Grants Awarded
2023 Grant Recipients
Information about all successful grant applicants will be posted here, once formalities are finalised with each of them.
Lauren Savage has been running Little Yogi Bears since June 2021. She offers yoga and sensory activities for infants, toddlers and their mums and dads, with 7 classes happening each week at Forres House Community Centre. Lauren is also planning to offer yoga classes to young primary age children. A key aim of her classes is to provide parents with a place to meet other parents, and social time is built into the end of each class. With NLT’s grant Lauren will be able to expand her collection of sensory toys and equipment, purchase padded yoga mats and more percussion instruments for the toddlers class. The grant will also assist Lauren to obtain the next level of training needed to enable her to teach yoga to young primary age children.
Fiona Reilly is a birth and postnatal Doula, teacher of baby classes, maternity reflexologist and therapist, who runs Positive Pregnancy Walks once a month in Findhorn and Forres. The walks are an opportunity for pregnant women and their partners to come together and meet other pregnant women and develop friendships. The free walks encourage community and connection, helping people feel less alone. They are also an opportunity for people to share experiences and ask questions, and for Fiona to share evidence-based information when called for. Families return after their babies are born to share their experiences, introduce their babies and inspire others.
Forres Osprey Bus provides transport services to groups within the Forres Academy catchment area. Osprey Bus’s main focus is to enable people who experience disadvantage through age, disability, ill-health, financial or other hardship to be able to take part in various activities. The NLT grant will provide core costs for an Administrative Assistant for 2024, a contribution towards the annual maintenance costs and insurance for Osprey Bus vehicles and a contribution towards signage on Osprey Bus’s new electric bus.
ReBOOT will support the provision of free refurbished devices (full computer systems or laptops) to disadvantaged people in the Forres area, in order to facilitate their access to training, employment opportunities and other services.
Users of the ReBOOT service will be identified through referrals from Moray Council Employability, the Department of Work and Pensions, FACT, SAFFA and other such constituted groups or government bodies. The Grant will contribute to the core costs for managerial and technical staff for a period of 6 months and cover the cost of second-hand devices for refurbishment.
Founded in 2010, Naturally Useful (NU), makes and sells traditionally crafted products, including woven willow baskets and coffins, felted wool products and naturally dyed textiles, using home-grown or locally-sourced natural materials. NU’s training programmes include day courses in a range of crafts, including basket weaving, felting and natural dyeing in various community venues, and longer courses including cultivating willow and dye plants at its base in Rafford, with staff, trainees and volunteers teaching, learning, and growing together.
NU is expanding its training programmes and facilities in order to be able to offer a Health & Wellbeing project to provide supported creative learning opportunities to people with additional needs. The programmes will be aimed at people who respond well to bespoke craft-based courses with NU’s skilled and experienced tutors.
The NLT grant funding will enable the employment of a Project Co-ordinator and two Project Workers to lead Health and Wellbeing workshops and courses for people with additional needs to make tactile, functional items from willow and wool. Service Providers such as community-based Social Care providers, the Job Centre and Mental Health providers will refer participants to NU. Part of the NLT grant will also cover equipment and tools to be used in the Wellbeing workshops and courses.
Film Forres is a thriving, community-based cinema for all ages, which screens films in Forres Town Hall, as well as at various ‘pop up’ venues in the Forres area. Throughout the year, Forres Film offers a quality programme and cinematic experiences, such as Film Forres Family events, Film Forres Presents and Film Forres Mobile, always endeavouring to keep costs affordable. Film Forres has collaborated with and continues to offer its services to community groups and local businesses to create innovative events, as opposed to simply hosting a film. A key objective is to offer a safe and friendly opportunity for people to come together through the medium of film.
The NLT Grant will provide funding for the role of Coordinator/Development Manager for 24 months from January 2024 – Dec 2025. Film Forres’ current events coordinator has been in the role since October 2021 and Film Forres is delighted for this to continue, due to the enormous benefits that this has brought to the success of the venture.
