You may remember we mentioned the NatWest Community Force last week when we highlighted the appeal by Sandown and Shanklin Independent Lifeboat.
There are, in fact, many charities/ organisations hoping to be awarded £6,000 each by the NatWest fund and we thought it would be useful to highlight them here to make it easier for you to see who is looking for help.
You can search for all the appeals on the Island by visiting the dedicated NatWest Community Force Website.
Once you’ve registered to vote, you have three votes that you can give to the various appeals running across the Island.
Freshwater
Lantern Retreat/Seahorses: Assisting Adults with Learning Disabilities, Holiday -makers and local Residents alike, with Art & Craft training and connected projects within a creative Studio environment.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
Art material is very expensive! the Studio facility tries to have a wide variety of resources such as silk-painting, mosaics, acrylics, watercolours etc etc. Apart from art material replacements,we would very much like to purchase a glass fusing kiln which would be available to be used by as many people as possible.
Yarmouth
Saturday Club for Deaf Children: The Saturday Club is a thriving club for Isle of Wight deaf children and our main focus is to give these children life experiences that will help to build their self confidence and develop their communication skills
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
Our mini bus is central to the activities of the club and is in constant use. We would welcome financial support with the cost of the road tax, insurance and fuel (approximately £2,000 pa) and ferry fares for the bus and club members (approximately £1,000 pa)
Newport
The Brookside Garden Trust: The Trust has been donated a second plot of land for the provision of allotment gardens in the village of Niton and the surrounding area. Funding is required for a mechanical digger to clear the site.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
To finance site clearance and the setting up of the gardens. Only a small grant is requested
1st Wootton Scout Group: Part of the modernisation / renovation project we need a complete new kitchen to meet food hygiene regulations.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The award will be used to strip out the old kitchen, enlarge the room and fit the new units.
Newport
Independent Arts: SingAbout is a social singing project for older people. It’s based on a recognised music therapy and helps to improve memory, breathing, movement, speech and confidence. SingAbout enables older people to socialise and improve their quality of life.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
A Community Force award would enable us to start another club, providing a regular weekly activity for up to 40 older people for a year. Our project is extremely cost effective and is supported by a team of fantastic community volunteers. Our costs are for premises hire, the fees for a trained instructor, musical instruments and volunteer training in Dementia Awareness. We fundraise to ensure that the sessions can be offered completely free of charge to participants. Everyone is welcome!
Newport
Friends of Beaulieu House: Friends of Beaulieu House raise funds for a repsite centre for children with severe learning disabilities and complex health needs, some of which are life limiting. The respite centre provides essential help to many families on the island.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The £6000 would be a great start to us raising enough money to fund a bed for a year – something we want to be able to do on an ongoing basis. This would provide much needed respite to many more families and would reduce our waiting list.
Newport
Revive Newport: Revive is a cross-church organisation which runs practical projects that build community, meet people’s needs and help people enjoy life more.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The funding would be used to support the continuation of our project work, in particular helping the expansion of our Needs and Seeds project to provide additional support in areas such as decorating, house clearances and cleaning. These are areas where people have significant needs that the project has uncovered, but we are currently unable to meet them without increasing our ability to support the project.
Newport
Isle of Wight Citizens Advice Bureau: We will provide learning sessions for adults to develop their financial competency and skills to avoid financial crisis and debt. The free service will be accessible to all Island residents and will enable them to make informed financial choices
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
Funding will cover; Direct costs – Salaries including on costs (NI & Pension) 350 hours of learning for 50 people @£11.37 an hour = £3980.00 Travel & Subsistence – 8 sessions @ £30 per session= £240.00 Indirect costs – Premises & Office (rent, utilities, insurance, subscriptions etc)£270 Central function costs (Management, admin support, IT, HR) £1180 Governance & strategic costs (Partnership meetings, audit, legal fees, trustee expenses) £180.00 Marketing & Promotion £150 Total: £6,000
Cowes
The Isle of Wight Foodbank: The foodbank collects non perishable food from churches and supermarkets and distributes it to families in crisis.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
£6,000 would be assist us in our core costs and go towards funding the purchase and running costs of a van which will be used to collect and deliver food around the the Island. (We currently rely on use of volunteers cars.)
Cowes
2nd Cowes (St Mary’s) Sea Scouts: We are the largest scout group on the Isle of Wight with 100 youngsters currently attending regularly. Our scout headquarters is beginning to show its age & in need of repairs. If lucky enough to secure these funds we could change our heavily leaking hall.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The funds would be used to upgrade our scout hall which is becoming older & in need of repair. Specifically we could renew the remaining windows.
Cowes
UKSA: Working with young people to increase their personal development and life skills through on-the-water adventure. Individuals get the confidence to engage with local clubs/activities and build positive relationships with their school/local services.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The funding would allow 6 young people to benefit from being on the project. This includes access to their mentors, 8 after school activity sessions at UKSA, a residential week at UKSA and an end of project awards ceremony. The community mentors will also take part in the activity sessions. Activities include dinghy sailing, kayaking, keelboating, raft building and land-based games all with UKSA professional instructors.
East Cowes
L+J’s Dance Factory -Freestyle and hip-hop dance school: We teach freestyle and hip-hop(street) dance to children from 3yrs upwards, for fun and fitness and for competition. We are self funding and run by volunteers in order that we are accessible to all.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
We would share some of the money between travel costs and hall hire, our biggest expenses, which would mean we could take many more dancers to these events around the UK. Just having the financial sercurity would give us the breathing space we need to plan the next 12 months. It would be nice to be able to afford to have some professional visit our school to give extra classes.
