Harthill Eastfield & Greenrigg Children's Gala Day

The Harthill, Eastfield & Greenrigg (HEG) Community Fund supports community projects benefiting those living in the Harthill & Eastfield and Greenrigg community council areas. The fund provides grants to support charitable activities that improve people’s quality of life, increase opportunities for people to participate in community activity and promote community spirit in the local area.

The Children's Gala Day has a long history in the area, running in various forms for over 130 years, and is one of the most eagerly anticipated occasions in the communities’ social calendar. The event offers opportunities for the community and families to come together and enjoy a programme of parades, demonstrations, stalls and activities. 

Given low incomes in the area, the challenge of keeping activities affordable in the face of inflation and the need to periodically replace key items of kit and equipment is not easy. The Group has therefore applied for strategic contributions from the Fund over the last eleven years.  

Annually around 1,000 people benefit, in addition to local businesses who were given the opportunity to include adverts within the June 2024 Gala programme.  

One of the most recent award contributed to a laptop, entertainment costs, and a promotional programme which included information on the gala event and adverts for local businesses. The event offered opportunities for the community and families to come together and enjoy a programme of parades, demonstrations, stalls and activities.  

There’s also a sports programme during civic week leading up to the event. Working with the community football club and coaches from the community, children take part in netball shoot, penalty kicks and 5-a-side football. Children receive medals, and trophies are awarded for the races at the fun day. Every trophy winner receives a smaller trophy to keep when they return their trophy after a year. The Group also runs fundraiser social events and a Halloween party during the year.  Community events such as this go a great way to enhancing community wellbeing, community spirit and social cohesion.

The laptop enabled the committee to increase the Gala event’s presence on social media and helped them communicate with suppliers, parents and vendors.  The vibrancy of the group’s Facebook page highlights the efforts made to involve and excite residents.  

The front cover of the Gala Day Programme is always a winning design given the annual competition to design this. A local primary school pupil designed the 2024 Programme cover (pictured above).

The award in 2024 also meant that the team of committed volunteers could deliver a free gala day programme to every household in Harthill, Eastfield and Greenrigg.  This covered approximately 1,800 households and was well-received by the community.  

A member of the Gala Day Committee said:   

“Delivering a brilliant gala day for our community is our main priority. With the funding we received, we were able to have a positive impact on families, organisations and businesses in Harthill, Eastfield and Greenrigg in 2024. Without this funding we could not have provided 1800 free programmes to residents or paid for a better quality stage and sound system to be hired. The laptop has allowed us to create content to engage the community on our social media pages too. ” 

The 2024 event included significant improvements on previous years, with a substantially improved stage, complete with PA system, adequate speakers and a technician on the day.  

Further feedback from the committee acknowledged this:

“The impact of this change has been incredible, the quality of the sound and the look of the stage was brilliant.  All of the ‘court’ could be seen in their finery on stage, and we were able to use the stage throughout the afternoon, owing to the planned musical entertainment”

One individual who was positively impacted by the project was a young person who is a keen musician.  The Gala Committee invited him to play on stage as part of the musical entertainment and he borrowed a guitar to play.  He thrived on stage, benefitting from the stage set-up, the support of the technician and other musicians and encouraged by the community audience.  

“This experience for him could be life-changing, and we know that it encouraged him and boosted his confidence”. 

The Group also now runs fundraiser social events and a Halloween party during other parts of the year.  Community events such as this go a great way to enhancing community wellbeing, community spirit and social cohesion.  

The grants awarded over the years have included contributions from each of the three wind farm community benefit funds which together form the Harthill, Eastfield and Greenrigg (HEG) Community Fund. Together, funding from the Torrance Wind Farm (owned by Gresham House), Harthill Wind Ltd (managed by Netro) and West Benhar Wind Farm (owned by EDF Power Solutions) has helped sustain and enhance an event vital to the area's social fabric.