For 20 years, Wild Things has been delivering a wide range of educational, wellbeing and conservation services to communities across Moray, working with all ages and abilities. In total, around 1,300 people participated in Wild Things courses over the last year, around 300 of them from the Forres area.
Specialised in working with neuro-diverse participants as well as those with other physical, social, emotional and behavioural needs, the Wild Things team consists of dedicated outdoor educators who are passionate and highly knowledgeable about Scottish flora and fauna and who utilise one of Scotland’s most valuable educational assets – its landscapes and wildlife, to create varied, inspiring and transformative impacts for a wide range of people.
Wild Things provides qualifications and experiential learning, through a rich mixture of environmental-sciences, conservation, wellbeing focused and skill-based activities. In addition to this, since 2015, Wild Things has been a registered and accredited training centre, developing and delivering custom Level 1-3 qualifications, designed to empower both young people and registered teachers with various outdoor skills and knowledge.
By covering the cost for one year of core staff time to be dedicated to developing and expanding the above course offerings, the NLT grant funding will enable Wild Things to scale-up the delivery, variety and, ultimately, the revenue generated by its accredited training courses and other income-generating services.
SwimABLE provides a combination of pool-based surf and swim activities to over 72 children with additional support needs in the Forres area alone. Referrals are managed through the Active Schools Moray Forres Co-ordinator, with children referred by schools, or parents/carers where home-schooled. Termly reports detail progress and development. The ripple effect from these sessions have already provided many positive impacts, reported on a continuous basis by teachers, staff, parents/carers, where listening, social and communication skills have improved both at school and at home.
NLT funding will allow SwimABLE the flexibility to train volunteers and coaches in swim teaching awards and deliver continual professional development modules at home in Forres. SwimABLE also plan to host a second Gala in the 2023-24 academic year, which will provide young swimmers looking for a more competitive edge, a date to look forward to and provide focus to lessons and training in the run up to the event.
Forres Bluefins is an amateur swimming club with 60 members ranging from 7 – 14 years. The main aim of the club is to allow young swimmers to develop their swimming skills, which enhances their physical and mental wellbeing. It offers them an option to compete at a local level, focusing on safety, welfare and inclusivity while being accountable and holding the highest standards, as expected by Scottish Swimming.
The grant will enable Forres Bluefins to buy a club-dedicated waterproof tablet, in order to video swimmers underwater, so that the coaches can help them improve their technique. The grant will also fund the purchase of upgraded hy-tek swim software, which is required to input the swimmers’ times and register them for swim meets. It also records swimmers’ times when the club host their own meet. This tech upgrade will benefit young people in the area, as it will allow the club to offer the best training to young swimmers and to continue to run successfully, by maintaining a high standard of training and support.
Growing2gether Nursery Mentoring Programme targets two sets of vulnerable children – disengaged teenagers and children at nursery (4-6 years) with additional support needs. For half a day a week over 18 weeks, Growing2gether staff (trained in positive psychology) take a group of teenagers into a local primary/nursery school. Each teenager becomes a mentor and role model to a specific child in the primary or nursery school. Whilst on the programme, the young people have the opportunity to earn a Level 4 SCVQ in Personal Development (2 Units – self in community and self-awareness).
The charity’s second programme, known as Growing2gether Youth Social Action, is an innovative, youth-led programme, which provides young people with the opportunity to work together as a creative team, to assess the needs of their community, identify an issue that they care deeply about and to design and deliver a project that will address this issue. It builds the confidence, emotional health, employment and life skills of young people who have otherwise disengaged from education, helping them to reach their full potential.
In order to get these valuable and innovative programmes established in Moray schools as soon as possible, Newbold Legacy Trust is funding the first ever Growing2gether project in Moray, which started with a Nursery Mentoring Programme at Elgin Academy in September 2023, to be followed by two Nursery Mentoring Programmes in 2024-2025 at Forres Academy. Funding from NLT will also support Growing2gether to run a Growing2gether Youth Social Action project in September 2024 for Forres Academy pupils who have completed the Growing2gether Nursery Mentoring Programme.
