Community Voice - progress to date

We have had two public meetings so far. One in Ruthin on the 14th  and we had 15 attending and had a very lively session coming up with plenty of ideas and email addresses being quickly exchanged as individuals could see the benefits of sharing project ideas between now and the 20nd July i.e. the closing date

The second meeting was in Llangollen on the 16th and to be honest I was a little apprehensive as Emyr had told me earlier in the day  that only two people had indicated they were attending. So as I jouneyed down to Llangollen I felt we could be doing a one to one . What a lovely surprise to find we had 10 people attend and the room was buzzing again with ideas and collaboration suggestions.

It was suggested by a Llangollen attendee that we produce a note of all the ideas we have had to date and share with everyone because already organisations in the South could see benefits in linking with similar organisations in the North  thereby strengthening the project ideas  and bringing all the skills and best practice together. That list is to be emailed to all attendees today and will be added to following our last public meeting in Rhyl this Wednesday. Already we have  about 20 people  coming to Rhyl and so its pleasing to report that take up across the County has been good.

The DVSC staff have been magic in that they have all promoted the scheme and taken part in the public meetings . Their enthuisasm is infectious.

My thanks also to Rhyl Journal who have promoted the Community Voice programme and I understand Denbighshire Free press will be doing a similar feature this week.

For individuals and organisations who are not able to attend the public meetings we have asked them to submit their expressions of interest and to date I think we have had about 7.

We are in the process of establishing a steering group to consider all the expressions of interest  with a view to putting together a £1million bid to Big Lottery. Membership of the group is broad in that it consists of Trustees of DVSC, Local Service Board members and organisations and individuals from the community. We have designed this scheme adopting the "bottom up " methodology  which means the ideas for the bid come from the community with the community deciding which ideas go forward to Big Lottery. DVSC are simply facilitating the sessions and making the tea and bringing the biscuits along to the meetings.

I will keep you all posted but so far its looking good that we will have a good bid going off to big Lottery