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Forthill Community Sports Club Solar Panel Project
2024-09-30 • No comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
Forthill Community Sports Club is committed to sustainability and enhancing its facilities to better serve the community. Our proposed solar panel installation, (£22,505 cost), will significantly lower energy costs, allowing us to reinvest savings into sporting programs, outreach, and development. By reducing our carbon footprint, we create a more sustainable future for our members and inspire young athletes to take part in an environmentally conscious sports culture. This initiative strengthens our role as a community hub, promoting both physical well-being and environmental responsibility.
Forthill Community Sports Club is a local hub dedicated to promoting sports and physical activity in the community. Based in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, the club provides facilities for a variety of sports, including cricket, tennis, hockey, squash, rugby and table tennis. It serves a wide range of age groups and skill levels, from beginners to seasoned athletes, and is focused on fostering both sporting excellence and community engagement. In addition to hosting matches and events, Forthill also plays a key role in sports development and outreach, offering programs that encourage active participation, teamwork, and personal growth. The club's inclusive and welcoming environment makes it a vital part of the local sports culture. Our facilities are used by a variety of community groups who are not directly linked to Forthill, and we hope that the financial savings throught this solar project will allow us to open our doors to more groups.

Delivering environmental activities and events at Growing Chrysalis
2024-09-23 • 2 comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH) will deliver a year-long programme of environmental projects and activities at Growing Chrysalis, the community garden in the heart of Dawson Park. Our goal is to give individuals and families from across the region the chance to step outside and reconnect with nature.
Our programme will blend environmental awareness with therapeutic gardening to create a space where people can thrive alongside nature. Families will learn how climate change impacts our greenspaces and local wildlife, gain practical skills to help create a more sustainable future, and improve their wellbeing from being outdoors surrounded by nature.
All our activities will be dynamic and inclusive, tailored to meet the diverse needs of everyone who joins. These will include:
- Green Minds Sessions: Weekly garden-based activities focused on gardening, wildlife, and creativity. Each session ends with time to connect socially, building stronger bonds within the community.
- Local Produce Festivals: Celebrate Tayside’s rich agricultural heritage with events highlighting local produce—potatoes, soft fruits, and berries.
- Recycle Fun Days: Family-friendly events promoting sustainability through fun, hands-on activities using recycled materials.
- Grow Your Own Food Workshops: Practical sessions on sourcing and growing local, seasonal food—from foraging to creating your own food forest.
- Saving Local Wildlife: Learn about the impact of climate change on local wildlife and how to protect our precious wildlife with sessions on growing wildflowers for pollinators, building bat boxes, and creating wormery composts.
- Reducing Food Waste: Sustainable cooking sessions using homegrown produce, held in our outdoor kitchen to strengthen healthy eating and social connections.

Multi-actor workshop: Young-people co-design the pathways to climate transitions
2024-09-30 • No comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
How daunting and frustrating it must feel to be a young person now - as climate change gathers pace - more uncertain than previous generations about what the future holds. Furthermore, many feel failed by governments and older generations, and powerless to influence the direction of travel. Although schools are tasked with preparing children for the future and providing the skills and knowledge for the climate transition, teachers often feel similarly ill-equipped to fulfil this role.
So, how can this stalemate situation be overcome? Is there a way that young people can be given agency over their future careers and livelihoods? These are the questions that led researchers at The James Hutton Institute, in collaboration with teachers in secondary schools and career-advisors at Skills Development Scotland, to develop a novel multi-actor, multi-generational model to engage young people in the discussion and co-design of pathways for climate transition.
The Dundee Climate Fund 3.0 would allow us to develop and run a ‘COP’ style event bringing young people in Dundee together with potential future employers in the co-design of pathways for climate transition. The workshops will empower young people to work with scientists and industry experts to discuss collective actions, skills, careers and individual behavioural changes underpinning this transformation.
We propose a one-day event involving between 5 and 10 students (S5/S6 – age:15 - 18) from each Dundee secondary school, in the novel workshop model previously piloted in a successful event in Perth. Selected academic and industry speakers will present challenges and visions for the climate transition in major socio-economic sectors (chosen in collaboration with local educators) and open a collective discussion with the young people. After initial presentations, young people will be divided in discussion teams where they will perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and STEEP (Social, Technology, Environmental, Economic and Political drivers of change) analysis of climate transition in each of the different socio-economic sectors, with the support of academic and industry experts. Following this analysis, young people will design a route map and recommendations to reach the desired future.
Young people, supported by academics and potential future employers, will learn about the climate transition and gain confidence in their own potential contributions and agency. This will create socio-ecological benefits for Dundee communities and environment by empowering the next generation of adults to make meaningful changes in our future society. After the workshop, students will receive a certificate of attendance from The James Hutton Institute, and their recommendations will be disseminated to target audiences in education, policy, business, and research through the project team’s communication pathways.
[the word cloud summarises the young people’s recommendations for policy during the pilot workshop in Perth]
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Green Gazebo: A place to connect 💚
2024-09-30 • 2 comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
Campy Growers is the largest community growing space in Dundee. With passionate volunteers we grow and distribute hundreds of kilos of ethically grown food to various project across the city. We run workshops about gardening, biodiversity, cooking, harvest and wider events open to all, to raise awareness about climate change and food growing.
What's missing is a location to run all our projects and activities: a living roof green gazebo. A place to gather, to share ideas and knowledge, to enjoy the sun whilst protected from the Scottish weather. A place with a positive climate impact. A place that will make the difference.
Picture a L-shaped wooden gazebo, south facing and made from larch sourced from a local sawmill. Can you see it? It will have a guttering system to collect water so we can wash the produce and water our plants. But most of off all, it will have a sedum (green) roof which will capture CO2 emissions and support wildlife, improve air purification, increase biodiversity, and more.
It will become a social space for the Collective and a central point for learning:
- We will run more workshops and events in relation to gardening, cooking, biodiversity and resilience. Although we ran several workshops last year, we were quite limited in terms of space, so we want to expand and make people feel welcome! Here is a wee taster of what we are planning for 2025: start your garden, botany, Harvest session, mushroom growing, cooking with seasonal veg, fermentation, learn about moths and bat, movie screening, open days and more.
- Start a Climate Café style conversation: Every month we will run climate café style conversation giving the opportunity to everybody to share their thoughts about climate change. Campy Growers is an example of a proactive project which counter-act climate change. Being surrounded by food and green space changes the dynamic and impact of such conversations can have.
- We will offer a space for our volunteers and visitors: With our volunteers and visitors we talk about gardening for sure, but we also create connections, share aspirations and ideas. A dedicated area to relax, think, gather and enjoy homemade food together is the key of our Collective
- We will use it as a packhouse for our weekly veg stalls and distribution, an open space visible to all visitors who want to get some vegetables or learn about community market gardening techniques. It is a self-sufficient space with its guttering system too.
We need your vote to create to social space which will support the biodiversity and will allow us to run more events and workshop creating resilience and awareness about climate change and food growing.

Abertaysty - Food for Students
2024-07-12 • No comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
Abertay University Students' Association has been operating Abertaysty since 2019, and in the last academic year we provided 1705.6kgs of food to 1023 users (1.6kg per user on average) . We currently only offer ambient food, as we do not have space for refrigeration. However, we are moving to a custom designed space in December of this year and will then be able to widen our offering to students. We work with Fareshare as our supplier, ensurng that we employ the principles of circular economy. We would like to use monies from the fund to increase the amount we have available to widen our provision to chilled and frozen foods, to both help the students, and to collaborate on the prevention of food wste. Moving forward we would like to expand the larder to include a not-for-profit refill station, both to widen the offering, but also to encourage students to engage in more sustainble shopping practices. To this end we would request funding to purchase the equipment needed, and the first purchase of goods to stock the station.
We also use Abertaysty to highlight other sustainable initiatives being promoted by the Association, the university and the wider community, and to provide access to information and guidance on how to live more sustainably.