Growing2gether also aims to train teachers and youth workers in the schools to be able to facilitate future programmes, thus enabling schools to become self-sufficent by running the programmes themselves with quality assurance/outcome evaluation provided by the charity.
Rafford Scottish Women’s Institute has been awarded a small grant to help cover some of the underlying costs of running meetings for the next two years. This will provide time for the group to re-establish itself after the pandemic, with the aim of increasing membership to pre-Covid numbers and beyond.
Based in The Park Ecovillage, Findhorn, Dance North Scotland is a Creative Scotland Regularly Funded Organisation, which exists to create space for transformational contemporary dance; engaging with people from across the globe to just down the road. Dance North does this by-Supporting artists and their practice-Inspiring audiences and participants-Presenting work-Empowering through creativity-Treating people fairly-Working in partnership
A key strand of Dance North’s work is its participation programme, which empowers people through dance, enhancing health and wellbeing through the joy of movement. Dance North Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Newbold Legacy Trust for its new programme of Dance for Parkinson’s classes in Forres, starting from April 2024.
Part of the Dance for Parkinson’s Scotland network, these classes are designed especially for people living with Parkinson’s, their carers and families. Each class in a fun, creative environment, with a live musical accompaniment. Research has shown dance classes to be enormously beneficial to people living with Parkinson’s, bringing substantial quality of life improvements, especially inflexibility, gait and balance. The classes are open to all, with no experience required, and offer exercise and community in a warm and welcoming setting–participants are even encouraged to share their hobbies and interests so that these can be incorporated into the movement.
The mission of the Caring Community Circle (CCC) is to help coordinate resources
to meet the needs of individuals who live within the Park Ecovillage Findhorn – or
who live in Moray are associated with it – by providing health and social care
advocacy, fostering a culture of caring for our friends and neighbours, facilitating
education, resource-sharing, partnership-building, and connecting volunteers
with those in need.
The CCC has very gratefully received this grant from Newbold Legacy Trust, which
has given the CCC a physical home, facilitating a drop-in centre, support and peer
chat group meeting space, workshops, and office and confidential meeting
spaces for the CCC’s core team of three. CCC’s new home at CCC Hoose, 254
Pineridge, The Park Ecovillage, also has storage facilities for the group’s various
items such as donated wheelchairs, etc, which are loaned out to community
members as needed. CCC Hoose has also very recently registered as a
Community Information Point and will offer space to Healthpoint advisors and
will be publicising this to Findhorn Village and Kinloss residents as well as Park
residents.
The grant covers our first year of rent, insurance, utilities, and miscellaneous costs,
marking a pivotal moment in CCC’s journey in support of nurturing an inclusive
and caring community, and giving the Management Committee and Core team
more time to spend on enhancing the CCC’s ability to meet the community’s
evolving needs.
Newbold Legacy Trust is pleased to support Theatre of the 7 Directions by awarding a grant to cover costs for the implementation of their 2024/2025 ecotheatre programmes including ecotheatre courses for children and adults, summer camps and ecotheatre performances associated with the programmes.
The NLT financial support will enable T7D to increase the impact it can make in the Forres area, allowing it to reach more people to deliver an alternative way to see life, respond to life’s difficulties and build self-esteem. The ecotheatre programmes will offer creative experiences that generate emotional and social wellbeing and opportunities to develop effective responses to difficult life situations.
The fund will allow the courses to be offered in Forres from autumn 2024 to summer 2025. T7D hope this new platform will develop solid roots in the Forres community so that future funding can be sought from local business sponsorship and relevant national organisations.
These will include TheatreQuest programmes at Transition Town Forres for children and adults, with 1 in every 8 places being fully-subsidised. TheatreQuest programmes involve fun activities, educational workshops and devising sessions that culminate with a final public performance.
