The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Thames Valley, Anthony Stansfeld, and the Chief Constable, Francis Habgood, have today (04/12) opened a new grant round of the Police Property Act Fund.
The Fund, which is jointly managed by the PCC and the Chief Constable, is created from money recovered by the police and the proceeds from the sale of items that cannot be returned to identified owners, which includes seizures from criminals.
This is the second round of applications for 2015/16 and the PCC and Chief Constable expect to allocate around £100,000 in this round.
Applications are now invited from local voluntary and community groups who contribute towards the PCC's objective of 'Reducing Crime by Reducing Reoffending'.
Closing Date: Thursday 31st December 2015
For more information and the application pack please click here
Courtesy of SCVS
Village SOS is all about helping communities to survive and thrive. We want to help communities become more enterprising. That might be by keeping services such as shops or playgroups alive for your village or by starting up a new enterprise that could create income to benefit your local area.
A community comes together for a BBQ
With more and more rural communities doing it for themselves Village SOS will help you to re-establish or reinvent services and reinvigorate your community.
Who can get involved with Village SOS?
Anyone with an interest in enterprising rural community action can become a member of the campaign – whether you’ve got experience to share, or want to learn from others, please sign up now to find out more.
Who can ask for support from Village SOS?
Projects, potential projects and organisations that provide a service to their local rural community with a population of fewer than 10,000. Once registered CCB, as a partner organisation, can help you through the process by providing advice and guidance
The five-step VSOS support package:
Step 1 – Sign up as a VSOS Member. Every project supported must sign up, as a VSOS member – it’s free!
Step 2 – More information needed. If you would like support as a project you’ll need to talk to the VSOS Hub, or your nearest partner organisation - CCB, to give us some more details about your project. You can express an interest on the member sign-up form and we’ll give you a call.
Step 3 – It’s all about action planning. You will get support and advice from your local VSOS partner organisation to develop an action plan for your project that matches your needs, ability and timescales.
Step 4 – Action. Through one-to-one support locally, and with the help of expert mentors, you will bring your project’s plan of support to fruition.
Step 5– Preparing for the future. Once your plan of support is complete, a final report of all activity will be written up by your support organisation, this may also include future actions for your consideration.
Who is my local support organisation?
Village SOS is a UK-wide campaign, and there are local partners in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland available to help you now. This ensures communities are able to access support and advice from an organisation that knows their area. In Berkshire the Community Council for Berkshire is the local partner - contact us on admin@ccberks.
Building Community Together Fund
West Berkshire Council “Building Community Together Fund” is available over the next two years and will close in November 2017.
Local community groups can bid for funds from this pot to help them take responsibility for providing projects and services in their communities to meet local needs. The primary purpose of the money is to provide “start up” or “seed corn” funding to assist community based projects to start up. Funding provided would be on the basis that any service established would need to be self financing from the outset.
WBC have created a fund of £150,000 (£100k capital and £50k revenue) to provide one-off funding to help communities get their ideas going. Grants up to a maximum of £12,000 will normally be permitted. However, in exceptional circumstances this amount may be exceeded. As part of this funding there will also be a “small bids” category for grants of between £500 - £1,000.
WBC want to encourage creativity and innovation in our communities. Your proposal needs to meet a recognised community need. They are particularly interested in schemes that are relevant to more than one priority area:
1. Community hubs: Small investment in local community buildings to enable them to be utilised more by the community and better used as outreach points for disseminating information/advice.
2. Elderly and vulnerable: Schemes such as luncheon clubs, befriending schemes, volunteer-led practical help services or hospital transport schemes, etc)
3. Flood prevention: Efforts to provide flood prevention measures for small scale equipment or items which improve coordination during flood or other extreme weather episode.
4. Child Protection and Family Support: For example local working groups/networks that help address the dynamics within families for better outcomes for all family members and enhanced protection of vulnerable children. Finding ways to prevent pupil exclusions from school, family evictions and homelessness, etc.
5. Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour: Finding practical and innovative ways to reduce crime, anti-social behaviour and repeat offending behaviour.
6. Emotional and Mental Health: Support for schemes which improve the physical and emotional health outcomes for local residents.
7. Skills and Jobs: Schemes that increase employment, volunteering, educational attainment, skills development, debt management or job creation ventures.
8. Children and Young People: Schemes that encourage physical, social and emotional wellbeing in children and young people e.g. youth clubs, sports provision or other activity.
For full details please click here
Courtesy of EWB