Showcase the Street - Upgrade to Pitch Lighting
2024-09-26 • 3 comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
We are applying to the Dundee Climate Fund 3.0 to upgrade the lighting on our indoor football pitches to new, energy-efficient wide beam LED lights. The current lighting system is outdated and highly inefficient, contributing significantly to our rising utility costs, which have quadrupled compared to last year. By transitioning to LED lights, we aim to reduce our energy consumption, lower carbon emissions, and make our facility more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Our pitches are available seven days a week for use by community groups, other Dundee charities, para-sports clubs, private organisations, and local schools. One of these schools actually uses our facility as their P.E department as their own in-house facilities are not fit for purpose. We maintain the pitches to the highest standards while keeping hire costs affordable to ensure accessibility for all.
This project aligns with the Dundee Climate Fund’s focus on energy efficiency and sustainability. It directly addresses the Energy category by reducing electricity consumption and improving energy efficiency in a community facility. The upgrade will make our facility more sustainable, while the energy savings will allow us to allocate more resources to our core mission—supporting the local community.
Showcase the Street is a registered charity located in one of the most deprived areas of Scotland. Our facility offers sports, technology, employability training, fashion design, and dance programs accessible to over 3,000 people weekly. We focus on reducing barriers to participation, especially for families experiencing poverty, and ensure that everyone in our community has access to these opportunities, regardless of their financial situation.
The LED lighting upgrade will have a direct positive impact on the running costs of the facility, ensuring we can continue to provide affordable, inclusive programming. It will also serve as a public example of the benefits of energy-efficient upgrades, potentially inspiring other local residents and organisations to adopt similar practices.

DCA's Community Greenspace
2024-09-27 • No comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
“We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbours. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.” Grace Lee Boggs, American author and activist
Art has the power to help us to imagine and inspires action. We are launching a yearlong project to raise awareness of the climate emergency through the creation of a vibrant greenspace at DCA in partnership with community groups from across Dundee.
We will work with a Lead Artist to facilitate a series of workshops with community partners across the city to develop a welcoming greenspace onsite at DCA, which will be open to all and free to access.
We have established relationships Amina Muslim Women’s Resource Centre, Dundee International Women’s Centre (DIWC), Artangel, Maxwell Centre and Dundee Botanics. Through these partnerships, we will involve a diverse cross-section of people, including families and young people, in the co-design of our green space.
We will reach out to local experts to help shape this project, including Grow Dundee, an incredible network of existing food growing and community gardens, Bonnie Dundee, who maintain planters across the city, and Creative Dundee, who worked on various similar community-led projects.
Environmental benefits of this project include:
- Community Engagement: Local communities will lead the creation of a greenspace, ensuring the space is what their community needs.
- Enhanced Urban Habitat: Promoting biodiversity and supporting ecosystems.
- Improved Air Quality: Through the planting of trees and plants.
- Emissions Offset: Contributing to carbon sequestration.
Further to this, there is robust evidence that integrating green spaces into urban environments enhances mental and physical health, improves wellbeing and aids relaxation.
The greenspace at DCA will provide a welcoming and safe social space in the centre of Dundee, benefiting DCA staff, visitors and local communities. The greenspace will be used for years to come, serving as the site of future workshops and events.
Join us in creating a welcoming, safe, and sustainable greenspace in the heart of Dundee! Thank you for your support.