Devising theatre is the process whereby actors with the aid of a director improvise scenes together, which when polished and put together form a final story.
2024 Grant Recipients
Moray Flying Circus is a newly established charity (SC053314) running regular aerial classes for children and adults at Dyke Village & District Hall and circus classes for children at Forres House Community Centre. We also offer one off workshops, performances and entertainment for events across Moray and around Scotland.
Fiona Reilly works as a Prenatal, Birth and Postnatal Doula, teacher of birth preparation workshops, teacher of baby classes (baby massage and reflexology, and singing and signing), and maternity reflexologist (among other things 🙂 ) She has received funding for a monthly Positive Pregnancy Walk, that she has been hosting for over 3 years. These get togethers are a lovely opportunity for pregnant women and their families to come together and meet other pregnant families and develop friendships. They encourage community and connection, helping people feel less alone. The walks are an opportunity for people to share experiences and ask questions. Additionally, families really seem to enjoy and benefit from returning to the community after their births to share their experience, celebrate, grieve, introduce their babies and ask questions about early parenting.
Additionally, Fiona received funding for a Yoga for Pregnancy and Birth Educators Course which runs over 20 months. This course is divided into three parts – yoga for pregnancy, birth education and facilitation skills There appears to be demand for pregnancy yoga locally and she would love to be in a position to offer yoga classes with an element of birth preparation included. There is always much to learn about birth and she is keen to extend her knowledge base and what she can teach and share with others. This course will enhance her teaching and facilitation skills in the various classes/workshops she already teaches and groups she hosts, as well as provide opportunities for other new offerings.
TTF’s Green Shoots project works with children, families and the wider community in the Forres area. We facilitate experiential learning about food growing, composting and related topics, and their wider role in improving environmental sustainability, tackling climate change, supporting personal health and improving local biodiversity and food security.
We also aim to build personal and community resilience and well-being, by fostering the following in children, their families, teachers and the community: connection with nature, their food and with each other; a sense of achievement, wonder and learning; becoming more skilled and self-reliant; and upskilling school staff in delivering similar work themselves.
While we also deliver outreach work in schools and nurseries, this funding will specifically enable us to continue our work on-site at TTF, in two ways. First, to continue seasonal family-orientated sessions in our onsite children’s garden, with activities such as seed sowing, plant care, harvesting, cooking and composting. These provide an opportunity to learn, connect with others, beautify the space and take harvest home. Second, in the form of popular monthly workshops, for adults too. Typical topics include composting, plants for free, from plot to plate; fermentation and pickling, eco-gifts, wildlife gardening, building raised beds, planning the veg growing year, and small space gardening. With this funding we will be able to reach new people as well as deepen connections with previous participants.
At Free Style Swimming Club in Forres we swim, and we do our best to learn how to swim fast. But that’s not all for we are more than just a swimming club. The fact that like so many other worthwhile activities swimming can be used as a vehicle towards achieving other desirable ends in life is purposely emphasised and the club is proud of our record of retaining the interest and enthusiasm of so many local youngsters right up to the point when as young adults they are ready to move on in life.
Our approach to training is evidence-based demanding both the highest quality of coaching and training practices. One important concept in this approach is for training practices to match the specific race pace movements made by the swimmer in the water and this presents a challenge when practices involving additional resistance are also considered advantageous. The much appreciated grant from the Newbold Legacy Trust has been invested in the purchase of a state- of-the-art American resistance machine which can provide just that. By adding this to the experience of our swimmers we not only meaningfully enhance their training but also provide a valuable means by which the swimmers can profit from the co-operative and communication skills involved in its use.
SwimABLE Scotland, in partnership with Active Schools Moray (Forres Associated School Group), provides swimming and surfboard skill sessions for children with additional support needs, free of cost. Our programme blends individualised and group learning, focusing on adaptability, patience, and a person-centred approach; key factors that help our young learners thrive.
