Since April 2022 we received funding via West Berkshire Council and Wokingham Borough Council Adult Community Learning teams to provide training that supports community groups and volunteer village hall trustees.

In West Berkshire, our alliance with Volunteer Centre West Berkshire saw a plethora of training opportunities provided throughout West Berks to those that are part of the voluntary sector.

In 2022-23 we provided training to 243 adult learners.

We provided over 40 hours of unique training opportunities.

We partnered with other organisations including Age UK Berkshire, Low Carbon Workspaces and British Red Cross to design and deliver bespoke training courses.

We delivered targeted training to village hall trustees and management committees.

• Level 1 & 2 Hallmark Quality Standards – training on how to protect trustees, volunteers and those hiring the hall, health & safety; maintenance & security; entertainment and licensing.

Hallmark Level 2 for Wokingham Borough buildings – “I wanted to find out what was necessary for our hall to put in place good practices and find out the important aspects for doing this. The workbook will allow me to do this in conjunction with other committee members prior to asking Kate to hopefully visit to evaluate.”

• In May 22 we delivered a face-to-face ‘Digital Savvy’ training and developed new skills in developing their hall’s online presence.
• We delivered training on low-carbon halls with learners developing their knowledge of energy efficiency measures and fossil-free heating systems.
• Environmental Audit Training was delivered with learners going away with a better understanding of how their practices and procedures impact the environment.

Digital Savvy Village Halls Learner’s – “I liked this course because it provided simple, straightforward information which was encouraging. I also really enjoyed networking with real people.” “Another great session and very valuable to help us progress with our on-line presence.”

• In the Autumn of twenty-two we also delivered a comprehensive training workshop to help halls reduce their energy consumption through behavioral changes and improvement to their halls.
• To coincide with Village Halls Week, we ran an online seminar looking at a variety of funding opportunities for community buildings.  Learners were provided with advice and guidance on raising funds for hall developments from a range of funders including the Platinum Jubilee Village Halls fund.
• In February 23 we met with learners in Chieveley to learn from Age UK Berkshire about small changes we can make to village halls to make them more welcoming and safer places for those with dementia.
• Social Media for Your Community Building webinar was delivered in March 23 where we walked learners through a variety of social media platforms and free-to-use tools to help them engage with their communities and promote facilities and events.

Environmental Audit & Policy Webinar Learner – “This session gave us a focus point to ensure the efficient running of the facilities, it can be linked to hiring agreements therefore raising awareness with users of the building.  Provides a building block to making positive changes.”

Other training workshops we delivered included;

Two online Reducing Energy & Water Bills workshops that supported volunteers and practitioners working with people at risk of or in fuel poverty. Through this delivery, 79 learners developed new skills and a great understanding of how to advise and support the clients they work with to save money on their bills in a variety of ways.

“The content was very informative and very professionally presented. I will request that we include some leaflets in our food parcels offering advice on energy and water payments. Also will find out more about the electric blankets from OVO.”

“All 8 of my team that attended were inspired and feel a lot more confident to support our clients – thank you.”

“The advice I can pass on to my families as well as friends. I will be getting my children to spend at least a minute less in the shower!”

“Interaction was encouraged through the use of polls, breakout rooms, and opportunities to ask questions.”

We were able to deliver an online First Aid course that focused on what to do in emergency situations and being brave enough not just to be a spectator and step up and help. This course was targeted at those living in more rural communities where emergency services may take longer to reach.

Learners attending our webinar with Collaborative Housing developed a new appreciation for the breadth of community-led housing models in existence. One learner commented: “It really exposed all of the different options for low-cost housing and the challenges. I need to reflect on what I’ve heard and then engage wider within the parish (parish council and NDP steering group). I was surprised that it wasn’t better attended as it must be a key subject for most villages in West Berkshire.”

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Last winter (2022-23) saw the highest energy prices in living memory, fuel poverty in the UK affected an estimated 6.3 million households. The issues with soaring household energy prices, due to a variety of global and national pressures, saw the government step in and support all households with a domestic electricity connection with £400 support.

Connecting Communities in Berkshire (CCB) has been running a dedicated project to help people in need of extra energy advice and support for over 10 years now. In its current format, this project delivers advice and guidance on reducing home energy costs to low-income families in Berkshire, and the front-line workers who support them.

From April 2022- March 23 this project attracted funding from The National Lottery Community Funds Awards for All programme, Berkshire Community Foundation, St James’s Place Charitable Foundation, The Arnold Clark Community Fund, and support funding from DEFRA.

Over Covid lockdowns the project expanded from purely face-to-face support targeted delivery to offering a telephone advice service and, unsurprisingly, referrals and demand for this support continued to grow last winter as more and more families struggled with the cost-of-living crisis.

The complexity of the issues that Helen Dean, our Project Manager on this project, faced expanded. Helen explains; “This year saw both the telephone advice and bespoke advice to families take longer as there were many more issues to discuss. Switching suppliers and saving money that way was not an option, so I assisted families instead by offering tailored advice on reducing their energy and water usage at home, and ensuring they were claiming maximum water discounts. I also gave them calm, focused support to help them gain confidence in their abilities to tackle and resolve issues with their supplier around utility debt.

Issues around water, energy and other bills can seriously impact someone’s mental and physical wellbeing as families often had cold homes, and worried about how they could pay the bills which are so high. After receiving advice the families I spoke to found that they were better equipped to tackle their financial issues, their stress reduced, and they understood that small savings can all add up to bigger wins.”

Families such as Chelsea, from West Berkshire; “I was extremely anxious and worried about my situation until I spoke to Helen, the worry around this had been heightened by my depression. After the conversations with Helen, I feel much more comfortable in contacting people, I have a list of ‘to dos’ which makes me feel that I am doing something and it will make a difference. Thanks to Helen’s knowledge I am feeling positive going forward and she has helped me form an ongoing plan for the future.”

