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Throughout the cost-of-living crisis everyone is now enduring higher costs throughout the country. Casting Innovations is a social enterprise based in Canklow, their remit is to use recycled properties to create pieces of art.

“We offer a fun casual creative space to learn new forms of craft. We have a regular attendance of residents visiting Casting Innovations to learn Polymer clay crafting, painting, mould casting, sewing, and crocheting. Promoting education around recycling, discovery of crafts and creating an outlet for positive mental health are core of everything we do.”

“We have up to 12 volunteers who support us to deliver our services by: helping with casting moulds, maintaining the property, and helping our visitors, crafters, Canklow’s community projects. We are heavily reliant on the volunteers who support Casting Innovations to deliver our services.”

Casting Innovations was forced to reduce its community engagement offering to 3 days out of 5 due to raising running costs. We worked with Lee to create a CLF funding application that would support them to upgrade their lighting and reduce their bills. Lee’s applications was successful, and he managed to secure funding to replace the lights.

“The impact that the lights had are immediate and estimates that the bulbs will save the social enterprise £500 per year. Although the venue won’t be able to open straight away this has brought our plans forward to be able to do so. The funding will also benefit our workshops as the energy efficient lighting has been selected specifically for the workstations so residents can work in an effective environment. It also supports our long-term aim to become a green organisation.”

The instalments also means that the venue now requires less bulbs due to the modern LED technology have higher lumens and a smaller energy output. Lee has expressed that it has taken some of financial pressure off their shoulders. It means that we don’t have to worry about bills and relieves a stress on the organization which can focus on engaging with the community.

Energy Know How received a call from Derek (group organiser) at the end of October 2022. He had been speaking to someone he knows that had attended (or had connections to) the dementia cafes in Rotherham. They had mentioned that we had given information about energy help schemes and access to free draught proofing and he wanted to know if it was possible to talk to his group of pensioners who were all football fans.

He explained they meet on Mondays at Brentwood hotel to discuss the weeks football, and that there are around 25 of them. Derek suggested talking to the group as a whole which I agreed to but then offered to go around afterwards to check whether anyone had any questions they did not want to ask in front of everyone. Sharon agreed they would attend on 7th November.

Noor and Sharon attended. After the group had discussed the weeks games and analysed their team’s performance, they joined them. They explained the help schemes that are currently available to help people with the current energy crisis, they discussed ways to save energy including having smart meters and energy saving tips. They also explained about the greendoctor service.

The group were very engaging and asked lots of questions, this was the most in-depth and engaging group that they had visited so far and almost everyone had something to add or a question to ask. It was fantastic to have such detailed conversations with a group of gentlemen who would ordinarily have only discussed football.

Several of the attendees requested visits from the greendoctor service for draught proofing measures and all attendees were offered a print of the help schemes to take away for reference or to share with friends and family.

Over the last year the group have formed a small gardening group that maintain the communal garden at Peregrine Way Neighbourhood Centre, Through the summer the group have worked to bring the space back to life, installing new fence panels, rebuilding the raised beds, and planting a wide range of new plants, but this isn’t the end of the groups plans for the space. The group took part in the Harthill Garden trail through the summer, to highlight their hard work

The group decided they would enhance the garden by getting a greenhouse so they can grow their own plants for the centres many pots and raised beds this will also allow them to enjoy the garden in the colder months while still making the centre brighter and more inviting to residents. The group held a Christmas Fair this month with craft stalls and raffles that have raised the money they needed for the greenhouse and are now looking forward to it being installed early next year ready to start growing next year’s plants.

Not wanting to stop there, the group applied for funding for a memorial bench to commemorate lost members this is intended to be a quiet space where the group will be planting bright flowers all year round, I’m pleased to say they were successful in this and the benches have now been installed and the future is looking sunny for the group moving into the new year.

One of the main outcomes for the first year of Heart of the Community was to record the communities’ little acts of kindness. We have pledge cards that we ask community members to fill out telling us about something they have done or are going to do to help others in their neighbourhoods. From the small act like telling a neighbour when the bins go out to Volunteering for local community groups, it all counts.

We have found the Roadshows to be a good engagement tool to get people talking and thinking about the positive things that are happening locally. Our experience has been that generally people don’t think about the small things they do for others and the positive impact it has.

