Category: Good News Stories

By Rob Gooding, Community Organiser

Woodsetts Neighbourhood Watch started pre covid, due to spate of burglaries in the area, during covid a lot of the elderly residents became anxious about leaving their homes made worse by the fact burglaries were happening in the daytime. The village asked what crime prevention measures could be implemented.

The group decided that it was time for them to act, after consulting with members and other residents of the area the group decided that they wanted CCTV cameras in the area to deter the burglars from the village and make residents feel safe again.

The group have had several meetings with RBMC’s (Rotherham Council’s) CCTV team and Neighbourhoods officers and identified locations where cameras would be most effective in capturing images of these crimes happening as well as being a deterrent for other issues in the area like offroad bikes. The decision was made that a network of nine cameras was needed to cover the area at a substantial cost for the group. Not deterred by this the group started planning how they could bring the community together and raise the funds needed to make their project happen.

The group decided the best way to raise money was a crowd funding page that local residents could donate to, this has been a massive success in the five weeks it has been active, the group have been working closely with all the community groups in the area as well parish councillors of Woodsetts to advertise the page bringing the community together with a common goal, the group didn’t want to stop there and also decided to put a collection box in the local post office and have a stall on a local event where they held a tombola and other fairground games to raise extra funds.

In the first five weeks of fundraising the group have almost raised half of the funds needed to have the system installed, showing what a community can achieve when they come together with a common interest.

By Yasmeen Ali, Community Engagement Officer

I have lived in Rotherham for the most of 35 years. I have got severe arthritis and have been very ill with this. I have been through a lot in my life and was very isolated and depressed and this made me house bound as a result. 

Social isolation and loneliness have an impact upon my life, my quality of life and health and wellbeing. It has an adverse effect on my health.  I have friends within the local area, but I haven’t seen them over 3 years due to the pandemic.  I don’t go out as I don’t feel comfortable or safe, I have little money so can’t afford busses or taxis, the language barrier also makes this difficult as I can’t explain to anyone where I want to be and how much help I need from them to get there.

When Yasmeen contacted me and told me about the session, she was doing at Tassibee, I was very hesitant to go as I have the fear of getting ill from catching covid. I don’t drive and am very scared to get public transport. Yasmeen kindly offered to pick me and drop me back off at home.

I was nervous to go but I can’t thank Yasmeen enough for taking me as I met some lovely ladies and felt part of a group. I also learnt about RotherFed, I didn’t even know it existed. I will benefit from some of the project as I am a single mum and struggle financially due to bills and being on benefits.

Since the session PA has contacted Yasmeen a few times and is looking forward to coming to the next session, she was very thankful and commented by saying “being isolated at home and not going out has really affected my mental health and wellbeing.  I felt at ease when attending the HRA session, I was worried and anxious, beforehand as I haven’t interacted with anyone for such a long time. Yasmeen made sure I was okay and checked upon me, I would like to go again”

By Rachel Cole, Senior projects officer

I have been supporting this group now since Summer 2021. The group originally got together to try and challenge Manvers Lake Trust about the yearly fees they all must pay to help towards the upkeep of the lake. Whilst they are still doing this, their main focus now is putting on events and activities for the local residents. They are now a constituted group and have approximately 12 committee members. The key members have attended various training sessions both through RotherFed and RMBC including, setting up a group, organising an event, first aid and safeguarding. 

They organised their first community litter pick in December, and these are now held on a regular basis. They also successfully applied for some CLF funding from the local Councillors and did a Christmas Elf hunt. They hid 50 elves around the estate and set up a treasure map. As this event was so well received, they decided to do it again for Easter this year.

The group met early January and decided they would like to put on an event for the Queen’s Jubilee weekend. They applied for some COMF funding to help cover the costs and were successful. The event took place on Thursday 3 June from 1pm until 4pm on the field in the middle of the estate, and what a successful event it was. There were over 30 stalls, children’s fairground rides, a circus workshop, fire engine and more. The group ran a raffle and tombola to raise funds to put back into the group for future events/activities. Over 500 people attended the event and positive feedback was received all-round. The residents are already asking when the next event will be! John Healey MP attended the event to show/give his support to the group and said how fantastic it was.

This was the groups’ first large event and although at times found it stressful, they really enjoyed organising it and running it on the day. They said it was so nice to hear the positive comments from the residents who really appreciated what they had done. It made all the hard work worthwhile. The group are now looking at other funding available for future events. They are also looking for funding to purchase a laptop for the group which will make life much easier. I will continue to support this group where required. 

I first visited Warreners Drive, Thrybergh in October 2021 when a group of residents contacted me to say they were interested in forming a constituted group to run from the Centre. The Centre had recently been redecorated and has now had new curtains and blinds fitted. I worked with this group, who called themselves UNIT (Uniting Neighbours in Thrybergh) for the next few months we helped to get them a constitution, bank account, etc.  In January 2022 we carried out a door knock around the area to find out if there was any interest from people who wanted to use the Centre and what activities they would like to see held there. A coffee morning was arranged for a couple of weeks later and since then things have gone from strength to strength.  A weekly coffee morning now takes place every Wednesday where the residents get together and have a cuppa, cake, and a chat.  As well as the coffee morning, we are working with RNN (Rotherham College) who have put on flower arranging sessions, which the ladies are loving, and some light exercise and mindfulness classes, these classes have been funded through the Councillor’s CLF funding. The group are also holding their first ‘real’ event on Friday 3 June, an afternoon tea for the Queen’s Jubilee. Over 30 people have already booked to attend this. 

Unfortunately, the group UNIT group decided in March that they no longer wished to continue, therefore, Friends of Dalton, East Herringthorpe & Thrybergh Green Spaces have kindly taken this new group under their wing and will support them until the group feels ready to be their own constituted group. One member of the Friends of Dalton group who has been learning flower arranging, recently applied for funding through Arnold Clark and was successful in getting £500. With this money she is making flower arrangements for the graves in the cemetery which are not tendered anymore, using the skills she has learnt at the flower class. Amazing!

The “previous” council warden who lives above the Centre said how nice it is that the Centre is being used again on a regular basis, she says it’s brought the life back into it.  She did say when we first did the door knocking that she hoped we could make a difference, but she doubted we would as people have tried before. It’s really nice to know that a difference has been made and the residents are once again enjoying the Centre and what it has to offer, and we hope this continues. I will continue to support the groups where needed and required.

The Engine Project has been a school led project that has been active for the last 7 years. The advertiser published a piece from them in the Young Tizer section of the paper in 2015.

We formed the Year 10 student council earlier this year and we were all eager to find a project to get stuck into. The Old Engine Pond in front of the school was brought to our attention due to concerns from the community, and we wanted to make a positive change. Everyone within the local community knows the Engine Pond and at some point will have played around it and in some cases, weather permitting, played in it! However, over the last three years it has become extremely polluted, overgrown and dangerous, not to mention the big impact on innocent wildlife that live there.We immediately wanted to get down there and clean it ourselves but thought that we may have little impact just on our own. Therefore, we contacted Kevin Burke who works for RMBC and is head of green spaces.We needed his help and support in order for us to get this project under way. Of course, for him to take us seriously, we wanted to make sure we had a thorough plan of action, a clear set of objectives, and the right team. Also, we wanted to be a lead on this project and to personally contact all the necessary people that we would need for this project to progress. As a result, the Winterhill Year 11 school prefect events team and Year 11 environment prefect helped us organise a meeting for us all to meet. To ensure we did the right thing with the pond, we also contacted the science, history and geography departments to research the area so we can create information to put around the pond.We had one more meeting so that we could set a date and decide exactly what we were going to do. We decided on November 21 and 28 that it would run over the both Saturdays from 10am to 2pm. We realised the more people that knew about this project, the more people would come and help us, and obviously we would get more vital work done to support the community. To promote the project, we went and spoke in all the school’s assemblies to invite Winterhill students to join us as well as local councillors, Rother FM and the Rotherham Advertiser to further get the message out there.The whole of the Winterhill student council took an active part in this too. Some contacted the councillors, some contacted the radio station and some asked the questions in the meetings. It was my job, as head of the student council, to ensure that it was organised and done professionally. Overall, the team have learnt so much from this experience and it’s not even started yet! We would also like to rename the pond to something a little more appealing to show off all our hard work.We want to make it a place that primary schools can visit and learn from.  But ultimately, we want to create something that we can all access and enjoy, something that was created by Winterhill students for the community. Our aim is simple – to make a difference in the community.

