We plan to set up the centre ar least one morning a week to offer soup and a roll in a warm and friendly safe space with no cost to entry.  All our volunteers will have been trained in the rquirements of food hygiene (L2) legislation and will have PVG accreditation.  We will be building up a pool of volunteers and team leaders to ensure that we have a sustainable rota built in for ensuring local continuity once the project starts.  We will also be looking to collaborate with Lochside Academy and other community partners in the management and delivery of this project to assist young people gain experience in the running a model of a social enterprise community cafe with an offfer of friendship and hot soup and a roll, acommpanied by a welcome cuppie.  We will endeavour to source quality produce from CFINE, supermarkets and other suppliers at no cost wherever possible, and where needed we will seek external funding to support our operational costs.  We have also set aside a reserve within our business planning for operational costs to ensure we can achieve our charitable purposes and meet an un-met local need in Torry.

This project involves the creation of a children’s book about St Fittick’s Park to be distributed to schools, the library and children within Torry. The aim of the project is to engage local children in reading and connecting with nature and the outdoors,particularly in St Fittick’s Park. Writer and academic Orla Shortall (www.orlashortall.com) is currently working on a draft of the story called “Fern Fox and St Fitticks Friends”. The story follows the adventures of four animal friends: Fern the fox, Hannah the hedgehog, Dara the deer and Lucky the duck in St Fittick’s Park. We want to make the book engaging and appealing for children and we are applying for funding to work with a local artist to illustrate the book and local printers Peacock Visual Arts to produce copies for distribution. We will also workshop the story with local residents before its publication. The book includes dialogue in Doric, celebrating the North East’s unique linguistic heritage.There will be events organised around the book including a book launch in the St Fittick’s Park outdoor classroom with nature engagement activities for children and a writing workshop to encourage the children to write their own story about the park. The costs for this will be covered through existing funding for the outdoor classroom and volunteer time.

We are delighted to be welcoming more children's groups into the garden this year, including Tullos Primary children, Geronimo,and hopefully a group of local childminders and their young charges.  We want to enhance the garden to make it appealing to the children , part of these plans include replacing the old worn council fence with a wooden fence which will have marbles embedded in it to act as sun catchers.  The children would also have the opportunity to help paint and do pictures on the fence.

We also have our easter event coming up so would really appreciate some funding towards covering the costs of lunch, seeds, pots and childrens craft materials, ensuring that we can continue to provide all of this free of charge,  Finally we are excited to have a local artist come in, along with CIFINES HOPE team clients, and local volunteers, to paint a new nature themed mural to join the existing one on the depot wall.  To do this we need to buy a large amount of paint, brushes and paint trays.  We know that our visitors enjoy our existing mural, and hope that a new one can be enjoyed by all visitors ,regular and new,

Last year more than 5,000 people accessed services provided at the recently refurbishment Bridge Centre, a once derelict community building in Torry, which now welcomes the community to our popular Café and a growing number of community groups and support services including employment/health initiatives. This year, through the Café, we will be running healthy eating cookery classes, a holiday lunch club for parents and children, health awareness and well-being Open Days with other local health providers and a Seniors Lunch Club.

Alongside Shinnie Electrical Ltd. we are also running a short course, “Intro to Electrics”, for young unemployed adults, giving them a work taster and support to write CVs, interview preparation etc. Due to its success, we are looking to add other trades such as mechanics and plumbing courses. There are also volunteer opportunities in our café with training and qualifications such as Food Hygiene available, to support employability skills. The Bridge Centre is part of the community, providing the services the community wants in order to come together, reduce isolation and move forward.

This funding would help us to deliver these programs by covering some utilities. In addition, our Intro to Electrics course is growing and we are looking to move it into a larger space to be able to train more people, and we are also in conversations to start a second “Intro to…” trade training which would need some finance to cover the start-up costs and to put the first cohort through the training.

We have a programme of three levels. All the schools start with the first level where we cover the essential and basics of first aid. We start with how to keep themselves safe, why we do first aid, calling for help, talking about how we can be the ones to help friends and family. Not only with people that we know but this can also be used in the wider community. We also cover asthma, choking, DRAB and recovery position. We have discussions, the children do group work, fill in booklets they can keep and hands on practice of DRAB and recovery position.