Can I vote in £eith Chooses?
Yes, if you live, work, study or volunteer in Leith and are 8 years old or over.
What counts as Leith?
Anywhere within the red (Leith Neighbourhood Network) and black dotted (Leith Community Councils) lines on this map
Apply Now – don’t leave it too late!
The clock is ticking, now. Just 27 days to go – please don’t put it off until the last minute!£eith Chooses has £56,102 for charities and community organisations serving the community in Leith, and is accepting applications NOW, until 30th November.
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 (12 months max) 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 |
| Application form | Guidance notes |
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£eith Chooses welcomes support from POLHA
Port of Leith Housing Association (POLHA) is offering great support to the community in Leith via the mechanism of the £eith Chooses process (amongst other work that POLHA does, of course),
POLHA has contributed £5,000 to the ‘pot’ of money available through £eith Chooses, to projects that benefit Leith. They have also designed and published a useful little information ‘pack’ that aims to help you use social media to get votes for your project., once you’ve applied.
POLHA CEO Heather Kitely has made a wee video to encourage application to £eith Chooses. https://fb.watch/8VdipMn_as/
Please feel free to download the social media info pack here, to use and / or pass on to colleagues.
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Applying to £eith Chooses? Come to our Q & A session, 2nd November
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 |
| Application form | Guidance notes |
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Leith Bowl Blethers project
We are happy and proud to read the ‘end of £eith Chooses grant’ report from Edinburgh Community Food and Milan who worked together to help older members of our Asian communities in Leith. What a great project! To help those suffering from loneliness and food poverty, they provided nutritious and culturally appropriate hot meals for 25 weeks, with doorstep face-to-face blethers each week, as meals were hand delivered.They also organised online community eat-together sessions and outdoor trips (to Saughton Park and Jock Tamson’s herb garden and Dr. Neil’s Garden) for social connectedness.
Edinburgh Community Food staff provided specialist online nutrition training for MILAN staff on how to address the health issues affecting older BME people in Leith and free training ftowards the professionally and nationally recognised certificated REHIS course Food Allergy Awareness.
Milan staff receiving their REHIS Certificates from Edinburgh Community Food 
The group also produced a spiral bound recipe book containing recipes and nutritional facts developed by Milan Staff, used as part of the project and distributed to participants of Leith Bowl Blethers to encourage them and their families to have a go at making the meals themselves. 
“I am registered blind and find it difficult to cook and prepare my meals, therefore appreciate the fresh ethnic meals received otherwise I rely on tin foods mostly.”
“Due to my age I am unable to cook so this hot meal is valuable for me.”
“I love Tuesdays as this is the only day we are guaranteed to eat traditional hot ethnic meal which has been freshly cooked with the best ingredients.”
“I am not able to cook as reside in a hostel and have no kitchen facilities, therefore I thoroughly enjoy the hot cooked meals and really value this project and am ever so thankful as can have the benefit of freshly cooked food.”
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How to get people to vote for your project? Social Media can help!
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:
- Group submits an application form, for a new project (up to £5,000) – by 30 November 2021
- All the projects are ‘showcased’ in a £eith Chooses online ‘gallery’ – throughout January 2022
- 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’
- 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!
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£eith Chooses fund is growing!
Happy news – £eith Chooses funds are growing, so more than 11 projects will get funded! The fund started with £46,106 from the Council’s Community Grant Fund, and then that was supplemented by a donation of £5,000 from the Port of Leith Housing Association (POLHA). And now we have had confirmation of a further donation of £5,000 to come from the Trams to Newhaven project. A huge thank you to both of these organisations for their generosity!
There is a now a total of £56,106 available, which will be allocated to projects (up to £5,000 each) benefitting Leith, on the basis of a public vote (online) in January 2022.
Make sure you get your application in y 30 November! Even if you don’t win funding this year, it’s a great way to get publicity and make sure your organisation is ‘on the map’.
Please download and fill in an Application Form, and Guidance Notes,
| format | Application form | Guidance notes |
| DOC (older versions of Word) | Application form | Guidance notes |
| DOCX (newer versions of Word) | Application form | Guidance notes |
| Application form | Guidance notes |
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Thinking about applying to £eith Chooses? Online Q & A session 5th October 6:30pm
Talk to us! Don’t leave everything to the last minute!
There will be another online (Zoom) general Q & A session about applying to £eith Chooses this coming Tuesday 5 October 2021, at 6:30pm. 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!
Register to attend via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eithchooses-2021-22-applications-qa-tickets-170120002507
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. There is £46,102 available from City of Edinburgh Community Grants Fund, supplemented by a further £5,000 donation from Port of Leith Housing Association. Community Groups can apply for up to £5,000 for a 12 month project that will benefit members of the community in Leith.
This year’s theme is:
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 |
| Application form | Guidance notes |
Share this:
Are you planning to apply? Now is the time!
-
Applications are OPEN,for £eith Chooses 2021-2022. There is £46,102 available from City of Edinburgh Community Grants Fund, supplemented by a further £5,000 donation from Port of Leith Housing Association. Community Groups can apply for up to £5,000.
This year’s theme is:
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 |
| Application form | Guidance notes |
There will be an online (Zoom) general Q & A session about applying to £eith Chooses on Tuesday 5 October 2021, at 6:30pm. This may be particularly useful for new groups that have not applied before. Register to attend via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eithchooses-2021-22-applications-qa-tickets-170120002507
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
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2021-22 Application forms and Guidance Notes now available!
Applications are NOW OPEN,for the 2021-2022 £eith Chooses process. There is £44,102 available from City of Edinburgh Community Grants Fund, supplemented by a further £5,000 donation from Port of Leith Housing Association. Community Groups can apply for up to £5,000.
This year’s theme is:
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 |
| Application form | Guidance notes |
There will be an online (Zoom) general Q & A session about applying to £eith Chooses on Tuesday 7 September 2021, at 6:30pm. This may be particularly useful for new groups that have not applied before. Register to attend via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eithchooses-2021-22-applications-qa-tickets-168847432215
Further information and support (private discussions) for applicants will be also available on an ongoing basis, as requested,
Contact: caroline.lamond@edinburgh,gov.uk
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