I have been working with this group now since November 2020 when I took over supporting the North of the Borough. This is a really pro-active group who have been running now for nearly 5 years and have 10 active members, they also have volunteers who help at events, with the planting of flowers around the village etc.
On Thursday 18 August, the group held a ‘Out of Covid’ event at the Civic Hall. This event was funded through the COMF funding from RMBC. The event was held from 12pm until 3pm and over 50 local residents, including residents from local care homes, enjoyed a pie and pea lunch supplied by the Honey Pot Cafe, a few games of bingo, some fantastic singing from Chantelle and Chloe and Sarah played the violin for them. It was a lovely afternoon, and it was so nice to see people enjoying themselves singing and dancing, the residents said how much they had enjoyed it. John Healey MP attended the event and joined in with the signing. The group are holding another similar event on Thursday 1 September to make use of the remainder of their COMF funding which need to be spend by 31 August. I will also support at this event.
As well as holding monthly meetings, many different events, the group also holds regular litter picks around the village, at their latest litter pick this week, there were 12 volunteers and they collected 17 bags of rubbish. The group had a stall at the Swinton ‘Party in the Park’ on Sunday 29 August to raise some funds for the group. They are great group who I enjoy working with.
Heart of The Community attended the Annual event Ferham Festival 2022 on 11th August this month. The festival always draws in a big diverse crowd from the residents and this year was no exception. A welcomed change was this year the festival was also supporting South Asian culture as to support the south Asian heritage month.
The Roadshow kicked off by setting up the stall ready for engaging with the community on a beautiful sunny day. The day started off slow but 30 minutes in and the festival was in full swing. It was an amazing day filled with cultural activities, colour, and good food.
Dayle Hill is the lead of the newly formed Canklow based group The Community Tree. In only our second meeting she came to us with the idea of creating a community picnic, a “world picnic”, where residents come together to share food that is important to them. The idea is that no matter who you are we all have a connection to food. Dayle wanted to work with this idea to help people recognize that we are all connected. We talked about how people could bring food that they could have a cultural connection to, their favourite dish, or even their signature dish, the one that must be at every family get together.
During further discussions Dayle said she would like the picnic to be the start of a whole week of events to improve and bring together the whole community in Canklow. Her aims were to Celebrate the diversity of the area, support families and help people to feel safer. The idea of having a community clean-up day and an event to round things off were also brought up. May quickly arrived and Dayle had formed a plan of exactly what she wanted to see from the week. Monday to open the week with the World Picnic. Dayle also had the idea to create Acts of Kindness bingo cards for residents and young people. Those wanting to be involved would fill out the card over the week and return at the final event to be entered into a prize draw.
Wednesday was to be a crafting day working with local social enterprise Casting Innovations. Residents could create their own heart out of Fimo that would then be cast into aluminium and then added to a giant heart, that will be displayed in Canklow. Residents also can work with Castings to make the heart themselves.
The community clean-up day was going to be on Thursday. This is planned to be a Litter Pick by the Friends of Canklow Open Spaces, a group that is part of the community tree, and a community skip that will be provided by RMBC housing.
Finally, the week would be rounded off with a community sports day. Delivered by partner organization Rotherham United Community Sports Trust, they will be delivering football-based activities as well as health and fitness advise in a fun event for everyone to get involved with.
During the planning for the event the local school were also engaged with. They not only promoted the event within their school but also had the young people create flags for bunting that will be displayed for the whole week of the events. The hope is then the young people will feel some ownership towards the event and encourage their family to attend.
The week came, AND WHAT A WEEK IT WAS!!! Every event had engagement from different aspects of the community. From a community that is known locally to struggle with anti-social behavior and has little engagement with services, everyone involved commented on how well they felt it went. The picnic was a mix of curry, sandwiches, pasta and sunshine, everyone who attended got the opportunity to sit, relax and engage with other residents.
On Wednesday we saw a dozen people drop into Casting Innovations to create the FIMO hearts.
On Thursday a skip was delivered for the community to be able to get rid of their excess waste thanks to funding from the local housing authority. Alongside that Friends of Canklow Open Spaces went out on a litter pick around with other volunteers from the area, more than 10 bags were collected, and several piles of fly-tipping were also removed.
A typical wet summer Sunday was the day for the Sports day. Despite the weather, plenty of people came down to the event. With an inflatable penalty shoot-out, small football pitches set up and skipping ropes, families had the chance turn burn off energy whilst being out in the open spaces the area has to offer.
Over the week we all took the opportunity to build up new relationships with residents and reconnect with those who are already aware of what we are trying to achieve for the community. Planning will be starting soon for next year, and no doubt Dayle already has in mind what she wants to achieve and will work hard to make it bigger and better.