East Cowes
The Pavilion East Cowes CIC: A place for young people to do positive activities and have fun so as to become responsible, employable adults
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
Install and refurbish a donated portakabin for use as a gym with a quiet room. We could then open up the gym for evening use for more local people, we can’t do this now because of child protection issues with access through the main builidng. Quiet room would be for older members to do job applications, CVs and for one to one support from youth workers.
East Cowes
Community Spirited: A weekly club for adults who live with learning/physical disabilities in the East Cowes area from 3 different local homes and from the wider community. A place to socialise with their friends and join in with planned activities with a free raffle.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
We would like to take our social clubs around the island – investing in different activities so we can help older people with dementia and those that are younger who may be expereincing mental health problems. We would like to purchase IT equipment so we can show films and slide shows. Buy musical instruments because we can see the benefit music has on people.
Ryde
Play Lane Millennium Green Trust: To manage and maintain a green space on the edge of a town for the benefit of the local community and indigenous wildlife.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
Some of the money would be invested to ensure that when the present Trustees are too old to carry on, probably over the next ten years or so, the Trust will be on a sound finacial footing so that the obligatory £500 annual expenses of Public Liability insurance and wood maintenance, will be able to be met. Some money would be used to provide information boards of a sturdy, vandal resistant type so that Green users are aware of the different wildlife to be seen.
Ryde
Ryde East Community Association: Community Association that, amongst other things, runs a community centre in the heart of a recognised area of social deprivation.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The CommunityForce award will be spend on developing activities for young people in the area with a focus on encouraging children to take responsibility for their own community. They will make their own decisions, and structure their own youth club with supervision of staff and volunteers. We would also like to use some of the award to fill the gap in provision of very basic IT courses for adults to allow them to build on their skills base.
Ryde
Ryde Inshore Rescue: To save lives at sea through providing a 24hrs a day, 365 days a year voluntary lifeboat service and by being proactive and working within the local community to educate as many people as possible to reduce casualty numbers.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
This money would be spent on training and put towards ensuring all the volunteers are trained to the highest standards to ensure that they can respond to any emergency. A basic boating course costs in excess of £200 per volunteer and it is essential that they have this as well first aid, radio operators ticket, sea survival and the many other courses that are required to be a competent volunteer at the lifeboat unit that has expanded into much more than just dealing with incidents at sea.
There appear to be two in Bembridge, but we couldn’t access them
Sandown Bay
Sandown & Shanklin Independent Lifeboat: The Sandown and Shanklin independent Lifeboat is a voluntary community based front line emergency service, operating 24 hours a day,when the emergency call comes they unite to form a closed-knit and well-drilled team to provide invaluable aid.
How does your charity/project support the local community?
Being an island we have a large and interesting coastline which attracts the community and visitors to are shore and sea and quiet often people have accidents through no fault of their own, This is where we come in to take them away from harm’s way and treat them how necessary. We also visit schools and do talks promoting sea safety for all ages.
Shanklin
Age Concern – Shanklin Group: To renovate and refurbish the Independent Day Centre for elderly people in the Shanklin and Sandown Bay area, and to transform the small rear patio area into a place in which those attending can relax.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The centre is in need of refurbishment, and the award would be spent on a complete painting of the exterior of the building. The front elevation of brickwork to be pointed up.The redecoration of the internal areas which provide a weekday lunch area and a small activities area for such as whist and bingo. Purchase of new tables to replace the current dilapidated whist tables, which are also used for the lunches. Transform the small rear patio area
Shanklin
John’s Club Isle of Wight: John’s Club runs social activities and clubs for local teenagers and adults with learning and physical disabilities, our aim is to promote self-esteem, confidence, companionship and inclusion.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
Should we be successful we would spend the grant on insuring, maintaining and fuelling our mini-buses. Our buses are an essential part of our club. Without transport the majority of our members would not be able to come to club and subsequently would have no social interaction. The buses are also used to take members on outings and holidays. We also work closely with Age Concern on the island taking the elderly on trips and days out.
Ventnor
3rd Ventnor Cub Scout group: Our Scout hut is very old and the electrics and heating need replacing quite urgently. We currently have approx 40 children spread across the 3 sections but are looking to increase these numbers over the next year.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The Scout hut needs a complete re-wire and also the replacement of the gas heaters, our lights work intermittently and only 1 heater works. Any money awarded would be used to help complete this renovation work.
St Catherine’s: The Worx is a vocational training unit for young people with learning disabilities run by St Catherine’s. Based on an industrial estate, it provides a wide range of work-related learning programmes in order to help these young people gain employment.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
The CommunityForce award would be used to set up a vocational training programme for young adults with communication needs who live on the Isle of Wight. Young adults with communication difficulties struggle to find employment, e.g. only 15% of adults with autism are in full time employment. Our programme would provide young adults with an opportunity to develop skills and gain vocational qualifications in a range of disciplines with a view of securing employment/further education placements.
There appear to be two other appeals in the Ventnor area, but we couldn’t get into more detail.
Niton
The Edward Edwards Library: To take responsibility for the local library facility from the Isle of Wight Council and run the facility as a volunteer group.
What do you plan to use the CommunityForce award for?
To enable the library facility to be maintained for the community in the village.