Georgia from East Berkshire also received bespoke telephone advice she said “Before I spoke to Helen I was drained, worried and stressed about my bills. Helen provided a lot of helpful information and support with our bills, I can now take action on some of the things Helen suggested and feel more settled knowing there is help out there for us.”

Helen works closely with practitioners across Berkshire to ensure that those that need her support have access to it. In the last year she ran 17 drop-in sessions at the groups listed below, reaching 96 families of which 89% defined themselves as being in fuel poverty;

Homestart Greenham Homestart Riverside Penn Road Open morning Monksfield Way Open afternoon Thatcham Supported families   Bracknell Homestart Supported Families

Alana House drop-in session (Reading)

Theale Stay and Play Session

Victoria Park Family Hub Newbury Stay and Play

Thatcham Family Hub

Newbury Warm Hub + Food Bank

Hungerford Targeted Families Childrens Centre

Greenham Homestart Group

Speen Community Café

Riverside Homestart

Corn Exchange Becoming Us

Woolhampton Homestart Group

Feedback from families attending the sessions was really positive too;

“Absolutely brilliant: articulate, friendly, digestible, and also interactive. Very informative too. Thank you Helen!” Corn Exchange attendee

Another key part of Helen’s project is to deliver training to practitioners and frontline workers who could then share their knowledge with the families they support directly, two of these sessions were also partially funded by West Berkshire Council Adult Community Learning.

Eight training sessions in total were delivered to social workers, family support workers, social prescribers, support workers for families with complex needs, foodbank volunteers and Berkshire Homestart staff & volunteers. In total 120 practitioners were trained who stated that they could cascade the information to an estimated 3843 families across the county in the 6 months following the training. This is the greatest impact through training we have achieved in a project year!

“Invaluable information that I can impart immediately. I couldn’t be happier, an excellent course. All 8 of my team that attended were inspired and feel a lot more confident to support our clients – thank you.” Fran Cummings West Berks Foodbank Manager.

“Very useful training, thank you so much, will use with all the families I help in future” Anne, Family Support Worker Windsor and Maidenhead Family Friends.

In 2021-22 as we emerged from lockdowns and the Covid pandemic village halls were in desperate need of new bookings to generate income. Also, older people, fearful of socialising but desperate for company, needed safe activities taking place in their communities to attend. A partnership opportunity with Get Berkshire Active presented itself that had the potential to address these two issues simultaneously.

By the end of March 2022 and the end of a project funded by Get Berkshire Active using Sport England funding, 7 of the 10 seated exercise classes for older people established by CCB in rural communities were continuing beyond the end of the project. In one case the parish council agreed to fund the classes. In other areas, learner fees were sufficient to enable the class to continue. This demonstrated the sustainability of the activities established by this project and we decided to seek funding to further test the replicability of this success.

This year we successfully obtained funding from the McCarthy Stone Foundation to support the delivery of seated exercise classes to older people in the village of Hermitage. It is our ambition to find further sources of funding to replicate our learning from these projects and see more classes that our free or low cost so that people in our rural communities can be active no matter their age or physical abilities.

Quote from a Seated Exerciser; “Always nervous to go along to exercise classes for fear of feeling silly, but these classes are so easygoing, welcoming. Everyone becomes friends and you don’t feel silly as there’s no pressure. I do feel a little stronger in my limbs but it’s the friendships that are most important.”

We provide a specialist Community Buildings Advice Service (CBAS) to members that give unique support to volunteer village hall & Community Building trustees/ management committees.

This bespoke service is mostly funded by the CBAS members paying for an annual subscription with additional funding to lower the fee for halls in Wokingham Borough from Wokingham Borough Council. A grant was also received from Peter Samuel Charitable Trust.

In 2022-23 we were able to deliver the following to our CBAS Membership;

• Answer 161 requests for guidance from members that included a variety of questions/issues from gas safety, CCTV policies, online book systems, jubilee celebrations, banking issues, concerns over Trustees’ behaviour and much more.

A Village Hall in West Berkshire called our CBAS Advisor Kate extremely concerned as their latest insurance premium quote had increased by a whopping 40% compared to the previous year. Kate delved into this and contacted some reputable Village Hall insurance specialists. As a result of Kate’s research, the Village Hall got a much better deal and was able to reduce it by £200 compared to the previous year – a much better outcome than a 40% increase!

• We offer our members free access to Basecamp – a digital platform that allows sharing and a discussion platform that contains case studies and key supporting documents. Discussion on this platform over the last year included sharing recommendations for baby change units and structural engineers, how to procure contractors, setting up Warm and Digital Hubs, and insurance for bouncy castle events.
• Kate arranged and delivered a range of useful training workshops including;
  o Digital Savvy Village Halls
  o Hallmark 2 Wokingham
  o Hallmark 2 West Berkshire
  o Low Carbon Village Halls
  o Environmental Policy & Audit
  o Trustee Training
  o Energy saving
  o Hallmark Level 1
  o Funding (inc. Platinum Jubilee fund)
  o Dementia-Friendly Village Halls
  o Social Media for village halls
• The service also provided proactive information and advice by distributing information on matters of interest and funding opportunities in e-newsletters every other month.
• To represent our CBAS members Kate attended West Berkshire Council Community Energy subgroup, & Wokingham Borough Council Climate Change Partnership meetings. Kate collaborates with 38 other advisors across England to share knowledge, understand issues and find solutions. In turn, all 38 advisors in England attend an annual conference spearheaded by our national body Action with Communities in Rural England.