Kirkstall Community First Panel

Minutes of the meeting held on Monday 20th August 2012

Present: Steve Harris (Chair), Lucinda Yeadon, Stephen Rennie, Simon Dawson, John Preston

Apologies: Ken Stratford

Chair's Welcome: Steve Harris welcomed members to the meeting and passed out copies of the agenda.

Minutes of previous meeting: Minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 13th March 2012 were agreed as a true record of proceedings.

Matters Arising from the Minutes: There were no matters arising from the minutes not covered by the agenda.

Declarations of interest: Lucinda Yeadon reported an interest as a trustee of Voluntary Action Leeds.

Area Plan and Local Priorities: By March 2013 we needed to have developed a community plan with evidence that this had been consulted upon widely in the locality. SR would provide a copy of the community profile being developed at Hawksworth Wood and would circulate the community plan developed for the Warwick Estate in Knottingley. Both of these related to Big Local projects and were therefore more extensive than our needs, but did offer appropriate frameworks. The Vision document would inform our work, although we would need to add substantially to it as it concentrated on planning issues (SR).

The plan would have to demonstrate community involvement and we would start this by circulating a proposed expanded priorities set to local organisations for comment. We had at least five TRAs, five primary school governing bodies, five school councils, Scouts, Cubs, Beavers, Guides, Brownies, Rainbows and a wide variety of sports groups we could identify initially. We would liaise with Susan May and Stuart Byrne of the Area Management Team to identify more (LY).

We would contact all the other community first groups in Leeds to ask how they were doing and we would post our work on the Web in a form that allowed immediate comment (SD).

We already had a Web page and a Facebook page and would use these more substantially to advertise opportunities for funding and get feedback on projects and priorities. We had used Kirkstall Matters to advertise the project initially.

It was noted that Asda was a corporate partner in the funding and the local shop would be contacted.

Monitoring and Outcomes: CDF's monitoring was done by an online form. We would draw the attention of grant recipients to this and ask for a brief report including pictures if possible from them. These would be posted on our Web site. SH would maintain a spreadsheet of grants made and dates by which projects should have completed.

This year's funding ran to 31st March 2013. We would set interim submission dates of 31st October and 31st January. The total available was £17k.

Grant Decisions:

Volunteer Centre Leeds. The proposal was very general, it did not identify any specific projects, organisations or venues in the Ward from which it would operate.

It was agreed to write to this applicant stressing the local nature of this funding and suggesting they make local contacts to develop the proposal before submission.

Leeds Ahead: The proposal was very general, it did not identify any specific projects, organisations or venues in the Ward from which it would operate.

It was agreed to write to this applicant stressing the local nature of this funding and suggesting they make local contacts to develop the proposal before submission.

The proposed costing of the agency's own time was very high and there was no indication of separation of this proposal from the agency's core business.

Burley Model Allotments: It was noted that there were 102 hours proposed, not 28 as on the form. The grant was approved at the £1,395 requested.

Hawksworth Wood Family Trees: There were a number of anomalies in relation to this proposal that needed to be resolved. It was agreed that JP would contact Doug Louis to discuss how these might be resolved. The core project was a good one.

Kirkstall Harriers: It was agreed to award £1000 for new and extended work, eg the engagement of schools, Scouts and others to involve more young people.

Too Many Cooks: This was a thoroughly good project, but there was no indication that it had or could attract young people from Kirkstall. A similar project delivered in the Ward might well attract support.