When out on our Roadshows we always said that we would hold an event to celebrate the small acts of kindness in the community and give back to those who are supporting their community. We held the volunteer’s celebration event on the 8th of December and invited all the people who had engaged with the heart of the community project. For the event we had created a slideshow of pledge cards to show examples of all of the different acts of kindness had people do every day. We also created a display board on the wall of the hall for everyone to have a look at.
The event saw 25 people attend the event. We provided a buffet and refreshments for our volunteers and had Christmas songs playing to get everyone into the Christmas spirit and have a sing along.

We drew a raffle on the day with 2 winners. The first was a £50 voucher of their choice for those who had left us a contact detail on a pledge card and a £20 voucher of their choice for anyone attending on the day. Additionally, Rotherfed’s Volunteers for friendship calls held a prize draw for a huge Christmas hamper filled essential food supplies and a few treats.

Winners of raffles on the day were Thomas, Rhea B and Donna (Friendship Calls Hamper prize)

The event was well received by the volunteers

“it’s been lovely today; I’ve really enjoyed it”

“I think it’s a nice gesture”

December saw a handful of events take place within our communities seeing residents and partners coming together to festive events to get into the Christmas spirit. Our communities had 56 residents total attend a Christmas tree decorating, Christmas coffee mornings and residents Christmas Celebration.

The first event was the Oates Close Community centre Christmas Tree decoration event. Heart of the Community supported RMBC with this event to decorate a Christmas tree that has been planted outside of the Oates close community centre. The tree will grow bigger and bigger each year and will hopefully become a great feature of the estate for future Christmas events to come. Residents came together to write their own messages on baubles and decorated them with glitter and pens. We then decorated the tree with all the baubles that had messages on for the community at the end of the event.  Hot chocolates with cream and marshmallows, mince pies and other hot drinks were available for everyone taking part which went down a treat. We asked the children what they absolutely loved decorating the baubles, colouring them in and using the glue and glitter to make the colourful.

Continue reading “Heart of the Community Christmas Events”

The firework display took place on Saturday 5 November, and this was a fantastic event with over 2500 attending.  As well as the spectacular firework display, there were children’s rides, catering stalls and a disco.  Everyone who attended said how much they had enjoyed it and how good the fireworks were.  Over £1000 was raised on the evening through a raffle, donations from the children’s rides and the fireworks.  This money will go towards 2023’s display which has already been booked for Saturday 4 November. 

Josef attended the Energy Know How Clifton Learning Partnership drop-in session. Lynn enquired whether the client had received his £66 government prepayment meter voucher from his energy provider. The client confirmed that he had tried to cash it in at the post office however his name was spelt incorrect on his voucher and the post office would not redeem the voucher. The client did not speak good English and got frustrated on the phone trying to speak to people. The client had his electricity bill and Lynn offered to contact British Gas to try and help him sort it out. British Gas were happy to speak to her with the clients consent and she managed to log the client’s problem with them. She arranged a further telephone appointment with the client and British Gas requesting an interpreter to help with communication. She also informed verbally and in writing what the client would need to have to hand when British Gas called. The client was very happy with the assistance offered and relieved that this issue would be resolved to enable him to cash his vouchers. The client thanked Lynn for the help offered.

Following the Energy Know How presentation to a group of senior citizens at Whiston parish hall, Stanley asked if they could help him. He has his energy supplied by Scottish Power and in April 2022 they increased his direct debit to £380 which he managed to pay but it was a struggle – he knew this was far too much and tried to get them to reduce it but several times they said they had worked it out on his previous usage.

Eventually they agreed to lower his payment to £232.00 which he is still paying and from Oct-Mar will get the £66 refund due to the government £400 grant to households – he is, however in credit by £790.00 following his latest bill which shows he is still paying more than he has used. On this basis his credit balance will continue to grow.

He has attempted on several occasions to contact Scottish Power as their website says he can have his credit balance back; however, they use automated chat bots which do not take him to where he wants to be, and he has not had any response to call back requests or emails. Sharon discussed with him the process of how he can make a formal complaint and gave him the email address for the CEO of Scottish Power – Kevin Anderson. They discussed what he needed to include, and she gave him guidance on how to draft his email considering he has had multiple customer service failures from them, and he should be due to a minimum of £90/£120 compensation. They also discussed ways to save energy including using a slow cooker and having radiator foils/led lightbulbs. With this in mind, he requested a green doctor visit. His wife is partially sighted, and both are in their 80’s.

He was very appreciative of the help and advice he was given and will make the complaint to Scottish Power.