The evolution of your community-led events guide, What’s On Dunoon, took time, testing and tremendous volunteer power!
What’s On Dunoon is a thriving events guide with a website at its core and an accompanying weekly e-newsletter and local newspaper column with a social media and high street presence and, most recently, a new home at Castle Gatehouse. Find out how your favourite Dunoon events guide evolved and where it could go next – with your help!
On a mild October Saturday at the Dunoon Bothy Open Day, local people gathered on the freshly quarry-tiled floor of the historic Castle Gatehouse to chat with our What’s On Dunoon volunteers. It was a momentous day for the community project, which has evolved over the last few years. Alongside Dunoon Bothy, the recently renovated Gatehouse is the new home for What’s On Dunoon’s growing cohort of dedicated volunteers.
If you want to learn how to upload your events to the website or search for events, the volunteers are there to help you make the most of this community-led resource.
“We love chatting with people about What’s On Dunoon face-to-face,” says Ann Campbell of Dunoon Community Development Trust. “We’ve had fantastic support and feedback from local people through the various phases of the project. Moving to the Castle Gatehouse is a huge milestone for everyone involved in What’s On Dunoon.”
As What’s On Dunoon moves into its next phase, it’s worth reminding ourselves and everyone involved how far this project has come. A community resource like What’s On Dunoon doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to find funding, test out approaches, gather local input and capitalise on developments in technology.
“It’s rare for a community project to arrive fully formed. There is usually a long and winding road leading back to the original seed of the idea,” says Ann Campbell. “What’s On Dunoon is a perfect example of this.”
What began as an email update aimed at ‘information sharing’ among community projects, has evolved into a thriving local events website visited by 8,000 visitors in the last 12 months alone. The feedback and figures are promising. It is a young website and it’s reaffirming to see user and visitor numbers growing steadily. Alongside the website is the popular weekly email newsletter, with over 700 subscribers, as well as regular posts on social media.
“'If anyone ever says that there’s nothing to do, I recommend they visit What’s On Dunoon,” says one of our newsletter subscribers.
To reach people who may not use social media, there is a weekly column sponsored by What’s On Dunoon in the Dunoon Observer. There is an increasing presence around town, including promotion at community events and posters in local spots. On the high street, there are posters in places like Allsortz, Bookpoint and Dunoon Burgh Hall. Hotels and B&Bs also find it a valuable tool for the town. The Argyll Hotel and Coorie Braw have leaflets and recommend What’s On Dunoon to their guests.
Highlight: A growing resource
Over 1,800 events listed over the last 12 months.
8,000 visitors to the website in the last 12 months
120 users registered to upload events
165 venues listed across Dunoon and Cowal so far!
700 subscribers to our weekly What’s On Dunoon newsletter
*Figures from October 2024
How did we get here?
Working with local design agency Tacit Tacit, and thanks to a small grant from Scotland’s Towns Partnership Scotland Loves Local fund, the pilot website launched in December 2022. This came about after many years, with community volunteers trying out different methods to share a calendar or updates on activities happening in Dunoon.
One of the big driving forces behind this new website was to help those who are planning events or activities with promotion. A central resource can bring together groups or event organisers who are planning complementary activities. It can also help community groups to avoid clashes in programming if they know what else is going on.
Through our Volunteering for Wellbeing project, with funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, we’ve gathered more volunteers for What’s On Dunoon. A growing team is enabling us to build momentum by adding more content, including details about local venues, to the platform.
Now you can not only search events by date or type, but you can search by venue too. With a variety of churches and village halls, bowling clubs and gardens, meeting rooms and hotels, Dunoon is certainly not short of venues. This venue section allows event planners to see just how many different options there are for holding their activity.
Informed by feedback, we have more content that we’d like to add to the site, and we’ll need more volunteer support and funding to sustain these developments in the long term.
Why a website?
Digital Dunoon, a report by Scotland’s Towns Partnership in 2017, highlighted the importance of technology:
The platform can be used as a means of bolstering and strengthening the local community. Implementation of the project also needs to keep a digital focus, being mindful of using technology wherever possible e.g. the use of digital collaboration tools to aid communication, teamwork and project delivery.
Phases of Development for What’s On Dunoon
Phase 1: Trying things out (2018 to 2021)
Community projects e-newsletter: Dunoon Area Alliance (DAA) e-newsletter shares community information with a mailing list of workers and projects.
Community e-newsletter: Dunoon Community Development Trust (DCDT) expands the DAA e-newsletter to include community members and individuals.
Community and events e-newsletter: DCDT e-newsletter responds to requests to share local event details as well as community information.
Open for Business: An online business directory smartsheet featuring 200 businesses, created quickly during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Microbytes: A short project testing out peer-to-peer business support in partnership with Tacit Tacit design agency.
“'Thank you for your email. Always a font of knowledge and a very interesting read!” Feedback from one of our newsletter subscribers.
Phase 2: What’s On Dunoon website (2022 to 2023)
Pilot website: A Scotland’s Towns Partnership ‘Scotland Loves Local’ grant allows us to develop and pilot the first version of a community events website with the support of local design company Tacit Tacit. We also share posters around town and promote the new website at community events.
What’s On Dunoon volunteers: Our Volunteering for Wellbeing project, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, helps us to gather and support digital volunteers to add events to the website.
Phase 3: What’s On Dunoon expansion (2023 to 2025)
Expanded venue information added to What’s On Dunoon: The Scottish Government Investing in Communities Fund supported the expansion of the What’s On Dunoon website to include a section where we can list venue details and allow users to sign up.
What’s On Dunoon gets its own newsletter: A new e-newsletter template allows weekly What’s On Dunoon updates to be sent to more than 700 subscribers.
Weekly What’s On Dunoon newspaper column: We sponsor an events column in the Dunoon Observer each week to reach people who may not be active on social media.
New home for What’s On Dunoon: Castle Gatehouse becomes the base for What’s On Dunoon, giving new opportunities for developing volunteer involvement and information sharing.
Coming Soon: What’s In Dunoon directory: there are plans to add a directory of support services, community groups and organisations, giving the community a central place to discover who is doing what in and around Dunoon.
Where next?
We need your help
Putting your feedback into action, we have ambitions to evolve What’s On Dunoon even further. To do this, we need more volunteers, promotion and funding support. Can you help?
You can get involved in various ways:
Donate to support the continuation of the website. See the “Buy us a coffee” button at the bottom of the webpag.
Become a digital volunteer and help us grow the website’s useful community content: email barbara@dunooncdt.org
Become a Gatehouse volunteer at the home of What’s On Dunoon. Be on hand to help people with enquiries about where to find information about the community: email barbara@dunooncdt.org
Add your own events to What’s On Dunoon. Help us keep What’s On Dunoon going by learning how to add your own events. Our digital volunteers have lots of tasks to get on with as we expand our content. If event organisers can upload their own listings, that is a huge help! Register here or email ann@dunooncdt.org to arrange an introductory training session.
Promote What’s On Dunoon through your business or venue. Get in touch for a poster or leaflets and share a link to What’s On Dunoon through your website or emails: www.whatsondunoon.co.uk For a poster or leaflets, email hannah@dunooncdt.org
Sponsor a local business directory. Caterers, carpenters, cleaners; our community is asking for a business directory and we would love to find a local partner and sponsor to help make this happen. Email ann@dunooncdt.org