Cullen & Deskford Community Council

04/11/2026

Fundraising leads and ideas for volunteer and other groups.



Funding updates and news
New and recently opened funds

The Gordon & Ena Baxter Foundation
Organisation: The Gordon & Ena Baxter Foundation
Status: Open
News: Open for 2027 applications!
Summary: The Gordon & Ena Baxter Foundation supports a wide variety of capital projects in Scotland’s Northeast and Highlands.
Next deadline: 29th January 2027

Highlands and Islands Community Climate Action Fund
Organisation: Highlands & Islands Climate Hub CIC
Status: Open
News: Fund reopened! Deadline is 30 November 2026.
Summary: Small grants are available to kickstart a climate action project in your community or carry out community engagement around climate change.
Next deadline: 30th November 2026

National Churches Trust - Cherish Grants
Organisation: National Churches Trust
Status: Open
News: Reopened with extended funding
Summary: The Cherish project provides grants to churches, chapels or meeting houses for church maintenance, urgent repair work or project development. They aim to see churches open and in regular use, available to all.
Date re-opened: 30th October 2026
Next deadline: 19th January 2027

Orkney Islands Council - Culture Fund
Organisation: Orkney Islands Council
Status: Open
News: Latest deadline closed as of 30th October 2026. Next deadline 2nd February 2027.
Summary: The Culture Fund is aimed at assisting not for profit organisations based in Orkney planning arts, heritage or language events, projects or activities.
Next deadline: 2nd February 2027

Ayrshire Tree Planting Grant Scheme
Organisation: Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere
Status: Open
News: Now open for applications
Summary: This grant from the Galloway & Southern Ayrshire Biosphere Partnership funds the planting of individual or small groups of trees on land in South and East Ayrshire.
Next deadline: 15th February 2027

Bright Green Nature - Wild your Space Microgrant
Organisation: Bright Green Nature
Status: Open
News: Re-opened!
Summary: The objective of the microfund is to provide a small amount of grant funding for individuals, families and small school groups in the Scottish Borders to ‘wild’ their garden, balcony or other small green space that they own.
Next deadline: 9th November 2026

Opening soon

Kincardineshire Development Partnership - St John's Hill Community Fund
Organisation: Kincardineshire Development Partnership
Status: Currently closed, re-opens in 1 month
Summary: The aim is to support projects that make a difference in the communities where the wind farm operates. These are the Arbuthnott and Catterline, Kinneff & Dunnottar Community Council areas.
Date re-opening: 1st December 2026

Bank of Scotland Foundation - Empower
Organisation: Bank of Scotland Foundation
Status: Currently closed, re-opens in 1 month
Summary: The Empower provides unrestricted funding and this year will solely focus on helping charities who support vulnerable groups/people.
Date re-opening: 1st December 2026

The Wolfson Foundation - Funding for Places
Organisation: The Wolfson Foundation
Status: Currently closed, re-opens in 1 month
News: Our main grants programme provides support for places. These grants are for capital initiatives, i.e. buildings (new build or refurbishment) and equipment.
Summary: The Foundation's main grants programme provides support for places. They fund capital initiatives across a broad range of organisations working across the fields of education, science and medicine, health and disability and arts and humanities.
Date re-opening: 30th November 2026

© 2026. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Caledonian Exchange, 19A Canning Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EG.

03/11/2026

02/11/2026

From North East Trunk Roads A96 River Spey Bridge, Fochabers Update on Works and Overnight Bridge Closures

Good Afternoon

Amey is pleased to advise that the essential maintenance works at the A96 River Spey Bridge, Fochabers are progressing well and are currently ahead of programme.

While we previously advised that the works were scheduled to be completed by 27 November, current progress means there is potential for activities to be finished earlier than anticipated.

We are pleased to report that there is a possibility of the works being completed around the week commencing 9 November.

However, the completion date remains subject to a number of factors, including weather conditions, operational requirements and any unforeseen issues that may arise during the final stages of the project.

Should the works be completed sooner, we will provide a further update at the earliest opportunity.

