Category: Community First

You are cordially invited to the next meeting of the Community First Brierley Hill panel which will commence at 7pm on Wednesday 15th January 2014  at St Michael’s Church, Brierley Hill. The panel aims to encourage participation from members of our community and all are welcome to attend its meetings.

The agenda will be:

1) Apologies

2) Minutes of previous meeting

3) Matters Arising

a) On 27th November 2013 an application for a grant towards a Christmas Party was received from Nine Locks Community Association. Unfortunately funding had already been agreed for this group earlier this year and so the Association were informed via email that their application was not valid.

b) CDF raised a question about The What? Centre application as it was unclear exactly what the funding was being used for. After consulting What? this question has (to the best of my knowledge) now been resolved.

c) A thank you email has been received from Age Concerm following their successful Christmas event.

4) Grants report

It should be noted from the grant report that £43,159.50 has been recommended by the panel to date.

In addition to this £750 should now be included for What? and £325 of expenses has been claimed by the panel. This makes a total of £44,234.50. £45192 is available for the panel to the 31st March 2014. Therefore £957.50 remains to be allocated.

5) Brierley Hill Christmas Festival

In March 2013 it was agreed to allocated £2,500 to the Brierley Hill Christmas festival. The event was very successful, however the total expenditure came to just circa £1,000. On 9th January 2014 CDF were contacted asking whether it would be possible to vire the surplus funding to other activities rather than lose the grant. Alex from CDF indicated that the panel should be able to do this and asked that CDF be included in any email correspondence regarding this. The panel needs to discuss what it wishes to do on this matter.

6) Grant applications

Nine Locks Senior Citizens Social Group

7) Any Other Urgent Business

8) Dates of future meetings

a) Tuesday 18th March

Access to the agenda papers can be achieved by clicking on the links above.

Alternatively a combined set of papers can be downloaded by clicking here.

Key documents

Terms of reference

Community First Plan

Notes of the meeting of Community First, Brierley Hill, held on 19^th November 2013 at St Michael’s Church, Bell Street South, commencing at 7pm.

Present

Panel Members

Rachel Harris, David Hoskin, Graham Hudson, Tom McCormack, Peter Plant, John Rogers, Tim Sunter

Others

Graham Abbott, Charlotte Dean, Geoff French, Ray Gibbs, Andrew Rigby, Carol Wootton

Apologies

June Bowen, Chris Szygowski

Note of the previous meeting

The notes of the previous meeting were agreed as a correct record.

Matters Arising

a)  Participatory budgeting – following the last meeting an email newsletter was sent to over 100 email contacts informing them of the Big Brierley Hill Give Away, informing them how to apply and asking them to circulate information. A news release was issued to local media outlets. Information was disseminated via social media. An advice surgery was held on 22nd October at Brierley Hill library. In spite of this only four applications had been received.  On review of the applications it was noted that there were issues with each one.  Panel members were informed of this via email with the applications attached (11th November 2013.  Four panel members indicated that they felt that in view of the issues with the applications this meeting should be held as a normal panel meeting.  The applicants had been informed accordingly.

b) Emails were sent to the AW Surgeries Patients Panel, Brierley Hill Community Radio, Dudley Federation of Tenants and Residents and Tiny Tots following the last meeting informing them of the panels considerations.  Following this Brierley Hill Community Radio have submitted a further application.  No response has been received from the other applications.

Grants to date

£39,609.50 has been recommended by the panel to date.  £4,000 has been earmarked for the participatory budgeting process.  £325 has been allocated for panel expenses.  £45192 is available for the panel to the 31st March 2014.

Therefore the amounts available to recommend for funding is £4,000 from the participatory budgeting budget and £1257.50 from the remainder of the allocation.

