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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.

The residents of Bevan Crescent community group have created community activities for over a decade. The group have a communal garden that is well maintained, they have held many fundraising events for the group and other causes including clothing and food donations to charity. It is fair to say that the residents of Bevan are very community focused and have successful kept the group running. Unfortunately, the longest serving committee member announced they were stepping down after 10 years of volunteering. Although the community were shocked at first having an experience committee member stepdown from a leading role. However, the residents have now stepped up to take leading roles.

The group reached out to its members and wider community for support in creating a new committee. RotherFed attended a session during a coffee morning with the group, the members talked about roles and responsibilities that committee members would have to take on. It was decided they would like to continue to run the activities the previous committee ran. After members had taken on the responsibility of running the sessions and settled into their positions, the group have now signed a constitution and are officially a constituted committee and are in the process of opening a bank account with a view of applying for funding.

The future looks bright for Bevan Crescent, after losing a valuable member of their committee they have rallied community member who are ready to take the group to the next level.

In the Dalton area of Rotherham there is a large housing development, creating a combination of new affordable housing for private owners and social housing. Part of the Corporate responsibility of the two firms involved is to ensure that their staff are required to get involved in social action locally. The firms have chosen to organize litter picks around the site to give them a visible presence within the community. They have asked the Heart of the Community project to support the work as we can link them in with local services to promote their work as well as linking them to the community groups that are already active in the area.

All levels of employees are expected to take as part of their contract from management right down to construction. The people from the team that we have met so far have been surprised at how rewarding the simple task of litter picking has been and some have even described how addictive it can be and “make you want to make sure everything that you can see has been removed.”

Continue reading “Litter Picking with Equans and Sanctuary Housing”