Fifty Sid Valley groups benefit from Sid Vale Association bequest

THE first community project to receive a Keith Owen Fund award was an AONB bat survey, which received �1,500 in 2008.

Sidmouth Cricket Club received �10,000 towards re-thatching its cricket pavilion, while a similar sum went to Norman Lockyer Observatory for its new dome.

Grants for the summer Hopper bus, the Seaworld floral display at the Three-Cornered Plot, repair of Deepway Meadow Pond, Sidbury, and a new standard and pole for Sidmouth Army Cadet Force, have been made.

Sidmouth Gig Club had �15,000 of match funding through the KOF.

The smallest grant, of �70.50, went to Sidmouth in Bloom for 1,000 daffodil bulbs, and the largest, �17,900 over three years, goes to the AONB Peter Orlando Hutchinson Project.

Most recent awards to be agreed include �400 to buy a piano keyboard for Sidford WI, �3,000 each for training dinghies for Sidmouth Sailing Club and for the floodlighting project for Sidmouth Tennis Club, and �225 for decoration of the children’s Ham Mural.

“One of the purposes of the open event is that Keith Owen promised money for the whole of the community,” said committee member John Townsend. “This might be the trigger some need to think big, to think outside the box.”