Kincardineshire Development Partnership

Board of Trustees Meeting – Thursday 17^th April 2025 at 6.30pm

Mill of Benholm

Minutes

Present:

George Cruickshank – Newtonhill, Muchalls & Cammachmore Community Council

Bridget Scott – Bettridge Centre

Peter Flockhart – TRAK

Eeva-Kaisa Arter – Catterline, Kinneff & Dunnottar Community Council

Henning Wagner – Mill of Benholm Enterprise (arrived at 2.10pm)

Ian Hunter – Stonehaven & District Community Council

Apologies:

Starkeeper Morton – The Haven

Margo Titmuss – KDP Windfarm & Funding Officer

In Attendance:

Mairi Eddie – KDP Development Worker

Duncan Grassick – Catterline, Kinneff & Dunnottar Community Council

 

1. Welcome

The Chair, George Cruickshank, welcomed all those present and thanked them for attending the meeting. He introduced Duncan Grassick from Catterline, Kinneff & Dunnottar Community Council as a potential replacement for Eeva-Kaisa Arter when she steps down.

2. Approval of Previous Minutes

The minutes of the formal meeting of 20th February 2025 were approved as an accurate record of the meeting. They were proposed by Bridget Scott and seconded by Eeva-Kaisa Arter.

3. Matters Arising.

Mairi provided an update on the Constitutional issues raised at the last meeting.

Action: Mairi to suggest change of wording in the constitution.

Due to a misunderstanding around the process of reviewing the constitution, Peter Flockhart read a statement and submitted his resignation from the board. This will be taken to be effective as of this board meeting.

4. Finance Update (including Reserves Policy)

The Finance Report and Cash Flow were shared in advance.

Bridget explained that she had added 2 extra columns to the Cash Flow report to give more information about expected income/spending vs actual. This provides a chance to set a budget for spending at the start of the financial year, but more importantly, offers some perspective on performance.

Thanks to successful bids for funding from Awards for All and Aberdeenshire Council for the Place Planning Toolkit,  KDP’s income was £16K more than initially forecast and expenditure was £2.5K less – thus reducing an anticipated deficit from £25K to just over £6K, which is a great result for the year.

Mairi highlighted that much of the expenditure saving was as a result of her cutting her hours, and this is not manageable longterm.

5. KDP Development Officer Report

Mairi shared an update in advance.  Main points being:

• Growing Network – Community Fruit Growing & Orchard Maintenance workshop, Grow Mearns & Plant Donation Day
• Bervie Strollers – Taster sessions & MCHLN potentially taking over long term support.
• Community Planning – Place Plans, Community Transport Development Officer position & Edzell Woods
• Coming Up – Third Sector Forum & AGM

Peter F suggested McDonalds from Portlethen as a potential funder for KDP.

6. Windfarm Update

Hillhead of Auquhirie – Reopened on 1^st April 2025.

Meikle Carewe – Reopens on 1^st July 2025

St John’s Hill – Closed on 31^st March 2025.

9 applications received – 2 from Arbuthnott, and 7 from Catterline, Kinneff & Dunnottar.

The panel meeting is scheduled for Monday 21^st April at Arbuthnott Hall.

George will act as the KDP Observer.

Trustees raised the topic of Windfarm admin fees and trying to increase the amount we get paid to administer the funds. It was confirmed that this had already been tried, but the 10% fee is standard and increases in line with those funds which increase in value.

Processing applications has been hugely streamlined in the past year with digital applications via the website, so the payment largely covers the time taken to carry out the work.

7. Community Led Tourism

Discussion paper shared in advance

The Grassic Coast promotional campaign was tabled to show what could be done. Working with SCOTO – Scottish community tourism organisation.

It was suggested that KDP could facilitate a group or network, in a similar way to the Halls group.

It was agreed in theory that this would be a good direction for KDP to go in, however funding would be crucial to cover the cost of organising networking events.

Potential funding sources

• Aberdeen Port – funding for local tourism.
• Propellor Fund
• Coastal Community Challenge Fund

It was agreed the Mairi, Margo and Henning would meet to discuss a scoping event to judge local interest.

8. Draft Strategic Plan

Paper shared in advance.

Mairi introduced the draft strategic plan for discussion with the board. Potential areas of growth include:

• Circular economy
• Community wealth building feeding into Place agenda, local employment etc
• Network building & development
• Digital presence – video clips to be developed
• Place Planning – consultation could be paid for
• Research projects
• Green Energy Community Fund Management – policy to be decided

However, she stressed the first priority had to be securing funding to ensure the organisation’s financial sustainability and to cover core costs. Planning to grow before achieving that would be counterproductive and lead to staff burn out.

Asset transfers – Peter raised topic of small number of successful applications, despite many attempts. Also, long length of time taken to progress applications. Could KDP get involved in improving this process?

Mairi – this is a complex area & the projects are very time-consuming. More buildings are coming up, so it’s potentially a growth area.  AVA have specialist asset transfer advisors. KDP have local knowledge and expertise but would need funding to provide support, advice or engagement consultancy.

Current staff have limited capacity to add any new activity to their already large workload. It was agreed that the immediate priority is achieving some kind of base level of financial sustainability. Once that has been achieved then looking at areas for growth would be the next priority.

9. AGM

AGM – in the evening, 5^th or 12^th of June. Potential locations to be advised by Margo.

10. AOCB

Galileo – Glenskinnan Renewable Energy Park

This is a something which will take 5 or 6 years to develop. Community ownership could be a possibility. Marr Partnership have voiced interest and there has now been a meeting organised with Local Energy Scotland. It was agreed that a trustee will attend an online meeting to find out more as part of our watching brief.

11. Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting will be the AGM.  Venue to be confirmed.

The meeting closed at approximately 9.30pm.