Tag Archives: community engagement

What’s happening with £eith Chooses projects?

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The £eith Chooses team is of course very aware that normal service delivery and activities have been massively disrupted, for everybody. We have contacted all the community groups that won £eith Chooses grant funding awards in February 2020, to say that we would like to help in whatever way we can.

We understand that some organisations may not be able to deliver their project exactly when and how they had planned to, and that some really creative conversations will take place about possible /necessary adaptations.

We have allocated a named volunteer from the £eith Chooses Steering Group to link supportively with each project group, to join conversations about the direction groups feel they can safely take with their project, to reach the most vulnerable members of our community..
We are hoping that all groups can agree a plan before / by 28 June about how they will be able to use the funding within the spirit of the original agreement.
For example, project groups may aim to –

  • Stick pretty much to the original idea but tweak the delivery methods e.g. food going out to people rather than people coming to gatherings for food.
  • Deliver the original project idea but with a later start date (probably affecting the finish date).
  • Re-prioritise / redesign their original plan and suggest a new project idea that combats social isolation or food poverty right now, in this Covid-19 crisis.

Hopefully groups will not feel that their project cannot be rescheduled or tweaked or revamped in some way and want to return the funding.

Meanwhile, thanks and best wishes  to all groups for everything they are doing in Leith

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Thank you, Leith!

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A huge ‘thank yu’ to everyone who contributed to making £eith Chooses Voting event such a great day, on Saturday. Organisers, project applicants and teams, volunteers, and of course, voters! It all came together in a lovely, buzzy community day when we could find out about all the fantastic charities and groups that work in Leith, for the benefit of our local community.
So the voted are all cast, and are now being counted. The results will be announced on Tuesday 18th February (after half-term, to make sure nobody misses it!).

Would you like to volunteer at £eith Chooses Voting Day?

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Please get in touch if you are interested in helping out at the Voting Day – it is great fun!

Email: caroline.lamond@edinburgh.gov.uk

Short briefing sessions for volunteers at the £eith Chooses Voting Day will be held at 6pm on Tuesday 28  and  Thursday 30 in Leith Community Centre cafe (come to one or the other, not both)

Or ask for written briefing paper.

Volunteers should come along on Voting Day between 9:30 and 10 am

PS You can volunteer AND vote!

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£eithChooses is coming up!

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Make sure YOU take part in £eith Chooses 2020! Hear about it here from past recipients of funding.

Get your applications in NOW (by 6th January) and come along and vote (1st February).

Feedback Night! Tuesday 12 March, 6:30pm. Come along – Debrief, Discuss, Evaluate, Share ideas…

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£eith Chooses is holding an open discussion session to review and evaluate all aspects of the 2019 £eith Chooses process, and to share ideas for future events. Please do come along if you can – 6:30pm, Leith Community Centre cafe, Tuesday 12 March. All Leithers welcome.

2019 Results are out!

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All the votes have been counted and we can now reveal that the following projects successfully won a funding award in £eith Chooses 2019, having received the highest number of votes from members of the Leith community, at the Voting Event on 23rd February:

FOOD Projects £12,000
– Hermitage Park Primary School: Feeding Healthy Hermie futures £3,400
– YMCA: Breaking down barriers with food  £5,000
– Broughton Primary PC & Partners:Growing food (partial funding) tbc

SUPPORTING VULNERABLE PEOPLE Projects £32,000
– Sikh Sanjog: for Girls and Young Women  £3,000
– Dr. Bells Family Centre: Holiday Activities £4,400
– Creative Electric: Equality and Accessibility £5,000
– Multicultural Family Base: Summer Support £5,000
– Socks for the Street: Leith Cares packs £4,000
– Pilmeny Development Project: Older Peoples services £5,000
– Citadel Youth Centre: Back to the Future, old & young together £4,960
– The Junction: Self-care kits & support (partial funding) tbc

These awards add up to a total of £44,624 that will go to the community in Leith in many and varied ways, through the energy, work and commitment of all the great project teams listed above.

Sadly, projects and groups whose names do not appear above did not win funding on this occasion. This is not a reflection on the quality of their projects, which were all excellent, but of the sad fact that there is never enough money to go round….  The £eith Chooses team feels just as distressed about this as the project groups must be.

Any project applicants who wish private feedback on their application, or on the exact number of votes received, and where their vote totals rank alongside those of other projects, are most welcome to email in for this information, or to request a private discussion. Email: caroline.lamond@edinburgh.gov.uk

There will be an open Discussion session next Tuesday, 12 March at 6:30pm in the Community Centre cafe, to review and evaluate all aspects of the 2019 £eith Chooses process. All welcome, and all views and contributions will be listened to and taken on board for future events. Do come!

 

Results Night! 6th March 6:30pm

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Please come along to the Leith Community Centre 6:30 pm, Wednesday 6th March, to learn  the results of last week’s voting event, and which projects will receive funding this year.

    

 

£eith Chooses 2019 is a Record Breaker!

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What a day! And Well done, Leith! A record-breaking 1,267 people (not including volunteers and some project applicants, so probably c100 more) came along on Saturday, showing a commitment in our wonderful community, and supporting all the brilliant community groups putting forward their project ideas for making Leith even better!

The sun shone, and the people came! We served delicious food from local suppliers, and many people stayed around to network and chat, after voting. It’s everything you’d hope for and expect in lovely Leith. We know that the project groups are all winners in their own ways, in who they are and what they do. The only sadness is that there is not enough money to fund all of them.

The ‘themes’ for this year’s £eith Chooses were tight, so that the only projects eligible for funding were ones that met the criteria of addressing inequalities and aiming to benefit disadvantaged people. Local community groups rose to the challenge and all put forward imaginative, creative ideas! There was also a requirement to actively include members of ethnic minority communities in project designs, and groups did this too!

This year we introduced the new idea of a ‘Boost Vote’ for a few projects that  go ‘over and above’ in involving and benefiting minority ethnic communities, as some of these groups have been ‘left behind’ in previous years, due to ‘minority’ status and the fact that Participatory Budgeting is essentially a ‘first past the post’ model. We’ll have to wait for the count, to see the results of this innovation….  But it was heartwarming to see how generously the people of Leith accepted/welcomed this experiment, to make sure our community is ‘fair’ to all.

Projects Revealed!

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Wow! There are 30 applicants to £eith Chooses – 8 for the ‘Food’ theme, and 22 for the ‘Supporting Vulnerable People’ theme. Lots of really great project ideas! View them all here in the ‘£eith Chooses Gallery’.

Checking out the projects online gives you a bit of background to each project, and a chance to reflect, before you come to the Community Centre on 23rd February, to vote. Please take a look and think about questions you might like to discuss with project groups, when you come, and which you might vote for.

The Gallery is just for ‘viewing’. There is no online voting this year.

When you come to vote on 23rd February, you will get up to 3 votes in each room (Food, and Vulnerable People). 2 votes for your 2 favourite projects, and 1 Boost Vote (optional) for your favourite from certain projects which go ‘above and beyond’ in involving members of ethnic minority communities. More voting information.

The following 8 (out of 30) project groups qualify for Boost Votes, according to the criteria laid down by the £eith Chooses Steering Group:

  • Broughton Primary School Parent Council, Saheliya & partners
  • Building Bridges
  • Creative Electric
  • Dr. Bells Family Centre
  • Hermitage Park Primary School Association
  • Multi Cultural Family Base
  • Sikh Sanjog
  • YMCA