We’ve seen how important it is to teach diverse learner groups and focus on long-term growth. With consistent teaching and structured sessions, we’ve watched our participants transform from being apprehensive around water to becoming confident, independent swimmers. These sessions do more than just build physical skills – they boost confidence, independence, and teach life lessons in resilience, adaptability, and perseverance.
On behalf of everyone at SwimABLE Scotland, a project delivered by Friendly Access, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the Newbold Legacy Trust for their continued funding and support. Their commitment has been vital in helping us deliver our programme in the Forres area.
With the success of a further funding application, we’re excited to keep supporting the incredible progress of our young learners and we’re incredibly proud of what they’ve achieved. Once again, thank you, the Newbold Legacy Trust, for helping us continue making a lasting difference in their lives
Formed in 1983 and a registered charity since December 2017, RDA (Riding for the Disabled) Forres,
Nairn and District provide weekly, term-time, therapeutic riding sessions and ground-based horse
care for children with disabilities, identified by specialist school staff as likely to benefit from contact
with specially trained ponies. Two out of the four riding sessions each Monday cover 16 pupils in
Forres, Alves and Dyke – all within the Forres Academy catchment area. In addition to two qualified,
experienced RDA UK Instructors, each child is accompanied by two volunteers – one as a side-walker and one to lead the pony. They also run “Tea With a Pony” non-riding sessions for people living with dementia and other cognitive impairment.
All activities are free in order to allow participation no matter family income. Being the only RDA
group within travelling distance of these schools, the children’s riding sessions would not happen
otherwise – being neither part of school statutory provision, nor curriculum. The Group does not
receive any external funding; with annual running costs of £17,000 for the term-time riding sessions
and Tea With a Pony non-riding sessions, fundraising is a continuous activity. The funding from
Newbold Legacy Trust towards these activities is a huge boost.
The facilities used include an all-weather outdoor arena with an approved surface, an indoor barn
for pony grooming/therapeutic horse management and 30 acres of woodland with safe tracks for
hacking. Activities are not weather-dependent; all necessary clothing, equipment and safety hats, to
BS Safety Standards, are provided. The group is managed by a Board of seven Trustees, supported
by 43 volunteers.
The grant given from the NLT to the Geography department at Forres Academy will allow for data to be gathered on school grounds and then for students to use this data in the classroom. For example, We have bought weather stations that can be used at school to measure weather patterns in real time, without the need to go away on a trip. We as a school are trying to be as cost efficient as possible and being conscious that students should not have to pay any additional cost for their learning. The equipment bought with the grant from the NLT will allow us to use equipment that we wouldn’t normally have access to at school and therefore this has been a great help in enriching the students’ geography lessons.
The Friends of the Falconer Museum (FoFM) is a voluntary organisation established in 1995 to support the Moray Council owned museum in Forres, a treasure of local, national and international significance. Until the museum’s recent closure, they have worked in tandem with
professional museum staff in all operational aspects of the museum, including outreach,
curatorial, and research activities.
Over the years many volunteers have become experts in their field and, in the absence of sufficient staff due to continuous budget cuts, keepers of specialist knowledge about the collections of the museum. With the closure of the Falconer in 2019, FoFM lost their workspace, and “this immense Bank of Knowledge held by the Friends of the Falconer Museum” as heritage
consultant Helen Avenell worded it (in her Collections Overview, commissioned by Moray Council), is in danger of being lost forever.
The grant now enables FoFM to create a Pop-up Museum with Blether & Cake, an easily
accessible, bi-weekly meeting space in Forres House Community Centre over the course of a year. In addition to reactivating the Bank of Knowledge, the meetings are intended to engage with members new and old, to pass on information, to support social networking, bolster mental health, and encourage participants to identify with the local community through the shared experience of heritage and place.
Each meeting is theme-based; members bring items from their private collections and share their knowledge to create the pop-up museum, or a guest speaker is invited for a discussion on a museum-related topic. The invitation goes out to members, but guests are always welcome
Moray Local CIC brings communities together by creating and maintaining networks of people and places. We have award-winning sites such as Forres Local, Forres Loves Local and Visit Forres, which together won the town the accolade of the Best Digital Community in Scotland last year.
