Name: Gillian Gilchrist

Proposed development: A befriending service for the town

Start-up funding received: £1464

Project start date: October 2014

Sustainability measures: The business will be charging for its services by the hour.

Gillian on background to her idea: With Heartland Befriending I seek to find ways to keep people connected right across the spectrum of the community, helping to establish and maintain people in strong social relationships and encouraging them to stay connected to their community. At its heart is the passion to keep those later on in life living life to the full. Opportunities will become available for a pool of befrienders providing each other with backup and support. Discussions are currently ongoing with suitably experienced people to put this in place.

Gillian’s reflections on the process: I am delighted with the way that Heartland Befriending has developed in the last six months. During this time, alongside my befriending plan, I have mostly been concentrating on establishing new relationships and connections within the community. Some examples of what that actually means: supporting a local volunteer who is befriending an isolated couple; I’ve also been building links into some of the local groups like Aldour and the Atholl Centre, and trying to establish relationships with the Tryst. I’ve been befriending some of the residents at one of the sheltered housing venues, and networking and building strong relationships with Pitlochry’s best community asset, which is its people. I said in my application to the fund that at its heart Heartland Befriending’s passion is to keep those later on in life living life to the full. That is still my primary objective.

Enablers were the support and the availability of expertise because you don’t know what is out there until you start asking. Also just meeting up with other people, and supporting them, that’s really great. Barriers were time…fitting it all in! Being patient with the process because these things take time. So maybe time is a barrier but it is also an enabler because you need to give these things time.

(Image by First Taste Charity, from Flickr)