We held another uniform swap shop in the half term school holiday and included a Christmas jumper swap shop. Unfortunately, this one wasn’t so successful. The Thursday was cancelled due to weather as all Aspire buildings were closed. Friday and Saturday were quiet – the weather didn’t help but whether it’s worth doing it that regularly needs to be thought about. The uniform is still out upstairs and people can come in and ask for uniform and one of the volunteers will show them upstairs.
The Ryde Guide has now gone out to every household in Ryde (to the best of my knowledge). This has had good feedback from residents. I’ve had feedback from the Girls Brigade that they have had some new members. More feedback from community organisations is needed.
Thank you for the booklets. My mother in law 81 loved it!!
Thank you very much for sending round the new "Ryde Community Guide". Really useful information, and beautifully presented. Thank you.
Just wanted to drop you a quick email to say we received the Ryde Community Guide into our mailbox yesterday – what a GREAT little guide! We really love the idea and felt it was such a lovely gesture to Ryde residents that may not know where to start when seeking out services and community groups. We’ve only been on the island just over a year and it can be quite daunting to know where to go and who to speak to so we love this.
The Aspire Community Lunch is not currently running due to staffing and funding. The Community Steering group has agreed to fund this until Christmas however it is not due to open until the first week in December (due to new manager starting then). Due to staffing also, the library had to stop offering tea and coffee. Jo Dodd the LIbrary Supervisor has just come back from long term sickness and I’m aiming to catch up with her to speak about options to get this going again – maybe a coffee making machine.
Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in the Police and Crime Commissioner funding application. We need to look at perhaps doing a bid for the Arts Council, but I will need to organise a meeting in the next couple of weeks with the relevant people.
We have received funding for £18,875 for supermarket vouchers to be used before end of March 2024. We have now been issuing supermarket vouchers for the last two months for both Iceland and the Ryde Co-op. Referrals have been received from the Food Bank, CAB, Living Well and the Job Centre.
This joint project with Aspire and Riboleau studios is ongoing. Steve Johnson (Aspire) has written an application for funding from the Community Capacity grant, and we are waiting for a response. The Connect 4 Communities was grant application unsuccessful. We need to look at other grants. I have done a proposal for the University of Portsmouth students to see if they are able to help us with the design of the garden – currently waiting for a response. Aspire are Red Funnels charity for this year and Karen Eeles the fundraising manager is liaising with them to see if we can get a container to use as a shed. If successful, we will get the Ryde School Students to design the inside. Ryde School students have been coming on a regular basis on Thursdays to help clear the garden. Kathy and I will reach out to businesses in the community to assist with the project.
We had a very successful Family Liaison Officer (FLO’s) meeting with four of the primary schools attending. We discussed the community support available for them to refer their families to (for example the Connect 4 Communities funding and the Aspire Hardship fund), and the FLOs were able to meet and support each other.
Richard May and I visited the Ryde Academy Headteacher, and we have a meeting with the Ryde Academy Housing Managers arranged for Friday.
I’ve been liaising with Oakfield School FLO and Michele Newton from Four Seasons Academy to get the cookery sessions (funded by Sovereign) underway. Michele will be doing two sets of 3 weeks for 6 families in each set. If successful, Michele will continue with the families to do a 6-week course funded by Multiply. I have been speaking with Toby Eaglen (Sovereign) to see if we can get funding to offer the same to Greenmount Primary.
This meeting continues to be useful to Ryde community groups. At our last meeting we had Eddy Yates the new Citizen’s Advice Bureau CEO who gave us an update on the CAB service – all of which is very positive. We also heard from Alison Walker the Read Easy co-ordinator and Andrew Daville the Ryde School Deputy Headteacher.
This had gone quiet after the initial meeting. Ian Stephens has now managed to get a signed document from one trustee resigning his position. A letter has been sent to Mrs Firth, who is the widow of Dennis Firth who ran the Centre, asking for her help tracking down the contact details of the other trustees. The plan is to get new trustees on board so we can move forward with getting the Centre up and running.