This year, we launched a new site that fills a much-needed gap. Moray Events provides a comprehensive and accessible listing of what’s on around the region, from a coffee morning to a concert. It has quickly become the largest collection of local events and advertises everything that’s on in one accessible place.
Our latest project, supported by the Newbold Legacy Trust, will help us reach and engage with more people in the community, and specifically the older and younger generations. The Moray Youth Media project will provide support and training for young people in the use of audio and video equipment while conducting an oral history project that records and preserves the memories of people that aren’t available anywhere else, other than in people’s heads. This information we hope will fill gaps in the town’s historical footprint by creating new content that will become a part of the area forever.
Memories are a vital part of social being, and we think that bringing these two generations together will make an interesting, educational and useful resource.
The equipment purchased by the grant will also allow us to further explore how audio recordings can be made as part of our overall mission to unite the community, digitally.
The grant awarded by the Newbold Legacy Trust helps enable Moray Art Centre (MAC) to fulfil its primary aim of making the wellbeing benefits of regular creative practice accessible to all people in Moray. Specifically, it allows us to run more free activities for children and others who could not afford otherwise to participate in creative activities.
More generally, it gives us more resources to fund our Emerging Creatives programme supporting art
students, recent graduates and early career artists to support their progress in the creative
sector. More widely, MAC has established an Artists Hub for all creative people in our
community to meet alongside others from the local cultural sector. We have also set up the
MAC Club which is a replacement for the community-based Moray Arts Club which ceased operations some years ago and our studios will be used by two local artists to exhibit during the forthcoming NEOS (North-East Open Studios Week).
We have now published and promoted a series of children’s workshops which will take place on Saturday mornings between September 7 th this year and 1 st March next year. These 16 workshops, run by a very experienced tutor, were fully booked within a few days of being published.
Weaving Words and Wonder brings storytelling back into the hearts and homes of Moray. Our
project, ‘Story-Bridge’ is funded by NLT and will bring together the old and the young to share and
celebrate story and song.
Three care homes will be twinned with four nurseries/early years settings: Pilmuir Nursery will be twinned with Meadowlark Care Home. Drumduan School will be twinned with Varis Court. Diane’s Childminding and Findhorn Fledglings Parent and Child Group will be twinned with Cathay Care Home.
Each monthly twinning will begin with Once-Upon-a-Time: a tale told with traditional songs for old
and young to join their voices together as one. Then it’s time for tea and biscuits, train tracks and toys – a space for intergenerational friendships to blossom.
Story-Bridge aims reignite the traditional passing on of story and song between the generations and
demonstrate that the traditional Scottish arts can be an integral part of people's everyday lives:
stories to fire the imagination, songs to touch the heart, and intergenerational friendships to build
confidence and to bring a deep sense of belonging. Our vision is that Story-Bridge will be a seed and
that these intergenerational gatherings will continue for many years to come, blossoming into a
regular and everyday experience for the old and the young, the wisdom of age and the wonder of youth, a golden bridge between the spring and autumn of our days and a chance to celebrate our
togetherness
Forres Community First Responders scheme was launched in Forres in July 2024. FCFR is a group of volunteers who have gone through training with the Scottish Ambulance Service, enabling the necessary skills to assist the service in providing a timely emergency response to the people of Forres and surrounding area. The aim is to provide cover for those times when the Forres-based ambulance crews are engaged elsewhere. Volunteers are trained by Scottish Ambulance Service professional training officers to a high standard in order to respond and provide aid, assistance and support until an ambulance is available, providing quicker help to those in need.
FCFR currently have seven trained responders, plus others waiting for places on the Scottish Ambulance Service training course. They have already attended a number of calls and this will only increase as they train more people and provide more cover.