Grants for consideration

TS ran through each of the grant applications received under the participatory budgeting process, highlighting the issues on each of them:  Age Concern appeared to be for a borough wide scheme and the panel had previously declined to support this on the grounds that it wished to focus the CF funding on schemes specifically of benefit to Brierley Hill residents; Similarly L4L was a scheme based just outside of Brierley Hill ward and it was not clear how many local residents would benefit; 3Cs had not submitted their request on an application form (although they had now done so); Radio Brierley Hill had submitted a request for £2,500 which exceeded the £1000 cap put upon applications under the participatory budgeting process.

A resubmission of Tiny Tots grant had been received in addition to the above.

CW indicated to the panel that The What Centre had submitted an application for funding.  TS indicated that he had not received this.  The panel agreed to consider the application in any case.

Recommendations for grants

The panel decided to deal with these in two parts – firstly by considering which of the grants it would like to support, then reviewing these in light of the funds available to 31^st March.

Age Concern: CD spoke to her application.  Since submitting the request for support the focus of the project had now changed, and predominantly those invited to the Christmas event would come from the Brierley Hill area.  After receiving these reassurances the panel indicated that it wished to recommend the £750 requested.

Brierley Hill Community Radio:  AR updated the meeting with good news.  BHRC had received some other contributions, such as decks and had been invited to use Insight House as a venue for the project.  In view of this the project needed funding for the two performing rights licences required – a total of £850.  The panel indicated that it wished to recommend this amount.

L4L:  GF indicated that he was unsure what proportion of its members would come from the Brierley Hill ward and that he would go away and investigate this.  In view of this, and that the project would not take place until 2014, it was agreed that the application would be resubmitted when all of the information was known.  This would also enable the funding to be met from next year’s tranche.

3Cs:  DH declared an interest in this project.  TS indicated that since the papers for the meeting had gone out an application form had been received from 3Cs showing an extra £100 cash donation.  However, the application was for £1200 whilst the breakdown of expenditure only amounted to £1030.  The panel wished to recommend  the application and agreed to do so subject to TS talking to 3Cs and agreeing what amount should be submitted.

Tiny Tots: TM declared an interest in this project. The panel considered the resubmission of the application which was for a smaller amount (£820) than had previously been requested.  It was agreed to recommend this project for funding.

The What Centre:  CW took the panel through its application to support young people not in education, employment or training into work, by offering one to one help.  It was proposed to run advice sessions in Brierley Hill – possibly in the library.  The application was for £750.  The panel indicated that it wished to recommend this project for funding.

Having run through all the applications the panel noted that that the total of all the schemes it wished to recommend  was £4370.  Since this was less than the total amount available for the year to 31^st March 2014 it was agreed to recommend all of the application.

Any Other Urgent Business

JR indicated that this would be the last meeting of the panel he would be able to attend as he would be moving to new employment in the Leeds area.  He therefore stood down as a member of the panel.  The meeting thanked JR for his work and gave its best wishes to him for his new job.

Date of Future Meetings

Wednesday 15^th January 2014

Tuesday 18^th March 2014

Age UK Dudley has been recommended for a £750 Community First grant after expressing concerns about older people in Brierley Hill, feeling lonely and missing family and loved ones who have passed away, during the Christmas period.

The grant will help to contribute towards organising a Christmas Party.  In applying for the funding Project Coordinator Charlotte Dean said:

We will provide a Christmas lunch outing consisting of a hot 3-course meal with hot & cold drinks for all. There will be live professional entertainment, Chris King a swing act and Christmas music being sung during the meal by Ray Current who is the Age UK Dudley Drama and Choir Volunteer tutor. We will be honoured to have the local Reverend with us at the lunch that will be performing small service.

During the afternoon we hope to put on a seasonal quiz and games for the clients to participate in during the afternoon.

A wonderful team of staff and volunteers will be helping prior and during the lunch by preparing quizzes, transport arrangements, detail arrangements with the venue, shopping for gifts and during the day helping by creating a festive atmosphere and looking after the clients with any needs they may have .Transport will be arranged for home pick-up and return and the party will be a local venue with excellent facilities to accommodate mobility restrictions. We would hope to get as many people involved making it a wonderful experience for the clients we have at Age UK Dudley.