From North East Trunk Roads A96 River Spey Bridge, Fochabers Update on Works and Overnight Bridge Closures Good Afternoon Amey is pleased to advise that t

01/11/2026

Source: Classic FM

Dan Walker, Aled Jones, and Dawn O’Porter will play relaxing classical music across the Bonfire Night weekend to help soothe pets during fireworks season.

29/10/2026

Cullen and Deskford Community Council

29/10/2026

Cullen and Deskford Community Council

27/10/2026

Subject: Yellow Weather Warning Update

Good morning,



A quick update on the current weather warning and the situation across coastal areas in Moray specifically.



A yellow weather warning for wind remains in place until 9pm tonight. Our Incident Management Team (IMT) has been keeping an eye on the situation and dealing with any issues and calls coming in. It appears all power outages across Moray have now been resolved by SSEN.



We are keeping a close eye on the water levels at Kingston, Garmouth, Lossiemouth, and Findhorn, where localised flooding on roads caused by high water levels is a possibility.



Kingston – The road into Kingston could become flooded and therefore isolating Kingston from 11pm to 1am.

Garmouth – Roads in may also experience some flooding.

Lossiemouth – High water level and risk of waves over topping the esplanade. Access on and off east beach at Lossiemouth may be limited at high tide. During the hours of darkness and high tide it may be difficult to differentiate between esplanade and sea edge, so we are encouraging people to avoid that pathway. West beach will likely experience debris left by the waves in the car park area therefore people should take care if visiting there.

Findhorn – Water level to reach around 200mm of road, however access to Findhorn would remain possible if the road were to flood.



It’s worth noting that despite this, the risk to wider flooding aside from some roads is low, where at that roads will likely remain open.



We will continue to monitor the situation and share regular updates on our social media channels throughout the day and evening, including weather warnings, flooding advice, road closures, coastal safety messages and updates from partner agencies to help keep residents informed.



We will share any further updates as needed.

25/10/2026

STORM BOELO UPDATE
The weather forecast
With the impact of Storm Boelo continuing to make its way across the north of Scotland, our teams are working hard to restore supplies where, and when, it is safe for them to do so. We’re also urging customers to stay well back and report any damage they may see to our equipment.

In line with our weather forecasts, storm-force winds and heavy rain have been moving across the north of Scotland since yesterday afternoon.

As of 11am today, just over 24,000 customers are awaiting restoration of their electricity supplies.

Since Storm Boelo began moving across our network yesterday, our engineers have already safely repaired and restored supplies to over 19,500 customers and have been working from first light this morning to reconnect customers whose power has been interrupted.

The main areas which have been impacted so far are Argyll and the West, Skye and the Western Isles. We’ve seen gusts in excess of 80mph sweeping across Argyll, with wind speeds of 85mph recorded in Machrahanish.

And as Storm Boelo continues to sweep across the north of Scotland, we’re also preparing for impact to our network infrastructure in Tayside, the North East and Aberdeenshire later today.

The Met Office has its own Amber Warning for wind today, and a Yellow Warning is also in place for rain

How SSEN is responding
In anticipation of the disruption these storm-force winds and heavy rain can have on our network, we’ve been taking the following steps since Boelo was first forecast.

• Ahead of the storm, we stationed additional network maintenance crews in the areas which were forecast to be impacted the most. These teams will work to repair faults as safely and quickly as they can when conditions allow.

• We’ve increased the number of tree-cutting teams on shift, and these will be ready to clear paths to sites where we need to gain access.

• All planned network maintenance for Monday has been cancelled; taking this decision frees up more engineering teams to carry out repairs to storm damage.

• We’ve got more switching teams in our Control Room - their role will be to reconfigure the network around damage locations when possible, a process which can help us restore customers’ supplies more safely and quickly.

• Extra people are on duty in our Customer Contact Centre to take calls and respond to messages coming to us via social media.

For those customers who may need extra help if their power is off, our specialist Priority Services team is continuing the process of contacting customers already registered for free support during a power cut.

We’ve already sent text messages to 220,000 customers on our Priority Services in the areas most likely to be affected.

We’ll continue to monitor the weather closely, and we’ll issue further updates depending on the forecast.