By Leoni Hill (age 14), Year 10 Winterhill School, head of the student council

Dan and I have met with Simon Jeffrey, the safeguarding lead from Winterhill, to discuss how we can work together on our project. Simon explained that the Engine Pond project has been running for 7 years as part of the school’s project that snowballed. This project became the bedrock of the school prefects that take on extra responsibilities. Simon has explained that they have received funding in the form of grants from RMBC and The Rotherham Advertiser. These funds were able to provide the new pavement at engine pond, £300 food parcels that were distributed to those in need and loneliness visits to care homes. The school has a team of 50 prefects that the lead the extracurricular activities that the school undertakes throughout the year. They specifically have a community team that we could work with to enhance what they already aim to achieve.

Simon is excited about the prospect at working together and believes that it’s a perfect time to begin engaging with a new batch of students to carry on the prefects. Simon wants to continue to engage in with the community and is also keen about connecting with residents. We have spoken about how a potential committee would work in the form of an official representative of the school on the committee as well as other community leaders.

I supported the community engagement on the Engine Pond. There were more than 10 young people from the school helping as well as representatives from school, local councilors, RMBC Green Spaces workers and local residents. It was amazing to see the how much enthusiasm and hard work is going into the area to establish the site as a place where nature can thrive without the threat of pollution and litter.

I am looking forward to seeing how the relationship between the school and residents develops, and how we can work together to make a more cohesive community in the area.

Wafaa has been living in England about 10 years as she moved here from Saudi. Her first language is Arabic and when she came into this country, she couldn’t speak any English. Wafaa has got three young children and was invited to the Eid party. When she was invited, she was very excited but equally very worried about if there were going to be any men there. I did reassure her that if there were they would be sat to one side.

Wafaa has little confidence and is socially isolated as she doesn’t have any friends or family living in her surrounding area. Before coming Wafaa contacted me and said to me that if she feels anxious that she will be leaving the Eid party. I did check on Wafaa a few times throughout the event and she was happy to have been part of the Eid party. she commented saying that she was happy with the respect that was given to her and the rest of the ladies who attended were very friendly towards her.

Wafaa is also a council tenant, and the project outcomes were shared with her. She is very interested and is now wanting to be involved in the tenant meetings. With Wafaa coming to the Eid party she has also put her name down to do an ESOL class at Mowbray Gardens Library as one of the professionals who was invited to the Eid party currently tutors sessions there. Wafaa thanked me for looking out for her and has asked if she can attend any further events that are put on at RotherFed

When we were doing the engagement work around neighbourhood centres, we discovered that the group that used to run out of the centre had stopped pre covid and a lot of residents had missed the sessions that were happening there

Following on from the Neighbourhood centre engagement work Neelam has been doing the residents have started holding regular coffee mornings, bingo sessions and chair exercise classes. To build on this engagement I have started to attend some of the sessions and gotten to know the committee, as the sessions continue to grow the group have started to look at getting a constitution and bank account to expand on the activities they run. The group consists of around 12 regular members so far and three committee members but is growing slowly as news spreads.

