Hi I am Cllr. Dr. Nigel Miles from Carn Brea Parish Council in West Cornwall (Camborne, Pool, Illogan and Redruth Community Network Area)

Hello I’m Cllr Robina Ahmed, Buckingham Town Council

Hello, I'm Cllr Sarah Bellow, City of Ely Council in Cambridgeshire

Good Morning,

Hi Everyone I'm Cllr Julie Robinson, Ferndown Town Council

Hi I’m Cllr Steph Brumby from Epworth Town Council.

Hi there councillor Nigel Adcock, Woodmancote Parish Council GL52 Gloucestershire

Hi folks, I'm Mathew Hulbert. Acting Vice Chair of Barwell Parish Council in Leicestershire.

Welcome everyone! if you have any questions for our speakers, please post them on here and we will try our best to get them answered :)

Hi I am Cllr Janet Westwell Salesbury Parish Council, Lancashire

Hi - Cllr Sarah Slack & Nigel Foot Newbury Town Council

Im Nick Dobson Cllr from Sturminster Newton TC

Hi, I'm a Councillor for our Town Council in Faringdon and just taken over as Chair of Oxfordshire ALC so keen to connect with other Chairs, especially if they have an up to date strategic plan you woul dbe prepared to share..... please!

Hi Cllr Shelagh Finlay Bridlington Town Council.

Hi I am Christine Howley from Newent Town Council in Gloucestershire

Hi all, I'm Andrew, CEO at Cirencester Town Council, also Director Trustee of a Community Management Trust overseeing a development of 2,350 new homes and employment opportunities. Special hello to everyone I know at NALC!

Hello everyone, I am Debbie Marsden, Penn Parish Councillor in Buckinghamshire

Hi Organisers - will we get the speeches etc sent after the session? Shelagh

Hi Shelagh, Thank you for your question. We will be sharing recording of the session in our post event mailing and all the event materials! :)

It would be great to pool together a list of examples and case studies of projects we could consider - we have set up a food bank in Kippax, Leeds but always eager to hear what other projects Parish/Town Councils have delivered, how they’ve done it and what impact it’s had!

Hello everyone - Beatrice Robson, Feock Parish Council

Hi, Dawn Spouge, Clerk to Southwater Parish Council

Message to our late joiners - Please note we will sharing a recording of the event in our post mailing email, please keep an eye out for that :)

In a more contemporary genre, Of the 197 local government areas of Cornwall we have 150 who have declared a Climate Emergency.

Great idea Michaella , this would be very useful

Thank you

We have seen an amazing response from communities, setting up mutual aid groups and supporting neighbours. There is much discussion about 'harnessing' the enthusiasm and keeping hold of these volunteers for other projects. What views and ideas do the panel have about this?

Even our 19 Community Network Areas have the same, with Cllrs and non Cllrs (as if part of a Local Civic-Citizen Local Assembly Groups)

who drives all this work? Voluntary groups or the Councils?

Local Manifesto excellent

Civic -Citizen group togetherness

Agree - simple, effective

We are lucky to have councillors who are very hand-ons with delivering projects, plus we bring in local volunteers too. We’ve found that people are willing to help if we can give them really tangible ‘jobs’ such as - Delivery Driver on Saturday 10-12, or providing a list of items we needed donating and a specific place to drop. The clearer we can be in what we need, the easier it’s been to get the support. If it’s too vague, people just talk around it and don’t understand how to get stuck in

It’s true that divisions have melted away. Community organisations are open to sharing resources. Earlier on HemingfordHub was battling for cooperation, but once the pandemic hit the community came together.

Sarah Bellow - I am making more grants available from the District Council to keep all the community groups invigorated and hopefully moving on from the emergency response to a recovery response. We also run regular events for parish councils and all volunteer groups to help support them. I have 4 locality officers who help support all the groups and who get to know them well.We have to capture all the good that has happened and keep it going.

Cllr Allison Malcolm Ollerton and Boughton Town Council Some of what you say we already do, but some great ideas

links to the docs I mentioned from Locality https://locality.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/We-were-built-for-this-Locality-2020.06.13.pdfhttps://locality.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Keep-it-Local-Manifesto-March-2021.pdf

Q?: what were your focus groups focussing on? Do you have guidance on running one?

On BPC, I Chair our Voluntary Sector Working Group which has done a lot of coordinating, especially in regards into Christmas parcels we put together for people who needed cheering up back in December.

I’m a Parish Councillor in Devon and knew nothing of these Communities Together initiatives

The big problem is that the most vulnerable are completely excluded from the digital inclusion drives. /they don’t have the technology, don’t want it and are likely to suffer from some deafness, eyesight problems and many other disincentives to embracing technology. We do many phone calls and when allowed gatherings or doorstep visits.

