoming a member.
The new constitution is available here in PDF format. It will need to be formally adopted when we have our first General Meeting. Meanwhile, if you do want more detail please speak to Wilf or email: wilfhughes@btinternet.com.
(We had been planning to hold our first General Meeting in late January in the Hotel until its sad closure. We are exploring other options. Any suggestions on convenient venues which the community could get to would be welcome.)