Inspiring climate action through play
2024-10-01 • 1 comment • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
Dundee Science Centre (DSC) is a lifelong learning resource committed to engaging and empowering our community with science whilst developing their skills. We will deliver a brand-new community engagement programme shining a light on climate change, through play and hands-on learning, to inspire action.
Discover: We are experiencing a climate emergency. Our planet’s temperature is rising, biodiversity is decreasing and the change in our climate is having a devastating effect on life across the globe. Across Tayside, we have experienced record-breaking heatwaves and extreme flooding - putting our health and homes at risk. It’s important that we come together as a community to support each other and to protect our planet, now and for the future. Participants will discover how this has happened and the impact it will have on life on Earth through engaging demonstrations and hands-on learning.
Explore: Dundee is at the forefront of climate action and adaption. Guided by the Sustainable Development Goals, we will explore ways in which our city and the surrounding areas can take action to build resilience to climate change and continue to grow in a climate positive way.
Play: We will bring fun, engaging workshops and play-based activities into community centres and hubs across Dundee, alongside our community partners which include Dundee Bairns, Dundee Stroke and Exercise Group and Abertay Enviromental Science team including Dr Rebecca Wade. Our mission is to facilitate positive experiences with science, empower our community and to encourage them to connect with the natural world, embracing and protecting it for the future.
Whilst the majority of the project delivery will take the form of in-person workshops throughout the community, we will also upskill community leaders and educators to ensure our work has a lasting legacy and provide resources for community centres to continue building their skills for years to come. Our programme development team utilise research informed learning practises and work closely with the Association of Science and Discovery Centres and the National Environment Reseach Council to bring the latest scientific developments to our audiences in exciting and meaningful ways.
DSC will participate in community festivals, offering engaging and interactive experiences connected to our Climate Champions initiative. We will also host visits to our centre, where the public can explore sustainability through our award-winning exhibitions, guided by our expert science communicators.
The environmental benefits of the project will include:
Awareness Raising: Our team will provide a wide range of examples to establish a deep understanding of the global to local impacts of climate change.
Community Engagement: We will work closely with a wide range of audiences to develop engaging and impactful workshops that allow them to take ownership over their own learning and apply their skills to help solve issues within their communities.
Skills Development: Our team will raise the science capital and STEM skillset of participants as well as providing opportunities to improve critical thinking, literacy, numeracy and teamwork in informal settings. These transferrable skills will be beneficial in taking climate action but also in the personal and professional lives of the those involved.
Climate Action & Adaption: The intended outcome of our work is to have our participants go out and take action in their local area that positively benefits the both the environment and their community.
No action is too small or insignificant when it comes to creating a better world. Join us as we create Climate Champions across Tayside and play our part in driving meaningful climate action.

Shaper/Caper, The World is My...
2024-09-25 • No comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
Enter 'The World is My...' an immersive and participatory dance-theatre show for the 10-12 years old on climate crisis, eco-anxiety, and how to transform from eco-worriers into eco-warriors!
Follow the two characters as they dance their way through the recovered Lego washed-out pieces that continue to reach the Cornish shores from a 1997 drifting steel container on its way to New York, the Tokio Express.
The project covers two weeks of rehearsals and two weeks of performance shows in Dundee (up to 20 shows, and 2,000 audiences). It is a development phase from a previous period supported by Aberdeen Creative Learning where the team became company in residence in two primary schools in Aberdeen. We learnt facts from great partners such as the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, a world-leading scientific research organisation; as well as from local partners like the amazing Transition Dundee.
Following this learning, which included the children’s feedback, we will continue to develop the show and perform it, this time in Dundee, exploring the power of creativity in conveying transformational and long-lasting messages for radical environmental change.
Your support will help both the dissemination of key learning for the young children of Dundee and the exposure to performing arts activities in schools, contributing to implement the Article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with relation to accessing play, cultural activities, and recreational activities.
A multi-award-wining organisation with a 10-year long-standing partnership with NHS Tayside delivering the smoking awareness programme Well Good reaching 7,000 children per year (yep…70,000 so far!), we know how to provide engaging and inspiring learning, but we need your help.
If you want to contribute to this project, becoming a community producer…Vote for us!
Many thanks.

Community Food Larder Electric Van
2024-09-30 • No comments • • Dundee Climate Fund Round 3.0
Fairfield Community Sports Hub are based within the North East of Dundee, and provide vital services for one of the poorest areas in the city. As well as providing sports and activity in a way people can afford, the Hub also runs a Food Larder (Bank) which at present serves 1900 people across the community. The Food Larder is supported entirley by volunteers anbd without this service many of the families would struggle to support themeselves and their children, with the basic necessitaties many of us take for granted. The Food Larder offers a vairety of products as well as food, which includes, fresh fruit & veg, healthy alternatives, special diets and allergies, and of course the pets in the household are catered for! To allow us to provide such a vital resource for the community the most important thing we need is a van. Which collects foods from around Dundee including supermarkets, and donations made by the public. Without the van the Food Larder would not be able to run and 1900 would suffer as a result.What we are asking for is funding to secure a new electric van which would replace our current diesel van which is begining to show its age and due to its year of registration we are no longer able to go into the centre of town due to LEZ area Please help Fairfield COnmmunity Sports Hub and the community we serve by voting for us
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