Durham Community News August 2023

Durham Community News August 2023

Congratulations to Aspire on their County Durham Volunteer Kitemark renewal!

Aspire provides award winning women’s services across the North East of England, and offers all women a welcoming and safe space to learn, socialise and gain confidence. They deliver courses, support and wellbeing services both online and from their women-only centre in Chester-le-Street.

Achievement of the County Durham Volunteering Kitemark renewal demonstrates that Aspire has once again met standards to overcome barriers to volunteering, and recognises the value of recruiting and retaining volunteers, as set out by Durham Community Action.

The Kite Mark shows an organisation manages a volunteering programme where volunteers receive a high quality, positive volunteering experience. It will support volunteers to make informed choices when they apply to volunteer, and they can be reassured that Aspire have the correct policies and processes in place to offer a rewarding and positive experience.

Hannah Foster, Volunteering Coordinator at Durham Community Action said:

'It was a pleasure to work with Aspire on the Volunteer Kitemark renewal. Aspire have proved to be an organisation which value its volunteers and have gone above and beyond to ensure that volunteering is accessible and welcoming to all.'

Val Kilner, Volunteer and Support Services Coordinator at Aspire said:

'We are thrilled to have been awarded the Kitemark for the second time. We work closely with our volunteers, as its important to Aspire to ensure they all feel valued, supported and involved in everything we do. The Kitemark recognises our commitment to our volunteering programme.'

You can find out more about the County Durham Volunteer Kitemark here

Sign up for our next series of Community Development Workshops

Our regular series of fully funded Community Development Workshops will restart in September after the summer break.

These online workshops are based on topics we regularly receive enquiries about, and cover a range of issues including governance, safeguarding, health and safety, becoming 'greener', completing funding applications and volunteer management.

Visit our Training page

Knowledge for Change Workshop: The Value of Community Involvement with Research 21st September

Members of communities and community organisations hold a wealth of knowledge about their local areas, their assets and needs, and shared issues and problems. This isn’t always recognised and used. How can communities be more actively involved in setting research agendas, contributing their experiences, collecting relevant information and influencing positive changes in policy and practice?

In this workshop, which takes place on Thursday 21st September from 10.00am - 1.30pm at TCR Hub, Barnard Castle, we will explore different ways voluntary, community and social enterprise sector organisations and their members are and can be involved in research on topics that matter to them – from local bus services to young people’s mental health or the climate crisis.

Find out more and book your place

Date for the Diary - Community Growing and Food Network Meeting 26th September

The next meeting of this network will be an in person event on Tuesday 26^th September from 1.30-3.00pm at Blackhill and Consett Park Community Garden.

We will be doing practical activities in the community garden, learning some new skills and spending time making connections and networking with other organisations.

Look out for further information coming soon!

Recycle2Work Scheme Success

Wheels2Work County Durham is continuing the great success of the Recycle2Work scheme that saw 40 County Durham residents earlier in the year being allocated bicycles as a personal form of transport to get them to and from work.

Further support secured from the County Durham Community Foundation Household Support and Poverty Hurts programmes, has enabled the Chester-Le-Street based charity to purchase a further 70 bicycles which has been increased by a further 10 to 80 through the kindness of Halfords.

Wheels2Work County Durham Project Manager, Liam Weatherill said.

'I went to visit one of our service-users, Ihor Zaiats, at his new place of work ‘Bristol Laboratories’ in Peterlee. Ihor was a Senior Electrical Power specialist in Ukraine prior to the troubles in his country and has moved to the UK with his family. He is delighted with his new bicycle, which will provide a much speedier transit than walking from Easington Colliery to and from the outskirts of Shotton across the shift patterns. On his recommendation, one of his colleagues, and countrymen, has joined the scheme and received their bicycle too - taking the number of bicycles allocated since the beginning of August into double figures.'

The Recycle2Work scheme is available to County Durham residents who struggle to get to work because of affordability issues or a lack of alternative travel solutions. Please visit www.w2wcd.org.uk to apply or for more details.

