Candy Canes and Gingerbread Sheds

This week in Sugar Sheds related news...there's a further lifeline for Riverside Inverclyde; the piece here definetly suggests that some of that involves seeking lottery funding for future projects..something we have suggested around the Sugar Sheds from the very start.

Successful lottery funding requires significant and genuine local consultation, involvement and even partnership. There's a way yet to make this all start working for everyone, and lots of options to explore; there's Big Lottery's Growing Community Assets Fund; there's SCVO and Unity Trust Bank's 50million loan scheme for third sector / social enterprise business centres; and of course it's been a while since Inverclyde secured any major capital funding through Heritage Lottery Fund Scotland. Not to mention new funding available for events through Creative Scotland 2012 Year of Creativity. And those are just the top of the google search. All this of course is set against the publication of Scottish Governments new Regeneration Strategy, firmly placing local people at the heart of regeneration . Everything to play for.

So. Six months on, as the year ends, thanks very much to everyone who has helped out, kept in contact and stuck with us; a successful campaign is more than a facebook click, but from the initial flurry around that page, we've been able to get discussions with the people who can influence this situation and meet many people who've successfully fought for change elsewhere. Next year what we're after is some action. Here.

For now, festive fun...

Two of the bands who helped out with our Celebration Ode recordings have recorded Christmas tunes. I'm a sucker for Christmas tunes.

Ard Amas have "It's Christmas" and some other new tunes on their myspace.

Sneaky Pete have a new tune dropping this weekend as well.

And local band The Purple Doves have released a charity single for Christmas with all proceeds going to Ryan Ferguson's Leukaemia Fund. Buy it now on itunes.

Over on our heritage blog Tales of the Oak, we're curating our Ghost Stories For Christmas throughout December.

And on my own blog Stramashed, you can find out all about Santa's Little Werewolves.

See you all next year.
Here's a few wee sugary Christmas tunes...
Sweet.

A Ghost Story for Christmas

I know its been a wee while since our last update, but there’s been a fairly major development in the ongoing Story of The Sugar Sheds.

If you follow our local press, you’ll maybe be aware that local regeneration company Riverside Inverclyde has had its funding dramatically reduced, making the outlook for them post 2012/13 very challenging indeed. At this early stage, there are obviously many questions still to be asked about all of this, and what projects RI are going to be able to focus on over the next 18 months. But clearly, whatever the outcome, developments and plans for the James Watt Dock / Sugar Sheds are likely to be affected.

So that’s that then eh? Let’s just leave it. Eh…nope. If anything, this kind of uncertainty over “what next” requires more attention. Next year, it’s our plan to keep the Sugar Sheds on the agenda, at the very least, we still think there’s some mileage in our outlined programme of events.  

In the meantime, with the nights drawing in and the nip in the air, here’s a short Sugar Sheds inspired Ghost Story For Christmas, “Candy Bones”. There’s a whole month of this sort of festive malarkey over on our Tales of The Oak blog.