One of the wonderful things about working at RotherFed is that it has ignited my passion for personal volunteering, I like nothing more than getting involved where I can. July saw a fantastic opportunity presented to me with the Women’s Euros. Four matches were to be hosted by the New York Stadium, home of Rotherham United. I saw an advert and volunteered my time, not truly sure of what I was letting myself in for.
After lots of training, the first match day came and I found myself in one of the amazing fan zones being hosted by RMBC, this continued through the four days of the tournament. It was truly wonderful, over 40 volunteers coming together to help highlight the best of Rotherham and oh, did we know how to put on a party! One shift was done in the heatwave, temperatures reaching 36 degrees, which was very hot. We were well looked after, and we ensured the Rotherham public was too.
By the end of match day four and over 40 hours of volunteering we all retired tired but happy to have been part of this momentous occasion for Rotherham. One memory that will stick with me is meeting a lovely Rotherham resident, who pops into town just for some company as he was lonely. I had a lovely conversation with him, and we chatted about all sorts, he kept popping back throughout the day to say hello and let me know what a lovely day it was.
Sally has been walking with the S62 group from Greasbrough Dam since the start, a popular member of the group who has a fascinating knowledge of nature (especially trees) she really opens up your eyes to things you do not usually take notice of. Recently she disclosed that she might not be able to continue with the walks as her trainers which were 5 years old were causing her issues. She could not really afford a new pair due to her hours being reduced due to covid and due to the rising cost of transport to get her to events. To remove this barrier and to enable her to continue we have provided a new pair of walking trainers for her to use with the caveat that if she continues to attend the trainers will be hers. Sally was overwhelmed as she really did not want to stop walking as it had an impact on her mental and physical health, this has removed a barrier and will enable her to continue.
Led by Founder Jude Kelly, WOW Festivals are the world’s most comprehensive festivals celebrating women, girls and non-binary people. Launched in 2010, WOW Festivals have now taken place in more than 30 locations in six continents, reaching more than three million people to date. WOW Rotherham was on the 16th and the 17th of July. The two-day festival was to celebrate community, culture, and entrepreneurialism with artists local, national, and international taking part in the event, the first of its kind for the town.
One of the panels that takes place at every WOW festival is ‘Urgent Conversation’. WOW Global describe this as ‘Every day, it feels like we wake up to something new to respond to, a new urgent conversation to have, a new set of injustices to carry and solutions to come up with together. With the news agenda and world events changing at such rapid speed, WOW has reserved this panel to respond to the most up to date and recent happenings that affect us, gender equality and societies around the world.’
WOW Rotherham’s Urgent Conversation was around the cost-of-living crisis. Chaired by Jude Kelly the panel included myself, Noor Salih from Energy Know How Rotherfed, Becca Stacey who is the Senior Research Officer for Money and Mental Health Policy institute and GP Hannah Barham-Brown. The panel discussed about how where you live can impact your mental health and how GPs do not have enough time to really get to know the issues that the patients have and the importance of social prescribing. The discussion was also around the energy market crisis.
There was a real buzz from the audience during Q&As, they had no knowledge of Priority Service Register or Warm Home Discount. 95% of the audience said they didn’t understand what was happening in relation to the price rises and what cost of living payments they were entitled to.
The audience was taken aback by the cost of running a prepayment meter and the importance of having a conversation with your energy provider about moving onto a tariff instead of moving energy providers. One of the audience members talked about their daughter becoming a mother and moving into her first rental property with a prepayment meter. The daughter wasn’t aware she could have it changed to a standard meter to save some money.
The audience was mostly women with just 2 men in the audience, the entire audience were parents and were not familiar about how much money they could save by making small behaviour changes in their household. More than half of the audience weren’t aware of how to access their meters to read them to ensure accurate billing.
By the end of the panel the participants were aware of:
Rob Mellors, a man who has suffered 3 strokes in Dawsons Croft thought his life was over. He rarely met anyone and had absolute no social life. He was often depressed and really suffered mentally as well as physically trying to manage the aftermath of his strokes. When another resident mentioned to me how much Rob loved the coffee afternoons, I didn’t realise how much exactly. The coffee afternoons have changed his life. When I was having discussions with the residents as to how often they thought they can genuinely commit to the coffee afternoons. Some said bi-weekly, a couple mentioned monthly, and Rob was amongst the ones that said he wanted them weekly. He now has social interaction at least once a week at the coffee afternoons if not more as a result of the coffee afternoons. Once he was going to miss a coffee afternoon due to feeling down but then came and said he would never miss one. His mental health nurse has said he has improved in leaps and bounds and the major reason for it is the coffee afternoons. His health is also getting better because other people in the group are looking out for him. He is now being loved within his community and feels cared for. A specific resident knocks on every day to check in on him. Tuesday is essential for him. If it stopped, his health would go downhill. This is the outcome of the difference the coffee afternoons have made to this individuals life. The residents involved in the coffee sessions have started to form stronger bonds and it’s started to feel a bit like a big family. Rob also won bingo 3 times in a row on the pyjama bingo night. The group also organised a day out to Wentworth Gardens which Rob went too. This was the first time he went out in a long time to socialise.
