Record attendance at the Town and Parish Council Conference

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This year’s event took place at the Marriott Hotel in Huntingdon on the 23rd November 2018, and attracted 227 delegates from 85 different local councils, a significant increase on the previous two years.

The annual Local Councils Conference is the only event in Cambridgeshire to which all local councils are invited.

It provides an opportunity for two way dialogue between local councils and other tiers of local government.

The event had several keynote speakers, including Gillian Beasley the Chief Executive of Cambridgeshire County Council and James Palmer the Mayor of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.

In addition, the event held nine different themed workshops:

  • Market Town Master-plans: the Role of Local Councils.
  • Realising the capabilities of parish councils.
  • The role of Community Led Housing in Cambridgeshire’s rural communities.
  • Community Engagement – Challenges and Opportunities.
  • Be Prepared! How you can mobilise your community in an emergency.
  • Undertaking a Neighbourhood Plan in your Parish.
  • Improving collaborative working between Clerks and Councillors.
  • Harnessing nature to power our future; Local Councils and renewable energy generation.
  • Declining Public Transport: What are the options for Local Councils to relieve the impact?

And a market-place where 22 different county wide organisations were exhibiting.

85% of those delegates who attended gave the Conference overall a positive rating (a score of either 4 or 5 out of 5). The average score given was 4.3 out of 5.

Comments included:

  • The multi-session learning events are very valuable (please keep going with these).
  • An excellent event.
  • Good and worthwhile conference overall.
  • More of the same please.

Let’s hope the next Conference brings more delegates, more lively debate and more opportunities for networking…!!

Picture: Mayor James Palmer addresses the County Wide Town and Parish Council audience.

Join the Board at Healthwatch

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Healthwatch Cambridgeshire and Peterborough are looking for new Board members.

Use your local knowledge, skills and experiences to help improve the public voice in health and care services for people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

As part of an innovative and committed Board, you will have a role in strategy development and supporting our staff and volunteers.

This will give you insights into and the opportunity to help influence health and social care systems locally.

We want to strengthen the links we have into Fenland and Peterborough, and the different ethnic communities who live locally.

You will help the Board to better understand and represent the diverse population we serve.

We particularly welcome applications from young people, individuals from minority ethnic communities and those who live in Fenland and Peterborough.

Apply by Friday 14 December 2018.

For more information:

Interviews for the post will be held on either 8 January, 16 January or 17 January 2019.

Contact their office on 0330 355 1285, email enquiries@healthwatchcambspboro.co.uk or text them on 0752 0635 176 to arrange an informal chat.

Working with the Oasis

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Support Cambridgeshire is working closely with the Oasis Centre in Wisbech thanks to an injection of Neighbourhood Investment income provided by Clarion Housing Association.

The Oasis sits on the Waterlees Ward of Wisbech, often viewed as the most deprived ward in the whole of Cambridgeshire, but residing amidst some 2,500 houses owned by Clarion.

It has been a long held ambition of the Oasis to develop their current building into a new purpose built extension which will better serve the needs of its local community.

Support Cambridgeshire has started to work with the existing Board of Trustees on their skills and confidence through 3 facilitated sessions provided by Taproot consultancy, this making them  better able to navigate the future and its potential challenges and opportunities through an identification of their strengths, merits and areas where they need to improve.

This initial support will translate into longer term hand-holding by Support Cambridgeshire which will help to develop a robust Business and Marketing plan through 2019, in addition to obtaining potential development funding through the provision of a dedicated bid writer.

The Trustee Board now has December 2018 to reflect on their hard work to date, ready to begin again in earnest in January 2019.

Chris Stevens, the Oasis Centre and Trust Manager states:

I think we would all like to thank Taproot for the support they have given to Board Members so far. We would not have got to where we have got without these 3 influential sessions. We have a lot to think about now but I look forward to working with Support Cambridgeshire in the New Year.

Picture: Trustees hard at work thinking about what their new Business Plan might look like, what they need and how they might obtain it.

 

 

Give us your views….!!

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Do you live or work in Wisbech? What do you love about the town and what would you do to improve it?

Those are the questions being asked in a new I Heart Wisbech campaign to gather people’s views and use them to help develop future services and projects in the town.

The campaign has been launched by the I Heart Wisbech team, which is made up of a number of local community organisations along with Cambridgeshire County Council, Fenland District Council and Wisbech Town Council.

Team members have been out and about in the town centre gathering views and an online survey has been launched asking three questions – what do you love about Wisbech, how would you make it better and what would you like to do about it?

The survey is available at https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/JLTXO/ and is expected to run until January 2019.

Russell Rolph of Support Cambridgeshire (who is managing the project on behalf of the I Heart Wisbech team) said:

Those who live, work and invest in an area are the best people to ask on what’s right about where they live, and what could be improved.

The feedback will be used to develop key themes in community development and to hopefully uncover the next generation of social action champions in the town. So if you have a great idea on how to improve Wisbech we would love to hear from you.

The campaign links to the ongoing Wisbech 2020 Vision and its work to tackle local issues and deliver future health, economy and infrastructure improvements.

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