Amazon in the Community

Amazon employs over 1,000 permanent staff, and a further 1,000 seasonal workers, at their MME2 site on the Integral 61 industrial estate site in Bowburn (MME2 is an Amazon site allocation code taken from the nearest airport – Teesside). Following their opening in November 2020, they offered support to local community projects by providing employee volunteering opportunities for the benefit of community groups and charities through their ‘Donation of Hours’ Project.

This project is a pledge to the local community that Amazon employees will volunteer and donate a certain amount of each month to support the community. Examples of the local engagement includes: Durham Foodbank (pictured, and for which they were awarded the “Winskill” Award for Outstanding Corporate Volunteering), Primary School in-class support, Litter-Picking and a range of other interventions that have seen over 8,000 donated items worth over £5,000 given to local groups and charities for the benefit of local communities.

Additionally, Amazon MME2 will be offering charities and community groups that provide support to communities within 15 miles of the Bowburn site, the opportunity to secure £1,500 of funding to help meet local needs. This support will be offered to a different charitable group each month.

For further details of how to engage with Amazon MME2 for their support through their ‘Donation of Hours’ project or to secure a £1,500 donation to support your activities and services please contact Nathan: nathahob@amazon.co.uk

Funding Updates

Durham Community Action Funding Guides

We have produced two guides as introductions to funders who may be able to support your needs and the needs of those you are supporting through your work.

One guide focuses on general funding and the other on funders who specialise in capital investment.

Visit our Funding Advice and Support page

Community Organisations Cost of Living Fund

A £76 million Community Organisations Cost of Living Fund has been launched for organisations delivering critical cost of living services.

Applications can be for £10,00 to £75,000 to maintain or expand services focusing on provision of critical support such as food, emergency supplies, shelter, warm and safe spaces and financial advice. This is an England-wide fund and is likely to be in high demand. Applications close on 16^th October - find out more here

NCVO are running a special free webinar to help you learn more about the fund - it takes place on Wednesday 30th August from 2.00 - 3.00pm. Book your place here

Environmental Training Bursaries available

The final round for applications to Become Green Together is open until 30th September. Based on the size of your organisation, they can subsidise the training costs for you to take part, with discounts of up to 75% off.

To help tackle financial barriers to participating in the programme, they are also offering bursaries to cover the remaining cost of training. Through County Durham Community Foundation, 30 bursaries are available for small and medium-sized VCSE organisations in County Durham.

To enquire about a bursary, email the Project Coordinator, Nathaniel Spain, at nathaniel.spain@vonne.org.uk expressing your interest. Bursaries are available one a first-come-first-served basis.

HMRC Voluntary and Community Sector Grant Funding Programme - Digital Inclusion

HMRC is looking for Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations to support them in helping customers they currently find hardest to reach, who cannot or will not interact directly with them or need extra support in doing so.

It has secured £5.5 million for a three-year programme from April 2024 to March 2027 (£1.835 million per year), to fund VCS organisations to help them provide advice and support to customers who need extra help in understanding and complying with their tax obligations and claiming their entitlements, including those who are digitally excluded.

HMRC is inviting bids for funding of between £30,000 and £600,000 per year, with a maximum threshold set at 50% of your organisation’s turnover (last audited accounts). The application window closes at 11.59 pm on Monday 21 August.

Further information can be found on HMRC’s website here

County Durham Community Foundation Household Support Fund

Does your community group support people impacted by the rising costs of food, energy and other living expenses? Funding is available from the Household Support Fund to help households with food, energy, white goods and other necessities.

Interested in how other organisations are distributing support? Join CDCF's information session on Wednesday 6^th September, 10.00-11.00am. East Durham Trust, Durham County Carers and others will share the processes they use to manage the funding. We will also look at how organisations are preparing to support communities next winter. Sign up to receive the Zoom Link

If you’d like to discuss how your organisation could distribute funding, to check your organisation’s eligibility, please email Naomi to arrange a phone call – naomi@cdcf.org.uk

Full fund details and the application link is available here

News Highlights from across the sector

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