Your Cash Your Caithness event to feature 25 local groups

Representatives of 25 local groups will pitch their projects to the public at the end of this month in a bid to secure a share of £10,000.

Local people are being invited along to the Your Cash Your Caithness event on Saturday, February 29, to decide how the money will be distributed.

In total, the amount applied for is £23,734, and members of the public have the vital task of voting for who gets what from the cash on offer.

The participatory budgeting event will be held in the main hall of Thurso High School. Registration will be open from 9.30am and the presentations will start at 10am, continuing until around about 1.30pm.

Each applicant will be allocated a five-minute slot to make their pitch for funding and a vote will take place at the end of the event to determine which projects have been successful. Voting will be open to anyone who is aged 14 or over.

The Caithness civic leader, Councillor Willie Mackay, who sits on the local implementation working group, encouraged members of the public to get involved.

Councillor Mackay, who represents Wick and East Caithness on Highland Council, said: “This is handing decision-making to the community and it is the first stage in returning community empowerment to the most local level.

"I am very heartened by the variety of the applications that have come forward and I would encourage anyone interested in the process to come along and give their support to all the applicants and to make their votes count.”

The groups taking part this time are Home-Start Caithness; North Highland Cancer Information and Support Centre; Friends of Newtonhill Woodland; Caithness Macular Degeneration Support Group; Society of Caithness Artists; Caithness Street Pastors; No Limits Caithness; Thurso Community Development Trust; Budding Engineers (CIC); The Northern Pilgrims’ Way Group; Northern Stars THS 2020; Thurso, Come Dancing; Thurso Community Café; Caithness Community Connections; Wick Players; Bower Busy Bees Early Learning Centre; Abilitynet; Rumster Outdoor Centre Management Group; Caithness branch of the Pony Club; Advocacy Highland; John O’Groats Mill Trust; Reiss and Killimster Park Committee; Caithness and Sutherland Vintage and Classic Vehicle Club; Connecting Carers; Caithness Broch Project.

This will be the sixth Your Cash Your Caithness event held in the county, the first having been held in November 2015.

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