Here We Are Cairndow is a community charity, which has come a long way since it was established in 1998 – and is now on the lookout for a new member to join the team.
In its early days Here We Are became aware that its future could not depend on grants and followed the inspirational story of Jimmy Stewart’s light bulb.
In 1945 no one in the village had electricity. Jimmy, a joiner on Ardkinglas Estate, found an old wheel on the shore and rigged up a turbine in the burn by his house: it generated enough energy for a light bulb.
So Here We Are wondered if it could harness local energy. It sourced funds to explore the idea.
And began to dream of the day when Here We Are might be self-sustaining, able to contribute to community needs.
Rainwater and trees are plentiful in Argyll. Biomass and hydroelectricity were the choices.
At the time Lakeland Smolts at Cairndow needed heat for their salmon hatchery; enough to make the proposal of wood chipping business viable.
Around the same time Christina Noble met Roy Foster at a Sea Food Fair. Roy looked up at the Merk burn and said, “a perfect site for a high head hydro scheme. Let’s do it!”.
Photograph: Here We Are
Over years Here We Are set about building a chipping plant: – Our Power and then a hydroelectric scheme: – The Merk.
With risk and considerable heartache, a lot of expensive loans, assistance from investors and hard work by many people, at last in 2007 Our Power began to operate and in August 2015 the Merk.
Between April 1 2022 to March 31 2023 Our Power sold 2,300 tonnes of woodchips, equivalent to 4.5 megawatts of heat.
During the same year the Merk generated 4.3 gigawatts of electricity; an amount of power used for 5,000 to 8,000 homes in a year.
After paying annual rent and loans and contributions to admin and maintenance Here We Are is able to sustain itself, pay its eight staff and directly contribute to the community.
The dream had begun to come true.
Some of the things Here We Are has been able to do include building a digital archive of some 8,500 photographs representing over 100 years of local social history, curating exhibitions locally and also in Inverness and Glasgow, publishing booklets on local subjects like the Kilmorich School and Mothers’ Messages – (cookery book), a map of local walks, constructing a path linking Cairndow village round the head of the loch Fyne to Clachan and recently setting up ‘Come On In’, which organises volunteers to visit the elderly and do small errands. It also holds monthly tea parties for them with fine china and home baking.
Here We Are’s Community Fund offers £5,000 in grants via applications twice a year.
HWA now has eight employees and is looking for another person to join the team to help with developing the project, meeting people and general admin.