Our first major project was to buy the area now known as Ardnadam car park or community area. We then worked with the council to prevent the collapse of the war memorial into the loch and again with the council on building the play area and court. We lease the nature reserve at Broxwood, and funded the new bridge on the heritage trail at Ardnadam which was put up by local volunteers. We hope that the managers of the woodland will be able to improve some of the paths and we have offered to help with that too.
Our future will very much be driven by the Community Action Plan which will include a Climate Action Plan. We have a steering group working on it and will be producing a survey and arranging meetings. Let’s give everyone, not just Facebook users, their opportunity to air their views through the Community Action Plan.
Our other main targets this year are to
- update and increase our membership. If you are not already a member please fill in a form and pay the membership fee.
- Enhance and improve the nature reserve by removing invasive species, maintaining paths, putting up new signs and producing a leaflet. We got a grant from Naturescot to help towards the costs for which we are very grateful. We are lucky to have Neil Hammatt living nearby, an ecologist, who have spent numerous hours on the reserve and at home identifying, so far, over 800 species of fauna, flora and birds, some new to the area. The ecology of this area is so important.
- Putting in 2 areas of covered seating at Ardnadam community area.
- Renewing the history signs around the village. This will need to wait until we have some funding.
- We would also like to start running some events at the community area – farmer’s or craft markets perhaps. If anyone felt they had time to help organise them we would be delighted to hear from you. Or if you feel you can help in any other way please get in touch. You don’t necessarily need to go on a committee, I know it’s not for some people but there are other ways to help. Again, a community council could liaise with other local groups and perhaps put on quiz nights or some music to raise money and encourage people out.
There is so much that could be done to make this a great village to live and work in but people need to put in some effort and local groups need to communicate and work together.