PH8 Community Matters wants to engage with every local resident to stimulate conversations about how we want our community to look over this coming decade. Funded by Perth & Kinross LEADER and the SSE Griffin & Calliachar Community Fund, with support from Dunkeld and Birnam Community Council and Perth and Kinross Council, the steering group of local people worked with STAR Development Group to produce the first PH8 Community Action Plan, published in March 2022, following community consultation through 2021.
Scroll down to read the latest news and updates on the Community Action Plan.
Download the PH8 Community Action Plan here.
Get in touch with us at ph8communitymatters@gmail.com
Follow us on social media @ph8communitymatters
As many of you will have seen, the last few months we had the Housing Needs and Demand Assessment Survey underway. This closed on 1st May, with 170 responses all together – thank you so much to everyone who completed the survey and shared it with their friends and family.
Communities Housing Trust (CHT) are now analysing the responses and producing a report of the survey findings. We are organising a housing action group meeting to review these findings and discuss the recommendations and next steps for Tuesday 24th May, 7pm at Birnam Arts. Joe Gribben from CHT will be there to talk through the survey findings, and where to go from here – everyone is welcome.
Once the survey report is finalised it will be available to download on our webpage and further information on key findings, actions and recommendations will be in the June edition of The Bridge. It would be great to look at other ways of spreading the word about key findings of the survey too and actions or next steps that come from it.
Hope to see many of you on 24th and if you have any questions or comments in the meantime please feel free to get in touch on ph8communitymatters@gmail.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram @ph8communitymatters
The Care Group had its first meeting on Tuesday 19 April in the BI and got straight down to addressing the 2 key Care concerns identified in the Action Plan:
Four proposals were then tabled in response to these concerns, each of which is based upon models tested elsewhere in Scotland:
All these ideas were supported by those present, but each will require volunteers to make them work. If you would like to get involved in any of them and/or you’d like to come to the next meeting of the Care Group at 7.00pm on Tuesday 31 May, please get in touch.
Social Prescribing - contact Laura Downie (laura.downie2@nhs.scot)
Men’s Shed - contact Bill Muntus (billboem@googlemail.com)
Carer Coop - contact John Gilruth (johngilruth1@hotmail.com)
Community Foodshare - contact Jan Silburn (j.silburn@btinternet.com)
Or if you just want to come along to the next meeting and here more - contact John Gilruth ( see above)
The PH8 Housing Needs and Demand Assessment Survey is closing at 11:59pm on Sunday 1st May.
Please click the link below to complete the survey if you:
Thank You!
We have a Community Action Plan - now we need to make it happen!
If you are passionate about change for good in your community and want to help make sure the actions and priorities you told us about in last year's survey and consultation really do happen - join this meeting and get involved .
All welcome!
Upstairs meeting room
Birnam Arts
7-9pm Thursday 30th March
or via zoom
Topic: PH8 Community Matters Time: Mar 30, 2022 07:00 PM London
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/82054968195
Meeting ID: 820 5496 8195
Saturday 5th March 2022, Birnam Arts Centre
The PH8 Community Action Plan was launched on 5th March 2022, with a family friendly community event at Birnam Arts Centre. The afternoon gathering celebrated not only the achievement of completing the consultation process and publishing the community’s first action plan but, also, looked forward to the future delivery of the plan, as together the community starts on a journey to make the action plan a reality.
It was fantastic to have local community groups Dunkeld and Birnam Orchard, Climate Café, Royal School of Dunkeld PPG, the Sports Hub and Leisure Group and Amulree Village Hall Association in the room too. Pupils at Royal School of Dunkeld, brightened the event up with their inspiring and beautifully presented artwork illustrating their thoughts and ideas for the community, and it was lovely to also have local musicians Munro Gauld and Neil Baillie to liven up the atmosphere, while everyone enjoyed a delicious celebration cake from Aran Bakery!
Fiona Ritchie, a Birnam resident and volunteer in the PH8 Community Group, welcomed everyone and reflected on the journey already made through the Covid-19 pandemic. View Fiona’s intro here.
Stuart Paton and Caroline Wilding, members of the PH8 Community Matters steering group, described how the Community Action Plan came to fruition and what we need to start looking at next. View Stuart speaking here and Caroline speaking here.
Lucy Espeland, from Development Trusts Association Scotland, gave an informative presentation to introduce the basics of Community Development Trust as an approach to community development. View Lucy’s presentation here.
Thank you to everyone who came to the Community Action Plan launch event on 5th March – it was fantastic to get people in the community coming forward already to be a part of what comes next.
If you missed the event or found yourself thinking about how you might like to get involved but weren’t quite sure then, this next meeting is for you.
Join us on 30th March 7pm at Birnam Arts or via Zoom, to explore further what it means to start a Community Development Trust, hear from other communities who have done just that, and also get a recap on what is happening currently with work on the theme priority actions – with plenty of opportunity to ask questions along the way!
If you would like a Zoom invite to take part, please email ph8communitymatters@gmail.com
Follow us on social media @ph8communitymatters
Now that we have done the consultation and distilled everyone's thoughts and ideas into the Community Action Plan, where do we go from here? Thankfully, a wonderfully helpful organisation called Development Trusts Association Scotland was on hand at our launch event to help explain what we could do next and how to take the next steps towards action.
You can view Lucy Espeland's presentation about Community Development Trusts here - and we will very soon have a video of her speaking available too so do check back with us for that!
The independent consultant from STAR Development Group who produced the final Community Action Plan recommended a Community Development Trust as a way of enabling the community to move forward on key priorities such as, Housing for All and the Environment, giving the opportunity for a community buyout of land for affordable housing or, to start a community owned energy project for instance.
In order to create a Community Development Trust or any other organisation to take forward priority actions, we need as many people in our community as possible to get involved in shaping the future. If you are passionate about contributing to change for good in our community and want to help take the next steps, please get in touch on ph8communitymatters@gmail.com or on social media @ph8communitymatters
Other useful DTAS resources can be found on their webpage
PH8 Community Action Plan - Update
Read our first ever Community Action Plan here to download. Need a quick read? We have an Executive Summary here!
New to PH8 Communtiy Matters? Need to know what we have been up to and what we're doing next? Download our latest update for a brief recap and next steps, click here.
Community Action Plan Launch Saturday 5th March Birnam Arts 2-4pm
It’s hard to believe that a year ago we were just setting out on our journey towards creating a Community Action Plan (CAP). Thank you to everyone who took part and helped us to collate and distill all of your ideas into the PH8 Community Action Plan 2022-2027.
We are really pleased to tell you that the final report is now being made ready for publication and will be in your hands at the beginning of March. We invite you all to join us on Saturday 5th March at a launch event to celebrate our community’s first ever action plan. Come along to Birnam Arts from 2-4pm where we will have a special speakers, live music, children’s activities, a delicious Aran cake and refreshments. We hope you will be able to make it!
Lots of you were keen to stay updated and get involved in our work on Housing, following the community event on 2nd October. Thank you to those of you who joined a meeting with the Communities Housing Trust and Perth & Kinross Council on 2nd December, where we learnt more about how CHT can help us tackle issues of affordable housing, short term lets and how setting up a community development trust could enable us to take action. We are now working with CHT to put together a housing needs survey that will be open to the community in the spring.
If you would like to stay up to date with our work on Housing, you can join our Housing Action Group mailing list by emailing PH8communitymatters@gmail.com
You can download a note of the meeting here for further details.
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