Category: Tenant Involvement

By Rob Gooding and Rachel Cole, the Tenant Involvement team

The Kimberworth Park Over 50s Community Group, has been a vital social hub for many local people for over 10 years now. The group offers bingo, a brick a brac sales and daytrips to over 50 members a week, many of whom don’t get out other than to the group sessions. This has nurtured long lasting friendships throughout the community between both younger and older members.

RotherFed staff have stepped in to support the Kimberworth Park Over 50s Community Group after the unexpected closure of their regular meeting place, The Black Hut. The group’s usual venue was shut down which sent a shockwave through the community, leaving the groups’ members without a venue to get together. RotherFed staff were quick to respond to the groups needs by offering support and advice when the group needed it the most. Although the group had to close for a week, I am happy to report that the group have now reopened and are continuing to enjoy each other’s company and their usual activities.

The group has relocated to a new home at St Thomas’ Church, Kimberworth.  Although they have had to change the day the group meets, they have worked tirelessly to ensure that their members can maintain their social connections in the new venue, hopefully for many years to come. This demonstrates the groups resilience and the importance of the support that is offered to the community groups of Rotherham.  We will continue to support this group lightly, should they require any further help/advice.

By Rachel Cole and Rob Gooding, The Tenant Involvement team

Rob first met Jordan at Talk n Train; Jordan is an active member of this group. Talk n Train is a boxing group who meet at Millennium Boxing in Rotherham. The aim of the group is to support the local community through their emotional and physical wellbeing. They have a team of highly qualified coaches and volunteers who offer free training, coaching, one to one support and peer support groups where members can share the offload without judgement. The group has been supported by RotherFed for the past three years now. Jordan has thrived and become a key member of the group, helping deliver sessions and supporting members as well as his local community.

Rob spoke to Jordan about RotherFed, its services and the involved they have with RMBC. As Jordan is a council tenant, he expressed an interest in becoming involved in council services.

Jordan first attended the Housing Involvement Panel (HIP) a few months ago now, bringing with him a strong passion for making positive changes for tenants, particularly younger tenants not just in his area but across Rotherham as a whole.

Jordan’s first involvement in the HIP meetings was to showcase the amazing work of Talk n Train in the Rotherham area. With the support from RotherFed staff, the group produced a video interview which was presented at the HIP meeting, in the section dedicated to highlighting one Rotherham’s wealth of community groups. Jordan attended this meeting in person to answer any questions afterwards, marking the beginning of his commitment to the panel. From attending that initial meeting, Jordan knew he wanted to deepen his involvement and contribute significantly to the panel’s efforts in making a difference to council services for everybody in Rotherham.

As well as attending the HIP meetings, Jordan is keen to get involved with our volunteer get-togethers where he can learn and gain experience from other volunteers and in time will then be able to pass on his own skills to new volunteers.

It is great to have Jordan onboard and be involved, especially as he is a younger council tenant and has different ideas/views. We will continue to support Jordan where needed.

By Rachel Cole, the Tenant Involvement team

Leverton Way TARA has been running now for just over 6 years and Rachel has worked with this group since just before Covid started.  Peter Keyworth, who is the Chair, started the TARA up with another local resident just over 6 years ago and the group has continued to grow and go from strength to strength.  The group holds a breakfast morning every Tuesday and they have fish & chips delivered to the Centre every Friday lunchtime.  Also, recently they have started to hold a lunch club once a month where Pete Whitehead, who is the Treasurer, cooks a hot meal for everyone.  We have recently supported the group to get their food hygiene certificate and register their premises.  The group has been a great success in bringing the residents and community together and to enjoy each other’s company.  The residents also use the Centre to play pool and darts, and some just pop in to watch a bit of TV together.

The group received £500 refunding recently from RMBC and this month the group organised and held an afternoon at the Centre where all residents were welcome to come along and join them.  Leaflets were delivered to every resident around the neighbourhood centre advertising the event. There was a free buffet and raffle and a singer so residents could have a singalong and dance too!  The following day they all enjoyed a barge trip along the canal from Swinton Lock. 

This is a great group who want to make a difference in their local community whilst using their neighbourhood centre. Even during lockdown, the TARA made sure that those who were shielding in his community didn’t miss out on their fish & chip lunch by delivering it straight to their door.  Residents would phone or stop Peter whilst he was out walking his dog to place their orders which he then collected from the local fish & chip shop and delivered to their homes.  Peter said he didn’t want people to miss out on a Friday favourite just because they couldn’t go out.