Inverkip Community Initiative is applying for funding in partnership with Inverkip Church Hall as two constituted groups running one community event for the Inverkip locality area.

The event, named The Kip Fest 2022, will run on the weekend of Friday 10th June, Saturday 11th June and finish on Sunday 12th June. The event  will be hosted across the three community facilities Inverkip Church ,Inverkip Bowling Club and Inverkip HUB. The event will include a wide range of community activities, entertainment, social evenings and something for all ages for our local community and surrounding areas.

The Kip Fest 2022 will benefit the wider community by encouraging participation and promoting social inclusion. Through having activities aimed at a variety of audiences, and specifically targeting those who may not already be accessing the Hub, Church Hall or Bowling club activities, the event will increase awareness of what is on offer in the local community for all ages and backgrounds.

The event filled weekend will include a wide range of activities including a Tea Dance, Ceilidh, Family Cinema, and our taster sessions of Zumba, Table Tennis, Football Coaching, Messy Play, Guitar Lessons, Painting, E-bikes, Gardening, Live Music, and Kids Boogie Time will encourage new users that will hopefully continue to access these resources when the weekend is over leaving a new client group and bringing a new demand for these services at a local level. We are also in talks with local farmers and food companies about hosting a farmers market which we are keen to have on at the the Festival weekend.

Our event, Kip Fest 2022, has already brought together Inverkip Community Initiative, Inverkip Church Hall Inverkip Bowling Club and the wider Inverkip Community, and will only continue to bring our community together. 

Kip Fest 2022 will bring people and organisations together by hosting these activities and events across the three community halls in the village, allowing each organisation to target a wider audience than they would working alone. This will involve a wide array of community involvement and participation with many of the local clubs and activity group that meet within Inverkip HUB and Inverkip Church Hall involved in creating a 'taster session' of their activities, bringing together a wide range of people within the community. A good example of this would be on the Saturday while we have a kids show on at the hub we will have bike rides outside, with football coaching on the pitch, a Bowls Taster Session at the pavilion, Messy play at the Church hall and and Blooming Inverkip gardening group will encouraging people to join them in creating a Jubilee garden. All these activities are in walking distance from each other and connected by staff and volunteers helping across the three halls .

We would like to host a community galaday which has had to be cancelled for the past 2 years due to the pandemic and would like to coincide this with The Queens Julilee celebrations on Saturday the 4th June. We, as the association would normally try to subsidise as much as possible for the galaday so it is very much a community event that anyone can attend. We would like to do this again and make it a free event as much as possible, for everyone attending. We would also like to show off the refurbishments that have been made to the community centre at this event and hope to get ideas from the community as to what they would like to see in the community centre.  

As well as this we would like to support and include other local groups to be involved and promote what is available for the community locally, whether in the community centre or not. We want this to be as inclusive an event as possible with activities for children and families as well as our older population. We would like to have a tea room, utilising the new kitchen, games both indoors and out, fairground rides, entertainment provided by local groups eg dance group and showcasing what activities are available in the centre.

We will be showcasing what is already on in the community centre, also asking the community what they would like to see on in the centre. We would then look to add popular activities to our timetable where possible. We would like to promote the benefits of the various activities and groups in the centre. We hope to have representatives from the groups attending to be able to talk about and demonstrate what their groups do. We want to hear from the community after 2 long years of mostly being closed. Needs have changed for a lot of people and we want to reestablish relationships with the local community and this event will support this.

The event will have various and mixed activities for all ages to get involved, both inside the community centre and utilising the outside space. We want to showcase what groups and activities are already taking place within the centre and hope to have representatives to do this. We have always included different groups and organisations in our galaday eg the school PTA, Rainbows, Scouts, RNLI etc and will do this again. We want to hear from the local community about what they would like to see on at the centre, whether that is regular groups/events or one off activities. We want to get a wide range of views and will use what we have learned through the support we provided during covid and using local businesses to help with this as well.