Wednesday 17 November 2010

7 projects benefit from your Big Ideas!

In July, Henbury and Brentry Community Council asked for your ideas about how to spend £25,000 on projects that would engage and inspire young people aged 11-14 in our area.

57 ideas were submitted either through the website www.bs10youridea.com or were posted in the ideas box in Henbury Library. The ideas ranged from building a new swimming pool to litter picking teams to clean up the local area! We always knew that there would be too many ideas put forward to put to the public vote so we arranged a short listing process which involved young people from the youth forum and senior members of the Henbury and Brentry Community Council. The short listing took place at the end of July. To get shortlisted the idea had to:

Be realistic and practical

Support young people in our area to be inspired

Be exciting and engaging (young people were on the short listing panel)

Help young people to build self confidence, get involved and do well at school

Take place from September 2010 to March 2011

Provide value for money

After much discussion we came up with a list of 19 ideas that we thought should be put to the public vote. We grouped the ideas together in packages that added up to £12,500 each. This meant that we would be asking members of the community to vote for two packages so that we could spend the whole £25,000.

Voting opened during August and ran for two weeks. In total there were 443 votes cast, either through our website, through the ballot box in Henbury Library or during the public meeting that was held on Saturday 4th September. Thanks to all of you who turned up to the meeting and to all of those people who made the voting such a success. We hope that everyone who wanted to vote was able to do so.

THE RESULTS The two winning projects were:

Get Modern – a project to provide funding to renovate and improve three youth venues in the area. Total grant £12,500 (£4166 for each venue).

To complete the final refurbishments to the Scout Hut Renovation, including hand rails for the access ramps, flooring, kitchen patio to the rear of the building, repainting the hall floor and providing new and improved kitchen equipment.

To fund the creation of a youth cafe at Emmanuel Chapel, providing furniture, paint and facilities for the youth group.

To provide equipment to the Youth Centre including a TV, new computers, gym equipment, a sofa and new kitchen equipment.

All of these projects will improve the facilities in the area and we hope that it will mean that more young people will take part in the activities that take place. All of the youth venues will be advertising their improvements in the next newsletter! The Get Modern idea received 33% of all votes cast and was the project with the most votes.

Get Creative – a project to provide creative opportunities for young people in the area.

- To fund a project to buy musical instruments and pay for tuition for as many young people as possible (£4,500).

- To provide funding for the Community Talent Show which will be put on by the Youth Forum in February next year (£2,500).

- To provide funding for the Henbury School Community Fun Day which will be run and organised by young people (£1,500)

- To pay for the street dance project and music project running at the Emmanuel Chapel for a year (£4,000)

These creative ideas will mean that a lot more young people can take part in inspiring and exciting projects. The Get Creative project received 28% of all votes cast and was the project with the second highest number of votes.

By the time the next HBCC newsletter goes to print many of these projects will have taken place or be about to happen. We look forward to sharing some exciting stories with you soon!

Henbury and Brentry Community Council

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