Now is the time - listen to the interview with Sue Tarr

Help us make your voice louder

The Garve & District Development Company is run by a voluntary board appointed by you, our community, and we have paid staff who help us achieve our day to day work.

Our vision, your vision, is a community where individuals lead the fulfilled lives they seek. Fulfilment is difficult just now, but life will get better and will return to some semblance of normal.

For now, we need every member of our community, young and old, to join us, become a member, make sure we know who you are and, make sure we can offer you all the support we can just now.

We know that you are engaging with garve.org the community’s on-line hub much more, which is great.  When we compare October - December 2019, phase 1of the website to January – March 2020, the new look website we see:-

• 119% increase in visits to our landing page garve.org
• 75% increase in visits to the news section
• 66% increase in those folk signing in

That is just amazing but we really want to urge our community to become members, to join us and have your say about community development, have your say about what you and your family need - make your voice heard. Together we can create enterprise and projects, care for our environment and promote the use of local resources but only by working with you and for you.

Without your membership, we have no voice, we have no voice or support to apply for much needed funding not only from LCT, but also from other local and major funders. Funders who compare the size of our population to the number of members we have. Funders who look to see if we are truly representing the whole of our community.

We currently know of 181 addresses in our area of these, 80 are registered member addresses - around 44%. From the 80 registered addresses we have 139 members signed up with the Company.

How can we get more members? What more can we do to encourage membership take up? So far, we have:

• Developed this on-line community hub.
• Developed a Facebook Page.
• Developed a Covid19 Mutual Aid Facebook Group.
• Posted membership information out to every address in our community.
• Sent personal emails to those in our contacts.
• Held open meet and greet sessions, inviting the community to chat.
• Offered to hold virtual community meetings during lockdown.

Can we do more? Give us your ideas.

So please help us to help you - join your Development Company today, encourage your family and your friends who live in Garve and District and tell you neighbours!