NORTH Carrick groups can grab their share of an £80,000 funding pot - and a special session is being held on Thursday to advise on how to go about applying.

But they don’t have long as the PAR North Carrick Initiative Expression of Interest is only open until January 20.

A special PAR Drop-In session has been arranged for anyone who would like help filling out their EOI form or to discuss their project.

It is being held on Thursday, January 12 between the hours of 3pm and 7pm at The Carrick Centre, Maybole, Culzean Road, KA19 7DE. Directions can be found at www.carrickcentre.co.uk/contact.

The £80,000 fund is awarded from the Scottish Government’s Community Choices Fund, which has been set up to support Participatory Budgeting (PB), a process which allows local people to make decisions on local spending priorities.

If you live, work or volunteer in North Carrick then the PAR (Participate, Activate & Regenerate) project wants to encourage you to be involved in how money from the award will be spent so, as well as providing funding, they want you to; be involved and make a difference by sharing your ideas and opinions (participate), decide which projects you feel will give the greatest benefit to your community at a special community event decision day (activate) and implement projects that will create a legacy for North Carrick (regenerate).

With a project deadline of March 2017 Expressions of Interest (EOI) are being taken until January 20, 2017. 

Applications will be issued to successful EOI’s for return by February 17 and the ideas and projects put forward will be put to the public vote at a PB Decision Day which will take place on Saturday, March 4, 2017.

Expression of Interest forms can be requested by emailing the project or downloaded from www.nccbc.org/par. 

The form provides details of funding levels and criteria and for any more information about the form or any information about the project you can email par@carrickcentre.co.uk. 

You can keep in touch and contact the project on www.facebook.com/parnorthcarrick,  or keep up to date at www.nccbc.org/par.