Big Local Meeting Mon 30th Sept 2013

Another good meeting at The Contact Project where we moved forward the formalities of a local partnership.
These was a discussion about the qualities of the people needed on the committees, under the following headings. Skills, Behaviours and Knowledge.

One point I would like to make is how useful the The Contact Project has been to us from the off. Not only have they provided us with facilities but also encouragement and support.

As the council takes 5 million pounds a year in rent alone off the St Matthews with no explanation as to where the money goes, it is a bit rich for them to cut the small bit of funding the project actually gets.

We looked at some of the resource documentation prepared by Big Local available here.
They are mostly Microsoft Office documents, but of them will only open with Microsoft Word directly.

Mohammed, Michele, Lee, Mark, Carlos and Gavin will meet next Monday to take the setup stage a bit further.

Also this week was the Tenants Association AGM where they are getting housing to provide 5 more unregulated parking spaces, (Obviously with the loss of green space), An effort to eradicate rats by cutting down bushes in the courtyards, (Rats are attracted by available food not bushes.) and a curb on prostitution/drugtaking by locking common entrance doors. (Maybe if the prostitutes drug problems were dealt with in a different way then maybe they would stop streetwalking.)

The Chair Ms Jean Williams and the board were re-elected with little opposition.

Big Local Meeting 17th Sept 2013

The Big Local meeting at the Contact Project was a successful meeting with good local interest. We looked at the results of the Parks Day survey and tried to prioritise them into a forward action plan.

Here is the original discussion document that people were asked to put their red dots on.

It has a subtotal at the end to show what people in the park that day wanted to prioritise.

Some of the headings are quite vague but this is good as it will enable us to put in quality projects and ideas as people bring them forward.

The general consensus is that as young people make up over 50% of the population on the estate ideas that target this group were favourably received.

Amongst the ideas aired were estate wide free high speed internet access, collection of recyclables on the estate for the benefit of the people living here, support for local business, business start up loans for Muslim businesses (no interest charged), litter control and education.

We also had a discussion about keeping everyone informed about what is happening and at the next meeting we would hope to start planning specific strategies to make everyone aware of this opportunity for St Matthews.

Here is a picture of the board with listings added.

If anybody else who was there who would like to comment please do.