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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Saturday 1st February is the Voting Day for £eith Chooses. Please come along and support the community projects that you feel will best help to fight hunger and/or loneliness in Leith. 
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).
£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.
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!
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.
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.
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:
Before the 23rd February –
Email Caroline.Lamond@edinburgh.gov.uk for either / both of the above
On the Day –
We suggest that you come early, if you can – doors open at 12 – don’t leave it to the last minute, because –
This short video explains a bit more about how voting will work at this year’s £eith Chooses, and about the new ‘booster vote’.
In the past, small and new, or not widely known groups have very often missed out, at £eith Decides / £eith Chooses. In particular, sadly, this has affected groups whose projects mainly involve ethnic minorities. The key is in the word ‘minority’ – such groups just don’t manage to get the vote numbers. It’s not just a problem in Leith, it’s a weakness of Participatory Budgeting in general. This year, any group that has made special efforts to engage with minority ethnic communities (including language minorities) – as applicants, partners, project workers, participants, beneficiaries etc.could qualify for a ‘booster vote’.
Contact the £eith Chooses team, to find out if / how your project might qualify.
Email – Caroline.Lamond@edinburgh.gov.uk
