Sense of Place

Jenna has been with the organisation since 2021. She became involved with the CCLP through running a project called Sense of place.

The aim of the project is to support community groups and individuals deepen their understanding of the heritage, landscape and history of where they live. This in turn helps support the wider community as a whole.

As an education officer Jenna's mission was to find groups that might be interested in taking part in workshops to explore what gives a "place" its own unique identity. One of the first was a group in Ochiltree who Jenna described as one of the best she had ever worked with.

What started out as a community action group from the local community council developed into the "Festival Committee."" All of the previous groups had been in Dumfries and Galloway region and Jenna is convinced that the progressive leap into Ayrshire would probably not have happened without the CCLP connection.

Quite quickly the workshops began to evolve and branch out as inspiration from within led to personal learning journeys. Ideas that held special significance to the group or even individuals within it became the focus of exploration and discovery.

Landscapes, wildlife and even heritage buildings that held memories from the past were all subjects of study. This exploration in turn led to the idea of making short films as a richer way of documenting what a sense of place actually means for people.

This was completely new ground for the Biosphere project and led to Faith Hillier joining the team to begin making the film. Two groups were involved one a youth group from Cumnock Juniors and the other a recovery group in Auchinleck.

Each group began to learn new skills from storyboarding to camera handling, cinematography and even interviewing techniques.

"These short films turned out to be some of the most valuable community work we have captured in my whole time in the biosphere; that's now more than ten years."

Further short films can be found here:

• Sense of Place in Film: Local Leader Megan at Cumnock Juniors, by Francesca Wright
• Sense of Place in Film: Cumnock Juniors Community Enterprise Football Camp, by Carmel McHattie
• Sense of Place in Film: Cumnock Juniors - Greg Donnelly, Leading the Way
• Sense of Place in Film: Cumnock Juniors - Harry Burns, The Townhead King
• Sense of Place in Film: Cumnock Juniors - Ellie Kay, Leading the Way
• Sense of Place in Film: Portrait of an Artist

As a spin off consequence a new Biosphere community was developed in Dalrymple. Although the town lies outside both the CCLP project area and the existing Southern Ayrshire Biosphere area it came about as a direct result of CCLP involvement.

Jenna also helped deliver a climate education project to local primary schools. This was followed up in turn with full biosphere days including international knowledge exchanges with schools in other Biosphere areas around the world.

"I'm really delighted with school engagement through the CCLP projects. These links led to other community events that we would otherwise never have reached.

The Friends of Hannahston Wood group are about to do their third nature day with us. This is a big event in the Biosphere calendar. We are very grateful for these connections”

Looking to the future the Biosphere has been granted a boundary extension up into Alloway and 12 miles out to sea. The core priority is to promote sustainable development by working with communities, education and landowners in partnership. Everything is geared towards helping create a better future for everyone in the area.

"Its is very challenging to know how to engage 12 miles out to sea. It's obviously a very different field of people to manage that. We are making good inroads into Alloway. As the birthplace of Robert Burns there is a rich history and identity tied into this part of south west Scotland."