Those attending would be clients from a variety of activities such as exercise, crafts or social groups, and this would present a lovely opportunity for them to socialise with people from other activities. The party would also introduce them to other activities and services that are available in the area a table will be supplied with useful information and other events taking place at the venue and in the local area.

 

[button link=”https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=23784F541A000AD%211197″]For application and contact details click here[/button]

 

 

Stourbridge’s prestigious What? Centre has been recommended for a £750 Community First grand to extend its work with unemployed young people to Brierley Hill. The grant will contribute towards the cost of running one on one counselling session from Brierley Hill library.

In the Centre’s application company secretary Carol Wootton said :

We are currently funded by a Lottery grant which provides therapeutic counselling and advice sessions for young people aged 13-25 yrs. One of the outcomes of this grant is that 100 young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) will have improved awareness of self-development and employability, and we are well on the way to achieving this target. To reach this, we have been staging one-to-one sessions with young people to develop their employability skills together with interview techniques, helping them to construct their CVs and to perform job and training opportunity searches. The intensive support given has proved extremely successful, particularly with the most vulnerable individuals.

Our aim now is to offer a high-quality, highly supportive outreach service for the provision of employability skills in the Brierley Hill area.

We have set up a pilot project at Brierley Hill library. This venue was chosen as it is highly accessible to the young people of the area.

 

[button link=”https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=23784F541A000AD%211221″]For application and contact details click here[/button]

Plans for a new, internet based Community Radio station in Brierley Hill are on track following the recommendation of a £850 grant from the town’s Community First panel.

Lead by local resident and volunteer Andrew Rigby, the radio station  is trying to identify premises in Brierley Hill.  Following donations of equipment and other help the Community First grant will enable the group to buy the public broadcasting licences it will require.

Andrew said:

Owned and operated by local people from the Brierley hill area, volunteer roles at BHCR provide students and trainees with a chance to learn professional-level skills in all areas of media production. They can learn to make documentaries or mix live music. They can find out how the record industry works with radio stations and can develop interview skills, design their own cd cover, learn how the process of uploading their music online with mp3 tabs and covers included.

Learning these things as a volunteer also allows volunteers to develop the best skill of all: their own sense of inner motivation, discipline and confidence in a working environment.

 

[button link=”https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=23784F541A000AD%211198″]For application and contact details click here[/button]

 

 

 

The Tiny Tots parent/carer ant baby/toddler group which meets at Albion Street Church, Brierley Hill has been recommended by Brierley Hill’s Community First panel for a grant of £820 towards its activities.

Free of charge for the past 4 years during term time, the group has successfully provided a safe, enriching environment for young children and their care givers. Positive relationships have been formed within the community and attendance has grown with consistent members and newcomers joining regularly. The grant will help to enhance the provision, structured sessions of music time were offered weekly last term which had a very positive impact on the children and the numbers of people attending.

[button link=”https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=23784F541A000AD%211215″]Click her to review application and for contact details[/button]

 

 

 

The 3Cs – Cake Cuppa and Chat group, offering support and counselling to people who have suffered bereavement has been recommended for a £1,130 grant by the Brierley Hill Community First Panel.

3Cs aim is to enable those people who have suffered ‘bereavement’ and the loneliness, social and other changes that occur as a result of that ‘bereavement’, (death but also including when a partner has to become resident in a care home or has dementia) to meet with people in similar situations for fellowship, discussion and help to move on in their lives.

People have the opportunity to meet weekly for refreshments and continue to develop the group as the situation dictates and those attending would like e.g go out to lunch, or on an outing; craft or games sessions. There is also be the opportunity for quiet Spiritual reflection and counselling.

The group meets weekly at St Paul’s Neighbourhood Learning Centre, Hawbush Road, Brierley Hill.

[button link=”https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=23784F541A000AD%211218″]For details of 3Cs application, including contact click here[/button]