Funding to date has enabled equipping of two complete response bags. It is vital that members retain their skills and knowledge, so regular ongoing training is essential. The grant provided by Newbold Legacy Trust will enable FCFR to invest in equipment needed to continue regular training sessions.
St John’s serves the spiritual needs of the community through acts of worship and prayer and by providing a service to the community. The church hall is used as a meeting place for social and fundraising activities and congregational fellowship. The hall serves the wider community and is regularly used by youth groups, choirs, a children’s art group and a nursery.
As a church congregation we also partner other initiatives supporting the local community such as providing after school activities and meals for 40 – 50 primary school age children and their families weekly during term time. We also work in partnership with other local organisations within the local area.
The church hall kitchen underpins many of these activities and the funding received from NLT will enable the church to better serve the needs of all our current and future users and will make it possible for us to continue with our present activities. The church congregation has been able to provide the basic infrastructure of the kitchen with a cooker, crockery, fridge and freezer. The funding received has enabled us to purchase additional catering equipment including cookware, utensils, and a commercial grade dishwasher, which is beyond the financial scope of our congregation to provide. The NLT legacy will be a better equipped and safe space for the preparation and serving of food to the public.
Established in 2015, The Findhorn Hinterland Trust (FHT) is a small environmental charity caring for a unique piece of land on the Findhorn peninsula in Moray. The organisation works closely with the local community through a range of initiatives including the promotion of conservation, education and the provision of recreational space. Our Vision is a world with nature at the heart of every community. Our Mission is to create opportunities for the local community to engage with the Findhorn Hinterland ‘wild’ land.
The NLT grant award allows the charity to develop its excellent educational work with Forres Academy staff and pupils particularly through its Dune Restoration Project working with a tiny remnant of the second largest dunes system in Europe. The project addresses locally aspects of the worldwide biodiversity crisis allowing pupils to understand, engage in and contribute to tangible solutions to pressing global issues. An added bonus will be that this partnership will help the school meet their learning for sustainability goals as laid out in the Scottish Education directive. Presentations to the whole school to raise awareness will be followed by a series of opportunities to visit and learn from the land through a variety of hands-on activities and nature sharing workshops over the next three years.
Earthtime has been delivering nature based activities for families, children and communities since 2011. Along with the Outdoor Forest School nursery at Duffus and its work in schools to promote outdoor learning, Earthtime has community based projects including Waddle Toddle, Nature Play and Pregnancy Pathways. Many of our staff are qualified Forest School leaders and have experience in encouraging learning and play in child-led activities.
Our overall aim is to provide activities that benefit the young people in the area and encourage an awareness and understanding of the importance of nature, looking after the environment whilst having fun and engaging with others in the local community. This can bring positive physical and mental wellbeing which will have a long term beneficial effect.
The benefits of being in nature are well documented and Earthtime aims to encourage, through its programme of specialised activities, a love for nature and wellbeing for all. Many of our sessions are free or booked for a small charge. The grant from Newbold Legacy Trust will enable Earthtime to support local families through its three distinct projects in Forres – Waddle Toddle sessions for young families in Forres, continuing our Nature Play programme of events for children in the area, and developing our Woodland Adventures for those children who are struggling with mainstream school. We will be able to offer a range of outdoor activities, encouraging child-led play, nature awareness and social engagement for families and children from 6 months to 12 years.
At Naturally Useful, we specialize in creating beautiful, functional, traditional eco-crafts using willow, wool, and botanical dyes, with all materials grown on our land or locally sourced. Believing in the nourishing power of mindful creativity, we’ve long dreamt of expanding our offerings to support health and wellbeing in the local community. We are deeply grateful for the generous funding from the Newbold Legacy Trust to help breathe life into this vision through The Willow Field Project, which began in late 2023 with the appointment of a Health and Wellbeing Development Coordinator and support staff, thanks to financial aid from the trust. The Willow Field is now home to joyful weekly gardening and crafting groups for adults with additional support needs, and unique volunteering opportunities, nurturing community and connection through a passion for growing, sustainable crafting and spending time together, in nature. The project continues to grow, with new ideas for community wellbeing and collaboration on the horizon. Further aid from the Newbold Trust in 2024 has enabled us to ensure a high standard of care on the field, with support to cover the associated health and safety costs of setting up a new, pilot project as a small, social enterprise. The trust has also enabled us to provide further local employment opportunities in relation to site maintenance and gardening work. This in turn, allows us to improve the service we provide to volunteers and participants, and increase the sense of community we are growing on our four acres of land.
