Minutes if the meeting of Community First Brierley Hill held at St Michael’s Church, Brierley Hill on 16th September 2014 commencing at 7.00 pm.
Present
June Bowen, Rachel Harris, David Hoskin, Tom McCormack, Peter Plant, Tim Sunter
Apologies
Graham Hudson
Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes of the previous meeting had been circulated and were agreed as a true record.
Matters arising
- All necessary email consents had been received following the meeting from those who had not been present, and the grant recommendations had been processed accordingly.
- There had appeared to be a slowing done of the processing of applications by CDF, possibly because of staff turn over.
- CDF had queried the Brierley Hill Project on how the volunteer hours for matched funding were related to the capital works proposed.
Applications for funding
- SBCBCP had requested £900. The panel considered the request. In line with precedents it noted that this application was likely to fund activities across the borough and there was not enough evidence of a Brierley Hill focus. It therefore decided not to recommend the request.
- Homework Club, based in Albion Street requested £1339 to enable support for local children with their homework. The panel discussed how ‘local’ the children would be and whether it was possible to extend the scheme to other areas. TM, who had declared an interest in this application, explained that there was a limit on the number of children who could be supported before the impact was diluted. Children from all sections of the local community were welcome to participate. The panel felt this was a good scheme which met the criteria for funding and recommended the full amount.
- Little Suckers – a breast feeding support group had requested £2000 for a twelve month project. It was explained that this was a locally based group which had previously worked in Brierley Hill and that it’s ‘clients’ would also come from the area. RH spoke strongly about the health benefits of breast feeding and informed the meeting that Brierley Hill was one of the areas of particular need in this respect. However, it was noted that the panel was only able to recommend funding to the end of February. It was agreed to recommend £833.33 as this would cover this period.
- Oakfield Community Centre were requesting £2372 towards capital improvements to enable more usage of the building. The panel considered that this was a good scheme and recommended that it be funded subject to a check on the calculation of match funding.
- Brierley Hill in Bloom requested £2500 to extend the scheme further through the town centre. The panel noted the positive impact the scheme had had to date. However, to fund this application in full would exceed the total of funds available. In view of the fact that this project had received funding last year it was decided to recommend £2273.11 for funding. TS and RH declared an interest in this request.
Any Other Business
It was noted that all of the funds available to Community First Brierley Hill had now been allocated. It was therefore unlikely that another meeting of the panel would be needed. It was agreed should anything now need to be agreed, as far as possible, this should be done via email.
TS thanked the panel for all of their efforts.