Help and advice
Can we ask that you share these important messages with members of your communities to allow them to prepare for any potential disruption of supply.

If you see any damage to our equipment, please stay back, don’t touch it and instead report it to us directly by calling 105, or via our Power Track website, and engineers will investigate as soon as possible.

Customers are also being encouraged to be prepared for the possibility of disruption to supplies by:

• Saving the emergency power cut number - '105' - to your phone to report any loss of supply or damage to the electricity network

• Visiting our Power Track Website to give you details of power cuts and restoration times. You can also report power cuts and network damage through Power Track.

• Visiting the "Preparing for a power cut" section on our website, where there is a wealth of advice and information, or to chat live to one of our advisors via the Webchat service

Customers are also eligible for our Priority Services if they:

• Are deaf or hard of hearing

• Have a disability

• Live with children under five

• Are blind or partially-sighted

• Have a chronic illness

• Use medical equipment/aids reliant on electricity

• Are over 60

To find out more about Priority Services, click here or call 0800 294 3259.

Kind Regards

SSEN Distribution

[email protected]

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To deliver our vision - Powering Change with Every Connection - we must work closely with our customers and stakeholders providing them with the opportunities to comment and give feedback on our services.

23/10/2026

From SSEN

We're now at Yellow Alert in the north of Scotland ahead of Storm Boelo
The weather forecast
We’re contacting you to inform you that we’ve moved to Yellow Alert status in the north of Scotland ahead of severe weather being brought by Storm Boelo, which is forecast over the weekend.

This heightened alert level reflects the strong likelihood that the storm-force winds on Saturday and Sunday will affect our customers’ power supplies. Over the past few days, we’ve been increasing our level of preparedness, and we're ready to respond.

On Saturday gusts of around 70mph will begin hitting the Western Isles from lunchtime, before subsiding for a few hours. Speeds will pick up once more from 9pm onwards, affecting the Western Isles again and also moving across the West Coast of Scotland.

On Sunday the winds will remain continuous through the early hours on the West Coast, where speeds will be reaching up to 75mph. The gusts will hit the North Highlands from 6am onwards, at speeds of up to 83mph. We anticipate the worst of the winds will be from 12pm through to 6pm, particularly in the Highlands and Orkney Islands, but also ongoing across affect the Argyll and the West Coast the Western Isles, and also the northern parts of the North East region.

The Met Office has now upgraded its own weather warnings; an Amber Weather Warning for Wind is now in place across Scotland from 9pm on Saturday through to 9pm on Sunday evening.

How SSEN is responding
In response, we’re now activating our well-rehearsed contingency plans; bringing in additional teams to deal with any damage to the network and subsequent faults, which may interrupt customers’ power supplies.

We’ve increased the number of people who'll be on duty in our Customer Contact Centres, where they’ll be ready to answer calls and respond to social media. In advance of Storm Boelo arriving, we'll be sending information via text message to more than 220,000 of our more vulnerable customers to provide them with guidance on what preparations to make, along with help and advice on what they can do if the power goes off.

Help and advice
Can we ask that you share these important messages with members of your communities to allow them to prepare for any potential disruption of supply.

If you see any damage to our equipment, please stay back, don’t touch it and instead report it to us directly by calling 105, or via our Power Track website, and engineers will investigate as soon as possible.

Customers are also being encouraged to be prepared for the possibility of disruption to supplies by:

• Saving the emergency power cut number - '105' - to your phone to report any loss of supply or damage to the electricity network

• Visiting our Power Track Website to give you details of power cuts and restoration times. You can also report power cuts and network damage through Power Track.

• Visiting the "Preparing for a power cut" section on our website, where there is a wealth of advice and information, or to chat live to one of our advisors via the Webchat service

Customers are also eligible for our Priority Services Register (PSR) if they:

• Are deaf or hard of hearing

• Have a disability

• Live with children under five

• Are blind or partially-sighted

• Have a chronic illness

• Use medical equipment/aids reliant on electricity

• Are over 60

To find out more about the PSR, click here or call 0800 294 3259.

Kind Regards

SSEN Distribution

23/10/2026

We are back to over loading bins at yhe Harbour. Why?