Christmas Update Continued

Following the West Marsh Forward November meeting it was agreed to put in a Community Action Against Crime funding bid to support the agreed work on tackling property crime in the area. The bid has passed the first stage and we are now waiting for a response from the Community Development Foundation and the Home Office to see if we are successful. In discussion with Cllr Billard if we are not successful with this bid we will pursue other avenues to see whether the money can be raised elsewhere.
I would like to point out that this is the first time that West Marsh Forward has put in a bid for more than £5000.00 in any financial year and if we are successful will mean that West Marsh Forward will need to seek Charity Status.
In terms of general community development there has been an increase in the number of Neighbourhood Watch groups in the Ward although some of them need more support to become fully operational.
Shortly after the meeting next month we will hold another meeting to finalise the Community Panel which will be put forward to guide the expenditure of the Communities First monies. If anyone knows of a likely candidate for the panel please let me know. We are looking for people from any background who have the interests of the community at heart. Please let me know.
The Fair Share Panel met at the beginning of December and the remainder of the money for community publications was allocated to CPO Media whose plan was accepted by the panel.
Just to confuse matters Jez O'Kane and myself have been working with people from The Fare Share Charity who are involved with the Goodwin Trust in Hull distributing food that is perfectly ok but would otherwise go to landfill. This food is to support community groups which are involved in feeding deprived and vulnerable groups in the community and to support community centres who offer food services to the wider community. I will post more information in the New Year when we have our first meeting of interested organisations.
Recently Matt Cridge from the Local Strategic Partnership has been working with myself and others to look at the West Marsh Ward becoming a pilot for community based budgetting. Again we will know the results of this in the New Year.
As a result of all of the above we are now in a position using Ward Councillor support to consider putting larger bids in to funding pots as they become available. The only qualification on this is that the bids will need long term community commitment and we need to talk seriously about how this will work.
That's all for now have a good Christmas and a brilliant New Year.