Do you know how Okehampton managed the safeguarding/GDPR issues with its database of vulnerable people?

We’ve had to navigate things like insurance, safeguarding, data protection, risk assessments (unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of things in place already) which has been a bit of a minefield whilst trying to deliver projects.. now we’ve got our confidence with it, we will more likely deliver more projects, but there is a lot of ‘red tape’ to get through

As furlough comes to an end the younger volunteers will decline so how will all these organisations sustain their volunteers, will it be grant funded or place based funding in the longer term,

How did you overcome GDPR restrictions when creating a database of vulnerable people?

Riva, that is where the really local comes into play because you know your residents bests. Street champions have been great in identifying people who are isolated

We created consent forms using Google Forms and had risk assessments where only certain people had access to the sensitive information, info gets destroyed once projects are over etc.

We have changed the emphasis of our food bank support from reactive / emergency to one of recycling food to minimise waste, making our vulnerable households feel they are 'doing their bit' rather than accepting handouts

Please use the raised hand emoticon if you have any questions for our speakers :) or alternatively you can pose them here in the chat

England's 10000 councils and 100000 councillors did a great job over the last year demonstrating their value and potential. Read some of the case studies NALC collected here. https://www.nalc.gov.uk/library/news-stories/covid19/3221-coronavirus-case-studies/file

So srry I am late - big local problem so had to attend another meeting

Could Nora say a bit more about locality based commissioning please. Thank you

V helpful responses on safeguarding etc thanks

Hi Elisabeth, I will be sending a recording of our event :) so hopefully you are able to catch up!

Some great initiatives highlighted by speakers and in the chat. Remember to celebrate what you've done by participating in NALC's Council of the Year awards. https://www.nalc.gov.uk/our-work/star-council-awards

Essex have been making grants available but at very short notice and short delivery times, so this has meant a lot of work without proper planning.

Sorry Essex County Council, they have been using us as the EALC to distribute.

will there be a recording of this webinar available plesae

huge apoligies for joining late

Money has been very appreciated but not easy to find the right recipients

Hi David, thank you for your message. I will be circulating a post mailing email which will include a recording of the event, and the presentations :)

Amanda, The effort to get grants has to be proportional to the amount of money. We can’t ask people to spend a week doing an application for £500. I have officers who will hold you hand to do the simple applications. also need to be very flexible about what money is spent on.

Ely Litter Pickers have emerged from pandemic and are doing a fabulous job. The City looks great!

Conservation work has now to be linked with the ecological and climate emergency in which we are immersed. Please do not forget this please

How is everyone linking in with their volunteer centres/community volunteer associations? Anyone using them as quality control agents or to sign post groups to develop better working practice or governance?

Litter picking is green exercise and so benefits physical and mental heath.

great exercise

How do these small local groups feed into the democratic aspect of Town and District Council politics?

Covid has been a renaissance for our social relationships too

Following on from the comment above about volunteers returning to work, we are a parish with a large National Trust property/estate and I am concerned how many of our current food bank / community support volunteers are usually NT volunteers and will return to their usual volunteering roles once the restrictions allow the estate to re-open.I think there is only ever a percentage of any community that will volunteer and we are now thinking about what happens when we reach that "saturation point". The administration behind volunteers is not inconsiderable and presents town and parish council clerks with an increased workload.

Simply Walk great national organisation. Our local groups have become friends and helped each other during COVID and are looking forward to restarting

I

Please do take time to complete our feedback form https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/8RPR5G7 we would welcome comments and thoughts on how we can improve and what topics you would like us to cover in our future events :)

In Barwell we're currently in discussions with a local youth work provider for us to pay for detached youth workers to be in our village post Covid for so many weeks a year.

We have tension in our Parish Council that we ‘shouldn’t’ be paying for things that our Local Authority traditionally did/should be paying for.. even though their budgets are cut. It’s hard getting buy in from Parish Cllrs even when we have the funding to deliver the projects!

We have a range of events in the pipeline that may of interest - www.nalc.gov.uk/rebuildingcommunities , please click here more information or alternatively if you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch - nalc@nalc.gov.uk :)

use Cil Funding to engage your community let them make decisions and take ownership

If you have CIL monies

Can we have a copy of the chat and ideas as well as power points?

Thanks all!!

Thanks very much

Thank you for inviting me.

Thank you very much, very informative.

Thank you :-)

Thank you

Thanks to everyone at NALC for another great event. Much appreciated.

Thank you

Thank you

Very inspiring, thank you

Thank you.

Thank you NALC

Thank you :)

Thanks really useful

Thank you