Category Archives: Leith Neighbourhood Network

£eith Chooses Vote on 18th January!

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Voting Day is on Saturday 18th January 2025. Do come along then to the Leith Community Centre in the Kirkgate, meet all the project applicants in person and learn about the projects, and then place your votes in the ballot box there and then.

It is a fun and sociable day. All welcome. Free refreshments are available. There is free face painting and a ‘smoothie bike’ for kids.

Come at 11am if you need / prefer a crowd-free ‘quiet’ voting experience. Otherwise, public voting opens at 12 midday (’til 3pm)

Online Voting
After the live voting day, there will be a further 2 weeks of online voting from 20th January – 3rd February. If you didn’t manage to get to the in-person day at the Community Centre, you can vote online. If you DID vote at the Comunity Centre, you can ALSO vote once online.

Please remind your friends, family and colleagues to vote, too. Everyone 8 years or older who lives, works, volunteers or attends school or college in Leith is eligible to vote.

Who to vote for?
You can find the list of 23 projects here, if you have time to browse through them and wise up before the voting day / period.

All Details must be received by 18th November

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Please would all applicants be sure to submit the final details that have been requested by the Council £eith Chooses team by 18th November at the latest, or their application may not be able to go forward. In many /most cases this is just a small matter of sending in quotes for planned costs over £300, and/or their organisation’s image  (for the online gallery of projects).

This will allow time for applicants to review the online gallery and accept or amend their project title before 1st December when the gallery describing all of the projects applying goes live for the public to view.

After that date, all organisations should start ‘canvassing’ for votes amongst their supporters and amongst the general public at large. Tell everybody about the project you hope to do, and keep reminding them to come along to the Voting Day and also to vote online, in January.

 

Deadline for Applications coming up……….

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Please get your application in NOW for £eith Chooses 2024-2025!
The deadline for applications is 10 October 2024.

 The theme this year is Leith Uniting.

Local charities and community groups* can apply for project funding of up to £5,000.
As usual, projects should be new or adding new value (not continued funding of an existing service) that will be of benefit to the community in Leith. Projects should be designed to start after 1 April 2025 and run until March 2026 at the latest.

Please do ask for help and support in putting together your application if you wish. Contact leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk Please submit your application as early as you can – or let us know that you are intending to apply – that then leaves time for any questions or adjustments that may be necessary, and avoids the stressful ‘last minute rush’!
*only organisations that have a Constitution and a bank account may apply

Please download an application form here, and be sure to also download and study the Guidance Notes, to help you ascertain if your project is eligible, and to guide you in putting together your application. Various formats are available:

format Application Form Guidance Notes
DOCX Application form (DOCX format) Gu
idance notes (DOCX format)
DOC Application form (DOC format) Guidance notes (DOC format)
PDF Application form (PDF format) Guidance notes (PDF format)

You can also pick up a paper form at Leith Library, McDonald Road Library, Leith Community Centre, Out of the Blue, or Duncan Place.

The vote will be in January 2025.

What stage is £eith Chooses at, now?

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Well! Tying up loose ends and ramping up for next year, in a nutshell.

Since April, all last year’s monies have been paid out to the groups that won funding in the January 2024 vote, so those groups are hopefully all already well launched with their proposed projects. These projects run between April 2024 and 31 March 2025.

The £eith Chooses Steering Group (SG) has been busy writing a report and carrying out an evaluation of the 2023-2024 project, and as soon as that is signed off by City of Edinburgh Council (soon!), that will be posted publicly for all to read.

The SG has also been planning the next ’round’ of projects and voting, for 2024-2025, and updating the paperwork in preparation.

The Theme (provisionally, for now) is LEITH UNITING

The timescales are as follows:
16 August 2024 – £eith Chooses open for new applications
10 October 2024 – applications must be completed and submitted
January 2025 – Voting (online and in-person – exact dates to be confirmed)
by 31 March 2025 – all funds will be disbursed to project groups

Another job is to collect in the project reports from the projects that were voted for in 2023 and which ran from April 2023 – March 2024. We do not ask for much, in the way of reporting, so hopefully it is not too cumbersome for groups. It is really important though; groups that do not submit a report are ineligible to apply for funding again the following year

Feedback please? Tuesday 5 March, 6:30, online

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Now that the voting results are in and the grants have been awarded to 13 local community groups, the next stages of £eith Chooses are:

1. Feedback – this is for everybody – successful and unsuccessful applicants, voters, volunteer helpers, and any/all Leithers. Please join the £eith Chooses team online for a ‘Feedback Forum’ on Tuesday 5th March at 6:30pm. This is a chance to air your views about any aspect of the £eith Chooses process, to ask questions and get answers, and to make suggestions about how the process could perhaps be improved infuture. Please do join the discussion. A Teams link will be posted shortly.
2. Paperwork – the groups awarded funding need to fill in the required paperwork, and the Council staff on the £eith Chooses team need to progress that paperwork through the Community Empowerment & Engagement Dept.and on to Finance, for payment. The sooner your completed paperwork goes in, the sooner you will get the money.

