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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.

 

This year’s theme – Fighting Hunger and/or Loneliness

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The auspices were all good as we ‘launched’ £eith Chooses 2019-20. The skies turned orange then purple, and a glorious rainbow settled on Leith.

Credit and thanks to Nick Gardner, Willy Barr,and Dr.Bells Family Centre for their great photos (taken from the window of Leith Community Centre).

Fighting Hunger and/or Loneliness

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Applications are invited for project proposals that address the £eith Chooses 2019-20 theme, which is:

Fighting Hunger and / or Loneliness

Your application can address either Hunger or Loneliness, or both.

You can download Guidance Notes and Applications forms here

Applications are invited as soon as possible, ideally before Christmas, and must be in by 6th January 2020 at the very latest. Please think about coming along to a Support session before submitting your application, to make sure your idea / application is on the right track.

Survey, please

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Please would you be good enough to complete this short survey about your experience of £eith Chooses 2019? It should not take you more than about 10 minutes, and will give the organisers important information to help future planning.

Click below to start. Thank you

Voting in 2019, and Booster Vote

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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

Partners!

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Why not partner up with another (or more than one) organisation, for your £eith Chooses project bid? This is a great way to work cooperatively, rather than in competition with each other, for funds. A small group without a constitution can be ‘sheltered’ by a bigger group taking responsibility for governance. Groups doing similar things, but maybe with different ‘end users’, can share ideas and resources. And of course, partnering is a good way to widen your voter base!

£eith Chooses Launch Night approaches!

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Launch Night approaches!

Tuesday 20th November 2018

6pm, Leith Community Centre, New Kirkgate (cafe area)

Please do come along and hear about the plans for this year: There are some quite significant changes to the structure and process of £eith Chooses, this year, so you need to know about that before you create your project application.

Catch up with the latest news, have a cup of tea and a wee snack, pick up an Application form, and Guidance Notes, and take the chance to ask questions and discuss ideas.

Evaluation and Feedback: What are YOUR views?

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We are now at the stage of trying to get feedback about the 2018 £eith Chooses event. We want to know what everyone thinks (positive and negative!) and to get ideas about how £eith Chooses can be improved.

Two ‘Survey Monkey’ evaluation questionnaires are now in circulation, to collect views. One was emailed to project applicants and the other is for  – well, ‘everybody’  – supporters, voters and the general community.You!

Please take a few minutes to fill in this short survey, via this link  

Also – a face to face feedback discussion session, perhaps primarily for applicants but open to all, will be held on Tuesday 15th May (18:30  – 20:30 in the Leith Community Centre Cafe area), to facilitate interaction between participants, identify issues, share suggestions for improvement, and generate new ideas. We really want to know what you think and how £eith Chooses can be improved! (Please let us know if you want to come along – we’d like to know numbers roughly as a finger buffet will be provided.)

We also welcome any feedback you wish to provide by email, directly, to leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk