Archive for year: 2022
Legal Structures
- We have created a guide to help you understand Legal Structures.
It’s a known fact that 80% of business or Charity Partnerships fail. The reasons can be
varied and multi-faceted.
Grant funding available to support smart meter projects
The 2022 Smart Energy GB in Communities programme is now live, with grant funding and support being targeted to organisations in England, Wales and Scotland reaching people who are over 65, people on a low income or people who are carers.
- Grants of up to £25,000 are available for organisations that can deliver support to people who are over 65.
- Grants of up to £10,000 are available for organisations that can deliver support to people on a low income.
- Grants of up to £5,000 are available for organisations supporting people who are carers.
The main proportion of the funding aims to ensure people in the target groups understand how smart meters can benefit them and increase the likelihood that they will seek or accept a smart meter installation.
They are looking for applicants that have a trusted voice in their community. As this year’s target groups are significant in size (over 12 million people are over 65; approximately 8 million people are on a low income and around 1 in 4 people are carers), they are seeking projects that can engage these groups at scale through a combination of direct (Covid-19 permitting) and indirect activities. Previous organisations who have applied to the grants programme, both successful and unsuccessful, are eligible to apply and encouraged to do so. Housing associations and local authorities are eligible to apply too.
Full details on the application process are included in their Guidance Document on the NEA website. Please read this before completing an online application form and Project Plan. If you have any queries, contact smartgrants@nea.org.uk
The closing date for applications is 12 noon, Friday 11 February 2022.
We aim to appoint successful projects in late March, with delivery running until 7 December 2022
For more information and to apply, click here
Cherwell Theatre – Time for Heroes
The Time for Heroes coming of age comedy drama explores the highs and lows of teenage life, seen through the eyes of young musicians. With original songs and a dynamic ‘gig theatre’ staging, the play is a love letter to a time and place; dramatising the tension between friendship and artistic integrity and the joys of creating music with the world at your feet.
It’s post-post Britpop and a spate of alternative bands are playing fast, sweaty gigs in dark, grimy pubs. Indie rock is back in the mainstream and everyone wants to be the next big thing. Alex has a band. They may not have a name, or any gigs yet, but they’ve got a Myspace page, some battered guitars and a practice room above a carpet shop.
“You have to give everything to this. Your whole self. Nothing less than bleeding heart, none sparing honesty. Because what’s the point in anything less?”
The project has been funded by Arts Council England, Garfield Weston Foundation, Northamptonshire Community Foundation, The Garrick Charitable Trust and Northampton Borough Council. It is produced in partnership by Cherwell Theatre Company and Royal & Derngate Theatres Northampton. Performances are scheduled at The Picturedrome, Northampton from 11-28 August 2022.
Overall dates are:
- Outreach workshops with community organisations and schools: March/April 2022
- Weekly sessions at Royal & Derngate after the Easter holidays
- Rehearsals with professional company: 11 July – 5 August 2022 (Royal & Derngate)
- Tech and dress rehearsals: 8,9,10 August 2022 (Picturedrome)
- Run- 20 x performances between 11-28 August 2022 (weekdays and weekends)
We’ll aim to start outreach in March/April. We we visit different settings to provide a music and drama workshops, in which young people aged 14+ will integrate movement, text and live music with our movement and musical director.
We’ll then start weekly workshops to continue this work on the play at Royal & Derngate after Easter. 24 sessions in total, we’ll start weekly, building up to twice weekly in June and more intensive in July. There will be an acting and movement ensemble and a musicians ensemble.
Weekly rehearsals will be Tuesdays 7-9 at Royal & Derngate
There are opportunities for local bands to perform a few songs before the August performances as well (sort of like an ‘opening act’ each night!) they can work with our musical and movement director on their sets.
We can also provide opportunities to work with the lighting designer during tech/the run too if you have any young people interested in lighting
Hosting a Poverty Truth Commission in Northamptonshire
North Northamptonshire will be funding Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire to host a Poverty Truth Commission specifically for the North in April of 2022.
Whilst the emphasis may be slightly different from that of the West (where a Poverty Truth Commission has been running since June 2021) we are hopeful that real life experience from individuals and communities will help to inform better Anti-Poverty Strategies, particularly in communities where levelling up is required.
If you live in the North of the County and wish to tell your story, please contact russell.rolph@voluntaryimpact.org.uk in the first instance.
If you are a community organisation that works with beneficiaries on the edge of financial vulnerability please talk to us about how we can get their stories heard and raise the profile of some very important and critical issues.