The Volunteer Walk is an annual celebration of Rotherham’s Volunteering community hosted by Voluntary Action Rotherham. This year Heart of the Community was asked to support the event.
The event was to be a combination of hearing from speakers sharing their stories of how and why they give up their time for volunteering, followed by a walk through the town centre being led by the African Drummers. Refreshments were available for all taking part at the end of the walk.
On the day of the VAR volunteer walk we arrived at 10am to begin setting up the event as well as our own Heart of the Community stand. We themed our stall a with Luau vibe and gave a flower garland to everyone who filled out our Little Acts of Kindness pledge cards. The Luau theme stall and garlands was a big hit amongst everyone who attended, we collected 50 pledge cards, even the mayor of Rotherham himself wore a garland and shared his own little act of kindness.
The African Drummers led the crowd through the streets of central Rotherham. Shoppers, shop owners, business leaders all came out to applaud the group which added a massive sense of pride for those taking part.
We really enjoyed this event and understand how important it is recognizing the importance of volunteers working within our sector. Personally, we received some great partner feedback from Voluntary Action Rotherham. “It was a great day. Sam and Dan were awesome! I really appreciated their help from start to finish. Absolutely brill… “
We both hope to be involved in the Volunteer Walk over the remaining years of our project.
Sam and I first met the residents of Warreners drive in February to introduce the Heart of the Community (HotC) project on a night meeting. Back then the residents were forming to become a constituted community entity named the UNIT group. Unfortunately, some of the community leaders were unhappy about the guidelines they would have to operate in, and the group stalled in progress.
A few weeks later residents were engaging with the flowering arranging sessions arranged by Neelam. Meanwhile the coffee morning was running on alternative sessions that were supported by HotC and HRA. Residents were loving the flower arranging sessions and the coffee mornings were only seeing small number of members attend. Nicola Jackson from the Friends of Dalton East Herringthorpe and Thrybergh greenspaces group had been speaking with the group for since 2021. She suggested the residents receive support from the DEHT umbrella, so they did not have to become a community group themselves due to the lack of residents wanting to lead. Since then, Nicola has attended most coffee mornings and the now have reached a peak attendance of 15 not including partners. The group are in high spirits and have really created amazing relationships. Every week we are seeing the group sitting in a circle nattering away and creating a positive social atmosphere.
The residents hosted their first community event which was a celebration of the Queens jubilee on the 3rd of June. Residents collaborated with us to plan the event. The residents and RotherFed decorated the centre from funding that Nicola Jackson has applied for and successfully achieved through RMBCs jubilee grant herself. The Jubilee was attended by a mixture of immediate residents to the centre and some from further away. A total of 44 people attended the event in total which was fantastic for their first event. Residents organising the event all took responsibilities on the day and delegated that amongst themselves.
The resident’s confidence has grown through consistent support from RotherFed over the last few months. They are regularly attending fitness sessions, have taken part in some digital support sessions, and are currently undertaking food hygiene level 2 training of which 4 have already passed out of the 8 residents taking part. Overall, the change in community activity and the residents has been amazing and we hope to continue to support a fantastic group.
Five of our befriending volunteers joined me, Ffion, Yasmeen and Rob on the annual volunteer walk in Rotherham, this was the first one in 2 years following covid. It was arranged by Voluntary Action Rotherham and supported by Dan and Sam from RotherFed’s Heart of the Community Project. It was an amazing celebration of volunteering across the Rotherham borough. We were proud to represent Rotherham Federation and had many positive conversations with other organisations and their volunteers.
One of the volunteers said “thank you so much for all the efforts you and the RotherFed team put into everything to make what you do a success; you really do go above and beyond. I am truly thankful to have found and taken the opportunity to be a part of it all. You always thank us for what we do but without your guidance and support I certainly couldn’t have done the role, you built me up and really helped me to develop confidence, I have grown as a person and gain so much personally from volunteering you are an inspiration.”