The first draft of the constitution was made this month and the group are currently making alterations to this document ready for it being adopted. When the group have this and the bank account, they would like to investigate funding to hold luncheon clubs and day trips to expand on their regular activity and hopefully attract more members from the community.

This year’s Easter event in Thurcroft was another great success. The event this year was a joint event with St Simon & St Jude’s Church. The local Councillors, Zac and Thomas Collingham also donated some of their CLF fund which paid for a large part of the event. The event took place on Good Friday and started at 10am with arts and crafts in the church. There was also a raffle and refreshments. The Easter egg hunt started from the church at 12pm and there were 12 clues placed around the village for the children to follow. The hunt finished at the Thurcroft Hub where every child who took place received an Easter egg. There was also a mobile farm where the children could meet and pet the small animals. 

Around 200 children took part in the Easter Egg Hunt which is a fantastic turnout, however, we had only purchased enough eggs for 100 children. A quick trip to Morrisons to purchase another 100 eggs solved this problem though and all the children were happy. 

It is lovely to see how this community really works together and how people appreciate the events and activities that take place.

A couple of quotes from the community.

“Brilliant day starting with the crafts and then the Easter egg hunt.  Great to see so many smiley faces around the village and the lovely Easter bonnets”.

“My girls loved it. Thank you to all of you for organising it”.

RotherFed and Voluntary Action Rotherham held a joint training session on ‘Event Planning and Funding Your Event’. This event was booking only due to the amount of people that had expressed interest prior to the event. We didn’t expect the event to fill up as fast as it did, though that suggests that there is a real need for events like this in Rotherham.

The event was attended by 14 individuals from across the whole of Rotherham, this gave us a nice mix with both new groups wanting to get a taste for events and more established groups wanting a refresher after having two years where they have been unable to hold events. The event started with deciding on what your event will be, moving on to budgets, how and where to get funding from, health and safety law to cover the event, and it touched on risk assessments and insurance.

The event had interactive aspects to aid the participants in the learning experience as well as a lot of factual content and handouts that they could take back to the groups and reference later when planning any upcoming events and a reassurance that despite the training we will always be here to help community groups. The feedback received after the session seems positive with attendees feeling better prepared to hold events in the future and a greater depth of knowledge into the processes involved in hosting events, but attendees did add that they would like a more in-depth session to cover risk assessments.

 A quote from one of the attendees ‘the event planning training, I really enjoyed the morning and it was really well put together and gave a great insight into what is needed while planning an event. Hopefully you will be doing some more but I also think it could have been a full day course as there was lots of content in it and I would have loved to have gone into things further when planning events.’

Friends of Dalton, East Herringthorpe and Thrybergh Green Spaces have a very proactive committee and team of volunteers, none more so than their Vice-Chair Nicola J.

Nicola got involved in the group through her connection to Councillor Bennett-Sylvester and the litter picking she was already doing in her free time. As the group officially formed Nicola was voted in to sit on the committee since then her confidence has gone from strength to strength.

Nicola has been instrumental in the group gaining the license for the Vale Road site. She is actively involved in nearly all of the litter picking activity even though she has a very full on work and personal life. She regularly attends the various community coffee mornings that happen throughout the ward, one of which found themselves in need of support as the emerging committee folded. This particular group had the leaders back out of being involved in the organisation of a new group but the residents that pay into the centre still wanted the coffee mornings to run. Nicola went back to the committee of the Green spaces group, explained the situation and the group have agreed to take on the coffee mornings as an extension of their community activity.

Since the group formed in September Nicola has learnt to liaise with partners, council officials and basically anybody who can help to support the group attain their objectives. She is not afraid to be persistent, because, as she says herself “the worse they can say is no”. She has attended training provided by RotherFed and will be gaining more skills going forward as she has already signed up for training being provided by RMBC.

Nicola has taken the lead for the group when applying for funding pots, she has already been successful in securing 3 different funds for different activities that the group are involved in and we have supported her in filling out another application that will be going in next month.