£eith Chooses Results 2023-2024!

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£eith Chooses 2023-2024 Results

In all, 23 projects applied to £eith Chooses this year, and the total amount of money requested amounted to £94,741. But as there was only £52,624 available, sadly not every group that applied could be successful in winning funding.

Based on the number of votes received from members of the Leith community, 12 projects will receive full funding and 1 project will receive partial funding. Congratulations to all!

Therefore, sadly, there are groups that were not successful this year. If your group’s name isn’t on this list below, it means your group has not been succesful in winning funding this year. Commiserations – this is of course very disappointing, but please don’t be too discouraged; your work, and your participation in £eith Chooses are really valued, and hopefully your time will come sometime soon.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone that took part!

This year, £eith Chooses will fund projects by the following community groups in Leith:

  • The Men of Leith Men’s Shed
  • Citadel Youth Centre
  • Edinburgh Remakery
  • Leith Festival
  • Edinburgh Tool Library
  • Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain
  • Hibernian Community Foundation
  • Dr Bells Family Centre
  • Leith Athletic
  • ELREC
  • Edinburgh Community Food
  • Himalayan Centre
    & (partial funding)
  • SHE Scotland

If you want to know more about what all these groups / projects are about, you can check them out at https://www.leithchooses.net/gallery-of-project-applications-2024

If any groups would like to talk further about their position, they should contact Jade Mooney directly by email at leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk

Thank you to everyone who came along to the Results ‘ceremony’ tonight, it is so lovely that so many people made the effort, and showed yet again what a great community Leith is.

Results to be announced Thursday 22th February! All Welcome!

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The results of £eith Chooses 23/24 will be announced on Thursday 22nd February, at the Leith Community Centre (cafe area) 6:30pm
All welcome! The results will be posted online immediately following the event, but we are hoping that people will come along in person, please, if you possibly can, especially supporters of applicant groups. We are so pleased to be back ‘live’ after the Covid years, and want to be able to show the Council (who mainly fund £eith Chooses) that there is a local appetite for live community events (not just all online). This will just be a short meeting, but there will be refreshments and chat, so hopefully worthwhile popping in!

Results Night is always a bittersweet occasion as there have to be some groups who are not successful with the funding, while others are happy to hear that they have won a grant. We would like to celebrate EVERYBODY who took part!

Get help with planning your application for £eith Chooses 2023/24

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Time is passing – applications to £eith Chooses close on 10 October, only a month away…

Please come to a short session on Wednesday 20th September, at Norton Park Conference Centre, to get your £eith Chooses application into gear. The £eith Chooses team will be there to help you.

Please say whether you wish to attend 3-5pm session or 5:30-7:30pm, and sign up by emailing Jade Mooney at leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk

We will go through the application form to make sure everything is clear, point out frequently made mistakes, and have plenty of time to answer questions, discuss any points raised, and arrange further support etc. as required. Tea, coffee, biscuits etc. will be available.

Many thanks to Norton Park for hosting.

 

£eith Chooses Support Session for Applicants: 20 September

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If you are planning to apply to £eith Chooses this year, you are invited to attend a support session on Wednesday 20th September, at Norton Park Conference Centre.

We will go through the application form to make sure everythig is clear, point out frequently made mistakes, and have plenty of time to answer qustions, arrange further support etc. as required.

Please register and sign up by emailing Jade Mooney at leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk and please say whether you wish to attend 3-5pm or 5:30-7:30pm
Places are a bit limited (we are in a board room, not the main hall) so please book early, and please let us know if you have to cancel. Many thanks to Norton Park for hosting.

 

Open for applications – Support Session 20th September

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Have you started to think about your project application to £eith Chooses, yet? If you would like information and/or support with your application, there are various options.

Any or all of the following are available to you:

  1. Come to a group Support Session on Wednesday 20th September, with the £eith Chooses Team. The lovely folk at Norton Park have generously offered free use of their facilities. There will be two sessions; one from 3pm – 5pm and another from 5:30pm – 7:30pm. SAVE THE DATE! Let us know which session you’d like to attend and we will keep you a place.
  2. Email in and ask for the information you need and/or the kind of support that suits you best –
    – We can offer someone to visit you at your place of work or any place and time of your choosing to talk through your plans, privately.
    – You can ask for a  ‘mentor’. We can offer you a named person from the £eith Chooses Steering Group who will be your contact  link on an ongoing basis and can be available for regular consultations.

Getting started earlier rather than later is the best way to get the most out of  these support options

To follow up on all or any of these options, please email Jade Mooney at leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk

Meanwhile, download the 2023-2024 Application Form and Guidance Notes here:

Format Application Form Guidance Notes
DOCX Application form (DOCX format) Guidance notes (DOCX format)
DOC Application form (DOC format) Guidance notes (DOC format)
PDF Application form (PDF format) Guidance notes (PDF format)