In Your Community Archives - Page 28 of 36

Rawmarsh & Parkgate Friends of Green Spaces

Laura/ 2nd June 20212nd June 2021/ In Your Community

By Rachel Cole, Projects Officer

As I now cover the Rawmarsh area this group now falls in my HRA work. A couple of weeks ago I had a walkabout in Rawmarsh and met a couple of people from the group. I’ve also met the two local councillors who are involved in this group and regularly attend the litter picks put on. This group have their own Facebook page with nearly 400 members.

The group holds weekly litter picks, however, due to Covid-19 these were put on hold. The group did however go out on an individual basis to help to keep the community as clean and tidy as possible.

Henley Resident Association

Laura/ 2nd June 20212nd June 2021/ In Your Community

By Rob Gooding, Community Organiser

This month I have had the pleasure of mentoring the newly formed Henley Residents Association. The group have formed due to the old group dissolving last month. Since then, they have organised proactive community members who want to pick up the gauntlet of supporting their local community.

The HRA plan is to reignite the community spirit through activities to improve their neighbourhood by hosting coffee mornings with board games, weekly bingo at community centre and garden projects for those who want to leave their mark on the community centre garden on Oates close. The group also want to be able to put on away days for the residents like the good old days.

Eggy The Eggsellent Eggsplorer

Laura/ 1st June 20212nd June 2021/ Good News Stories, In Your Community

By Sam Dixon, Community Organiser

Easter was around the corner and our project wanted a fun activity for families to engage with. We came up with the idea of having an Easter character joining the Rotherham Federation team, who would go out on an adventure during the Easter holidays.

We decided that the first part of our project would be a design competition, young people were given the incentive of receiving a free prize for submitting a design to us. We had 19 entries for our design competition.

Swinton Mobile Farm Visit

Laura/ 21st April 202121st April 2021/ Good News Stories, In Your Community, Swinton and Rockingham

Rotherfed worked with Councillor Wyatt, Councillor Sansome and Brookfield Junior Academy in Swinton to fund a Mobile Farm Visit, which was provided by Ian’s Mobile Farm (www.iansfarm.com). The aim was to provide a fun activity in what has been a difficult year for the pupils.

Lauren Moore, the Inclusion Manager at the school said ‘I just wanted to write to say a huge thank you on behalf of the whole Brookfield Junior Academy family – staff, pupils and their families for funding the mobile farm visit. The mobile farm visit yesterday and was a huge success. Thank you for making happy memories and experiences for our pupils.’

Laptops For Kids

Laura/ 31st March 202131st August 2023/ Good News Stories, In Your Community

By Sam Dixon, Community Organiser

As I started in my new role for RotherFed, we got instantly put back into lockdown as a country. Schools were closed and children were yet again unable to access their education. On the national media I noticed that there was a push starting to close the digital divide for families. Learning was quickly becoming an online entity and some of the most vulnerable families lacked the resources for their young people.

I knew that action needed to be taken, and that it had to happen quickly. I contacted Sheffield based charity Laptops for Kids who were already engaged with Learn Sheffield. Working together they were in the process of taking donations of devices and distributing them to schools who could get them those who needed them most. Part of their remit was initially to extend their support to all parts of South Yorkshire, so I arranged, with the support of Rob, a meeting to discuss how we could start working together.

Mindfulness and Health & Wellbeing

Laura/ 31st March 202131st March 2021/ Community Events, Good News Stories, In Your Community, Thurcroft and Wickersley South

By Rachel Cole, Projects Officer

The last 11 months have been very different and difficult for many people and for different reasons. The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting economic recession have negatively affected many people’s mental health and created new barriers for people already suffering from mental illness. To try and help Thurcroft investigated doing something to help towards mindfulness and health & wellbeing.

Jo Workman

Laura/ 31st March 202131st March 2021/ Good News Stories, In Your Community, Wickersley North

By Rob Gooding, Community Organiser

Rob nominated Jo for the volunteer of the month award in Wickersley Ward in December 2020.

This is a project run by RMBC staff and local councillors Jo is has run the local SEND youth club for children with additional needs for the last two years and was looking to expand this to other areas of Rotherham until Covid struck.

The Great RotherFed Pancake Off

Laura/ 31st March 20215th June 2023/ Community Events, Good News Stories, In Your Community

By Dan Barron, Community Organiser

For Pancake Day 2021 Rotherfed decided to create we decided to create a “flipping fun” competition for our communities in order to help keep families engaged and entertained during lockdown. The event managed to engage with over 126 unique members of the communities over the events duration. The competition awarded a winner for each category that was voted by the
Rotherfed Good news online community. So let’s go through the winners!

Zoom Santa

Laura/ 9th February 20219th February 2021/ Community Events, Good News Stories, In Your Community

By Rob Gooding, Community Organiser

The project began when Winston contacted RotherFed saying he wanted to make the community feel better at Christmas. This was because of the pandemic and children would not get to see Santa Claus at the local amenities and festive attractions due to the COVID restrictions at the time. So we worked with Winston to create a Santa Grotto Online that would be free for all families to enjoy. We sourced Santa a fancy new red suit for the occasion and supported him to catch up on his IT skills. This is because Santa was okay at using technology but needed some support from RotherFed to adapt to the task at hand.

The project had adhered to strict safeguarding procedures and we worked with Winston to ensure that these were followed throughout the 3-day project. We were pleased that there was no incident where the procedures had been broken throughout. Winston’s performance as Santa Claus was great and he really enjoyed playing the part. He was very enthusiastic on each call and he just pleased that he had been able to make some families happy by seeing Santa Claus before Christmas.

This was Winston’s second Christmas event with RotherFed and will probably not be the last. Overall the event managed to engage with 46 individuals in total across East Dene, Dinnington and East Herringthorpe. Most of the community members who participated in the event were all new engagements for the area. The event managed to engage with 12 people from the East Dene area, 21 from Dinnington and 13 from East Herringthorpe. Families enjoyed the online experience and had thanked Santa and his helpful elves for a Christmassy event when Christmas didn’t feel quite the same. A massive thanks to Winston and all his enthusiasm to cheer up his community.

Sheila From Swinton Crafty Ladies

Laura/ 9th February 20215th June 2023/ Good News Stories, In Your Community, Swinton and Rockingham

Shelia has been involved with Rotherham Federation for many years now and although I have heard Shelia mentioned in passing until recently, I have not had any direct contact with her. Since moving to the North of the Borough at the end of October 2020 I have spoken to Shelia on many occasions and have now got to know her much better.

Shelia is a very active member and volunteer who is part of both Swinton Community Focus group and Crafty Ladies. She does a great deal for others despite sometimes suffering with her own health. Shelia has just re-engaged with the Housing Involvement Panel meetings and has expressed an interest in becoming involved in the Housing Hubs and with coffee mornings.

During the summer months of lockdown Shelia started chair aerobics outside in the street for people to join in with her, this was very successful, and everyone enjoyed it. Shelia is now working with Active Dearne to deliver the chair aerobics online. RMBC are running a piece on wellness in the next edition of Home Matters and Shelia will feature in this.

Swinton Community Focus Group ran a Christmas Give A Gift for the underprivileged children in the area and not only were they overwhelmed by gifts, they also received over £1000 in donations. As all this money wasn’t used, they will now do a Easter egg hunt at Easter and purchase Easter eggs with the leftover money to give out as prizes.

Shelia also has weekly contact with other members of both groups where they do crafts/play games etc online, making sure everyone is well and keeping in touch with each other where possible.

I am looking forward to working more closely with Shelia and getting involved in her area, especially when the lockdown has eased more.