FREE TRAINING – Defibrillator & Emergency First Aid

When – 7pm – 9.30pm, Wednesday 15th November at Acland Memorial Hall, Cold Ash
Does your community have a defibrillator? Would you know how to use it in an emergency? If you don’t have one in your village, have you considered having one – either by fundraising as a community to buy one or obtaining a grant from the British Heart Foundation?

All these questions will be answered at the Community Council for Berkshire (CCB) training event. The meeting will be run by Heartstart Thatcham and will include a practical demonstration of how to use defibrillators. This training is FREE to attend and light refreshments will be provided.

Access to rural areas can be time consuming for community first responders and emergency services, particularly if the weather is bad, so the knowledge of local people could save a life! The meeting is being funded by Adult Community Learning West Berkshire Council. If you would like to attend, please book a place by completing this form: https://ccberks.wufoo.eu/forms/defibrillator-and-emergency-first-aid-training/ or for further details please e-mail wendy.dacey@ccberks.org.uk


NEW TRAINING – Marketing Your Village Hall

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When: 7.30 – 9.30pm Wednesday 18th October @ Padworth Village Hall

This training is mainly aimed at volunteers that run village halls or community buildings and will be focusing on how to successfully market these community hubs. The training may also be useful for those involved with running community groups or events as well.

The training is being provided by Sara Charlesworth, CCB Trustee and marketing expert. Sara is ‘an entrepreneur with boundless enthusiasm to help others to start, grow and market their businesses’, has a strong track record of mentoring and advising new business owners and is an Enterprise Mentor at the Prince’s Trust. It will focus particularly on how community buildings and village halls can market themselves successfully to be used regularly and become key community hubs.

Training is FREE to attend for CBAS/CCB members and £10 for non members. Places are limited and booked on a first come, first served basis. Training is supported by Adult & Community Learning West Berkshire Council.

To book your place please please click here:https://ccberks.wufoo.eu/forms/marketing-your-village-hall-workshop/ or contact wendy.dacey@ccberks.org.uk

This is a repeat of the session we held in June at Tidmarsh, feedback from that workshop included:

‘An excellent speaker who knew her subject and was very engaging.’

‘Hands on and interactive approach for the delegates.’

‘Good ideas to increase hall hire potential.


New funding for woodlands – biodiversity in Berkshire & Oxfordshire

In 2014, Network Rail Infrastructure Projects committed to a “measurable net positive contribution towards biodiversity in the UK”. The Greater West Programme pledged to be a pilot project to put this principle into practice by compensating for the unavoidable loss of habitats (mainly young semi-natural woodland and some scrub) that has occurred during the electrification programme.

TOE2 is working with Network Rail around the delivery of No Net Loss (NNL) funding in Oxfordshire and Berkshire.  The funding is to be spent on creating or enhancing similar wildlife habitats in the locality, a process known as biodiversity offsetting.  This is a voluntary commitment by Network Rail, not bound to any planning obligations or client requirements.

Trust for Oxfordshire (TOE2) are looking to create new woodland, provide better links between woodlands, and to enhance existing woodland and scrub mosaic, though other habitats could be considered (ancient woodland is not eligible). They believe this is a great opportunity to make a significant difference for wildlife.  They are particularly interested in supporting landscape scale projects and collaborative working where local organisations come together to create larger projects.

Parish councils, local charities and not-for-profit organisations, local authorities and landowners are all eligible to apply. The programme is to be delivered over a four-year period. Stage 1 applications for outline project proposals can be received at any time

If this of interest to you please visit the TOE2 website (www.trustforoxfordshire.org.uk) for more details of how we intend to operate the funding programme. If you would like to register your interest in the programme, please contact Lynn Parker on admin@trustforoxfordshire.org.uk or 01865 407003.


Grow your tenner – 2017

Localgiving’s Grow Your Tenner, will kick off on Tuesday 17th October at 10am and run until the match funding runs out (or midday on Thursday 16th November – whichever comes first).

This is the sixth consecutive year of Grow Your Tenner – the campaign that turns your tenners into twenties.

  • Since 2012 Grow Your Tenner has raised over £6 million for local charities and community groups across the UK over the last five years.
  • Grow Your Tenner 2016 raised over £1 million for more than 1,300 Localgiving members.

This year they have placed a special emphasis on monthly giving – our aim being to help local groups attract long term supporters. Regular donations are hugely important for small, local charities, helping them to stabilise their finances and plan for the future.
During Grow Your Tenner 2017 donors will be able to support their favourite Localgiving charity or community group in two ways:

  • Make a one-time donation and it will be matched up to £10.
  • Set up a monthly donation and after your first six donations, the following six donations will be matched up to £10.

https://localgiving.org/what-we-do/campaigns/grow-your-tenner

Courtesy of Slough CVS e-bulletin


Funding – Children’s Health Fund

chf_logo_480_60The Children’s Health Fund is inviting organisations that want to provide good food as part of holiday learning, play and activity programmes to apply for funding between £1,000 and £5,000. We expect funding applications at the higher end of our scale (£5,000) will be for projects looking to expand their work.

Deadline for submitting your online application is 5pm Friday 6th October 2017.
The Board will meet in November to decide which applications will receive funding. Awards will be announced in December.

Further information here:

http://www.childrenshealthfund.org.uk/grants/http://www.childrenshealthfund.org.uk/grants/