Borders Pottery CIC

1. How has this funding impacted your organisation overall?

The funding has been vital in order to be able to follow through on our objectives for the past year. We had a very clear project that we were seeking to set up in addition to maintaining our existing services. The funding has enabled this to go ahead and we feel that we have successfully delivered what we had set out to do and it has allowed us to see areas that we are already starting to deliver that we can focus on more formally going forward. Eg. Employability.

2. What difference has the funding made for the people you support?

We have engaged members of the community to share their skills with others and to gain valuable skills and confidence from this.

We have allowed people to come together over shared interests and develop a social circle of friends by doing this. Including those long-standing residents and ones new to the area integrating socially for the first time.

We have given local craftsmen and women and others in the creative industry a platform with which to advertise their services and products and a springboard to starting a career in the industry.

We have helped to reduce social isolation amongst members of the community have attended due to poor mental health.

3. In what ways has the funding affected your volunteers or their involvement?

Our volunteers have developed skills to help towards employability and confidence in socialising and communicating with others. They have benefitted from peer support and the benefit of side by side communication whilst undertaking creative pursuits.

4. What improvements or changes have you made to your programmes or services as a result of the funding?

• We have expanded our metal health support pottery classes.
• We have been able to continue our long-term volunteer group.
• We have been to able to establish a number of other craft and skills groups.
• We have been able to start developing an employability aspect to our social enterprise.
• We have collaborated with other organisations on community projects.

5. Has the funding led to any new collaborations or strengthened community connections?

• We have had a ‘cycle and pot’ event with ‘Sea the Change’.
• We have had a team-building day with ‘Sea the Change’.
• We have had various joint events with National Trust Scotland combining pottery and nature.
• We have joined the Eyemouth Chamber of Trade and taken part in their projects.

6. How has the funding influenced your organisation’s sustainability or future plans?

We are looking to address the following going forward;

• Continue to develop creative activities to support mental health.
• Develop our knitting and crochet library and drop-in craft offering free to locals (with a hot cuppa)
• Set up 2 x annual exhibitions of work by participants, volunteers and made within out pottery. Create better retail space.
• Set up formal employability offering.
• Improve website, social media and online sales capability.
• Improve practical services to the local community – EV charging and defibrillator.

The funding has enabled us to solidify our offering and we are hoping to add to it by focusing on the areas above.

Sustainability

We will continue to run the café in order to support the social enterprise and we are hoping to increase the retail offering to increase our finances going forward.

7. What feedback do you have about the funding application and award process?

Funding applications are always difficult as they take a great deal of time and are often being done by people who do not specialise in this area. I have learnt to speak to people about applications prior to making an application as quite often organisations will be able to help guide you through how to frame your application and monitoring. I have used Borders Community Action employees and training to this end and they have been very helpful both individually and as an organisation.

8. What additional support would help you build on the success of this funding?

We will continue to access guidance and training from other Third Sector organisations. On a financial basis, we will be looking for funding to help carry forward the next steps outlined in the sustainability and future plans section.

9. Is there anything else you’d like to share about your experience with this funding?

We are based in a café and our financial model has always been that the café supports the social enterprise. Unfortunately with prices of food, overheads, wages etc etc going up this is becoming increasingly harder. We are so grateful for this key funding in order to enable us to continue to run our social enterprise and support those in the local community that benefit from our services.