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What is £eith Chooses up to now?

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The past month has been a busy one for paperwork and finances as the community groups that won funding in the recent £eith Chooses voting liaise with the Council staff arranging payment of the funds so that these arrive into their bank account before the end of the financial year. Hopefully all done now!

 

So what happens next?

  1. The groups that won funding will shortly get started on their new projects, hurrah!
  2. £eith Chooses Steering Group and Council staff partners meanwhile take a step back and check that the groups that were funded LAST YEAR have complied with regulations and have submitted a report on the completion of the project they were funded to deliver by 31 March 2024. We do not require long complicated reports but do require evidence of spending and basic info about what took place, how it all went, who benefitted etc. We do like to see photos, too! This is a really important step, because if a group does not submit a report on a past project, they are not eligible to apply again in future for funding for another project.
  3. £eith Chooses web site and social media will be used to publicly share some of this information as feedback, so that Leithers can all see what happened following their vote back in 2023, and what benefits were brought to the community in Leith. This is a good way to remind everyone about the great work that so many charities and local groups are carrying out al the time on behalf of the community in Leith.
  4. The £eith Chooses Steering Group carries out a review and evaluation of the recent £eith Chooses event, with the aim of maintaining standards and ideally improving the process for future years. If anyone wants to share their views on how things could be improved, please submit by email to: leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk
  5. The £eith Chooses Steering Group considers what ‘theme’ next year’s £eith Chooses might focus on. Any ideas? Email to: leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk

Happy Christmas – and vote in January!

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The £eith Chooses team wishes everyone in Leith a peaceful and happy Christmas, and sends warmest wishes to all for a good New Year!

When the New Year comes along, remember that it’s time to VOTE for your favourite local Leith community projects. You will have 2 chances to vote –

  1. Online voting will open on Monday 22nd January 2024 and will be open for two weeks until 5 February 2024
  2. In-person voting will be held in the Leith Community Centre on Saturday 27th January 2024.

You can vote once online and once in person. Please do try and come to the Voting Day in person, it is always a very lively day, fun for kids and a great chance to meet people and hear more about all the great organisations and groups that work to make Leith the fantastic community it is. Get the date in your diary now!

£eith Chooses Votes are in

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Voting has closed on £eith Chooses 2022 and the votes are being counted and checked as we speak. Many thanks to all who participated.

The results will be announced on Tuesday15th February 2022, at 6:30pm online, via a Teams meeting. We will learn then which of the projects applying for funding were successful, on the basis of the number of votes they received.

This is a public meeting, open to all. Invitations have gone out by email to all the groups that applied for funding, but if you have not yet received a personal invitation by email and would like to attend, please request the link from caroline.lamond@edinbugh.gov.uk

Following that meeting, of course, the results will be posted here and shared via social media.

Applicants who have been awarded funding will receive an email from the Council with instructions about how to claim the funds.

Applicants who have not been awarded funding this time round will be urged not to feel too despondent and not to give up. Sometimes ‘appearing ‘ as part of £eith Chooses is a useful step to getting your group better known in the community and therefore likely to attract more support in the future. We will also provide links to any other sources of possible funding that we come across, to try and help groups with fund-raising.

 

 

£eith Chooses: voting coming soon!

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”So what’s happening with £eith Chooses?” you may be asking. Well, 20 interesting and worthwhile community projects have been put forward, and the Leith Chooses Christmas elves have been busily working away in the background to get all the information up on the website for you to look through and think about, before you vote. This will go live for your delectation on Monday 10th January, so please come back here and check in then! Online voting will then open on Monday 24 January.

Applying to £eith Chooses? Come to our Q & A session, 2nd November

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Talk to us! Time is running on – don’t leave everything to the last minute! Applications must be in by 30th November.

There will be another online (Zoom) general Q & A session about applying to £eith Chooses this coming Tuesday 2 November 2021, at 6:30pm. Register to attend via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/186887945877 This is a good chance for an informal chat about a possible application, and to clarify any queries you may have. Do join the call, you will be very welcome!

As well as – or instead of – this Q& A session, Information and support (private discussions) for applicants will be also available at any time / on an ongoing basis, as requested,
Contact: caroline.lamond@edinburgh,gov.uk

Applications are OPEN NOW for  £eith Chooses 2021-2022. Community Groups can apply for up to £5,000 for a 12 month project that will benefit members of the community in Leith. There is now even more money available – £56,102 – so at least 11 groups can be fully funded – and perhaps more, partially funded.

(That’s made up of £46,102 from City of Edinburgh Community Grants Fund, supplemented by a further £5,000 donation from Port of Leith Housing Association, and another £5,000 from Trams to Newhaven)

This year’s theme is one that everyone can find a point of contact with:

Reconnecting in Leith:
Nourishment, Creativity, Sustainability

If you are a constituted community group with your own bank account, and are thinking of a project that would benefit the community in Leith, please download and fill in an Application Form, and Guidance Notes, from the links below.

format Application form Guidance notes
DOC (older versions of Word) Application form Guidance notes
DOCX (newer versions of Word) Application form Guidance notes
PDF Application form Guidance notes

 

How to get people to vote for your project? Social Media can help!

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Port of Leith Housing has partnered with £eith Chooses and produced a useful little information ‘pack’ that aims to help you use social media to get votes for your project. Please feel free to download it here, to use and / or pass on to colleagues.

£eith Chooses 2021-2022 has a total of £56,106 to be allocated, on the basis of a public vote, to the projects / organisations to benefit the community in Leith. In a way, project groups are ‘competing’ with each other for votes. How can you make YOUR project stand out, and attract votes?

The £eith Chooses process goes like this:

  1. Group submits an application form, for a new project (up to £5,000) – by 30 November 2021
  2. All the projects are ‘showcased’ in a £eith Chooses online ‘gallery’ – throughout January 2022
  3. The community in Leith votes online  – 24-30 January 2022. Anyone who lives, works, studies or volunteers in Leith is eligible to vote. Each person casts 3 votes plus a fourth ‘Boost Vote’
  4. The projects that receive the most votes from the community are awarded funds.

But in between 1 and 3 above, as well as £eith Chooses publicising your project, all organisations and groups submitting project proposals can of course – and should –  ‘advertise’ their own project as much as possible This is to make sure that everyone is aware of the project and what benefits it aims to deliver in Leith, and hopefully serves to persuade as many people as possible to vote for their project.

Many thanks to Eve for creating this guide – and thanks to Port of Leith Housing who are  kindly contributing £5,000 to the £eith Chooses ’pot’ of money for projects – which will help groups to get to grips with social media. This pack could make all the difference in encouraging people to vote for your project!

Good Luck everybody!

 

8 sleeps to go until £eith Chooses Voting opens…

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Two members of the £eith Chooses Steering Group, Sally Millar and Don Giles, meet on Zoom and reflect briefly on PB in Leith (only 2 minutes  – though David Tennant and Martin Sheen it ain’t…)

Check out here the projects you’ll soon be able to vote for: https://www.leithchooses.net/projects

Voting will run from 25th January until the end of 31st January 2021

Gallery of exciting projects coming soon!

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Applications to £eith Chooses 2020/21 are now closed – thank you to all who submitted. We are currently validating the applications. Once this process is complete, soon after Christmas, you will be able to see a ‘gallery’ on this website of all the projects that are seeking funding, and you can start thinking about who you want to vote for (you can only vote once, but you get 4 votes).

If you are an applicant, it is your job to alert all your members and followers to your application, and make sure they know how, and when, to vote for your project.

Voting week will open on 25th January 2021 – we will give you plenty of reminders and information about how to vote.