Active Schools are working in partnership with Forres Academy to provide free high quality inclusive opportunities for young people to take part in sport & physical activity before school, at lunchtime and after school. This grant enables the purchase of new equipment, team kits so all members of our clubs feel a sense of unity and belonging and subsided transport for pupils to attend festivals and competitive matches removing barriers for families living in poverty.
Our activities provide scope for young people to spend time with their peers at organised and drop in sessions alongside opportunities for Volunteers and Active Schools Young Leaders to deliver and assist with sessions developing new skills, gaining qualifications thus building a network of skilled volunteers and effective pathways to connect schools, clubs and communities.
This project implements a national Sportscotland ‘Changing Lives’ initiative here at Forres Academy, where the aim is to utilise sport and physical activity to make a positive social impact for groups that would benefit from additional support. Sport and physical activity is a positive way to unwind and feel more relaxed. It is also a way of making friends, social connections and becoming involved in a community. It gives people energy and confidence to think clearly and get the most out of life. It can also help to develop a stronger body and combat health issues. We know from the work we do in our local community the very positive and sometimes life-changing effects that physical activity and sport can have on mental health and wellbeing.
The Caring Community Circle (CCC) is very grateful to receive a generous grant from
Newbold Legacy Trust, to secure our permanent home at CCC Hoose, 254 Pineridge, The
Park Ecovillage for a second year. This new space includes a drop-in centre, small community
meeting rooms, a main meeting and social space for support and peer chat groups,
community drop-in, and offices for confidential discussions. It also provides storage for
mobility and wellbeing equipment like donated wheelchairs, available for community use.
CCC Hoose also offers confidential advice and information as well as training to residents of
Findhorn, Kinloss, Forres, and Park Ecovillage Findhorn. This grant covers our second year’s
rent, insurance, utilities, and other costs, enabling us to focus more on serving the
community’s needs and fostering an inclusive, caring environment, as well as to become
more financially sustainable..
Applegrove Parent Council and PTA consists mainly of parent and carer representatives of pupils and works in partnership with the primary school in Forres to create a welcoming, inclusive environment for pupils and parents, and to develop activities which support the education and welfare of pupils.
The Parent Council and school have been working together to deliver playground improvements to support pupils inclusively, improving play and outdoor learning. This has included a comprehensive consultation involving pupils, staff, parents and local groups and creation of ‘Our Playground Vision’.
Local businesses have demonstrated strong support and good progress has been made to deliver the vision, including installation of an outdoor learning gazebo, playground markings, football goals and seating. The NLT grant will support the final part of the project – agility equipment including monkey bars and tumble bars to provide opportunities for greater risk taking and challenge within play.
Mike Ross has been in business as 8BallTuning for over 11 years, operating a vehicle repair garage and, most recently, an SQA Centre. He provides an Automotive Skills course to Senior Phase (S3-S6) Pupils at Forres Academy, along with a separate Adult 18+ course. Students gain a Level 4 SCQF Qualification whilst still studying at school. The garage provides all the tools, safety equipment, learning materials and vehicles to work on.
Mike set up Inspiring Foundations in 2024 to be the working charity through which his expanding educational projects could be operated. Thanks to Newbold Legacy Trust, Inspiring Foundations is able to purchase additional equipment to allow even more candidates the opportunity to complete their Automotive Skills Qualification. This new equipment will allow two groups of candidates to work at the same time, providing an even better hands on experience.
