Tag Archives: community engagement

Now is the time to apply to £eith Chooses

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You are encouraged to apply to £eith Chooses for a grant of up to £5,000 for your community project (to run from April 2023 to March 2024).
If you want advice on your idea  / application, please come along to talk to us at  McDonald Road Library (Learning Centre, upstairs),  4 – 5pm, Wednesdays the 14th, 21st, and 28th September.

Your project doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to be something that can be delivered within 12 months, that will help/support/protect vulnerable folk in Leith.

You need to be a constituted group with a bank account, or your smaller group could partner with such a group.

The people of Leith will vote in January 2023 on all the proposed projects, and the projects that gain the most votes will be awarded the funding.

Download your application form here  https://www.leithchooses.net/applications-needed-asap .

 

£eith Chooses Steering Group, anyone?

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We would like to invite new people to join the £eith Chooses Steering Group, whether for a longer or a shorter period, to bring new ideas and new energies to the process and to try to ensure that different aspects of the local community are as well represented as possible. Could this be you?

The Steering Group runs the annual £eith Chooses event, which facilitates the distribution of community grant funding locally, via a voting process that tries to involve as many Leith community members as possible in learning about local charities and community groups and their work, and voting for their favourite causes. Local democracy in action!

The Steering Group is chaired by elected Leith Walk Councillor Susan Rae and is made up of volunteers from local Community Councils, and from the community in general, and a member of Council staff. There has been a small but solid ‘core’ of experienced members for a few years, and a number of others who have come for a shorter time and given invaluable help, but have not stayed long term. You would be eligible to join if you are – just like for the voting – someone who lives, works, volunteers, or studies in Leith. We are looking for ‘working members’  – that is, people who have time to attend meetings fairly regularly and contribute actively (this is not just a token title for your CV).  If  you work for a group that might be applying to £eith Chooses for funds, you can still be part of the Steering Group (but might have to to step out of certain processes, briefly, where there could be a conflict of interest). You could ask to attend a couple of meetings as an ‘observer’ if you’d like to learn more about how it all operates.

Please get in touch if you are interested. Email: secretary@leithlinkscc.org.uk

 

Gentle Reminder – please complete our wee survey?

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Please remember to fill in the short feedback survey about the recent £eith Chooses event, and to flag up any any ideas for next year’s theme and event. The survey is open until 13th April. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/lthch2022

We do listen very carefully!

Gallery of Projects available to view

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UPDATE

Online voting will open on Monday 24 January, until 31 January. You can vote from any smart phone or computer, we will post the link here as soon as it’s live.

Thanks to a very generous last minute offer from Utilita – anyone who can’t vote online can go into the Utilita Energy Hub shop in the New Kirkgate any day next week and get help to vote there. Staff and a member of the £eith Chooses Steering Group will be on hand to support voters. 

The 20 projects that are applying to £eith Chooses 2021 – 2022 for funding are now all available (listed in alphabetical order) for public viewing. Please read the project summaries here and start thinking about which three (four, if you use your Boost Vote, which we hope you will) you’d like to vote for, when voting opens on 24rth January.

£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.

£eith Chooses welcomes support from POLHA

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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.

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

 

Leith Bowl Blethers project

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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.”

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!

 

Are you planning to apply? Now is the time!

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  1. 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
PDF 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