Month: November 2017

Projects & Finance Committee meeting 13.11.2017

Projects & Finance Committee meeting took place recently, download the full meeting minutes HERE.

 

Highlights include:

Project Update.

Cenotaph.
Planning permission granted with conditions.
Sub Group meeting arranged for 5th December
New costings required.
D.McGifford to follow up some funding ideas.

Public Realm Strategy.
Weekly bulletins regularly sent out. Biggest issue is work carrying on to middle of December.
Towns Centre planters will not be removed until January.
The new bench Mill St/Duke St being sited this week.
“Woollies Wall” looking good, great improvement for the Xmas Tree.

Leisure Centre.

E.Mail from Robert Rodgers Oct 2017:-
The project team are in the process of concluding the procurement phase with Final Tenders anticipated to be received mid November 2017; bids and designs will be evaluated by the project team with a view to recommending a preferred bidder to Cabinet in January 2018. Bidders have already submitted initial designs which have been refined through the dialogue process in an effort to deliver the optimum solution within the £8.2m budget. The team are enthusiastic with all of the bids received to date, in terms of design and offer for the redeveloped leisure centre. As a brief reminder, the minimum requirements are for a new swimming pool and pool hall and a redeveloped dry side offer. We look forward to receiving final tenders and recommending the successful solution to Cabinet and submitting this for subsequent planning approvals. We anticipate that subject to securing the necessary approvals, work will commence on site in Spring 2018. The successful bidder will work closely with the project team and ESAR operational staff to phase the construction works to manage and minimise the disruption to leisure centre and park users.

 

2016/17 Project Updates.

Dementia Friendly Town.
Dementia Steering Group has now met twice and set goals to achieve 100% Dementia Awareness in Congleton and organise 4 regular activities each month. Next meeting planned 12th December.
5 Dementia Friends Awareness sessions being run over the next 2 weeks for Councillors, Staff and Residents. Business sessions will be arranged from January onwards.
Jo and Vince see Art as a possibility (as an activity –once settled in their new home).

Heritage Trail Project.
TMC are working with Rural Development to get funding to develop the App.

CTC / Partnership will remain as a customer and have the option to develop a trail and hot spots.
The Heritage App meeting minutes are still current.

 

Date and Time of the next meeting.
Monday 22nd January 2018 The Spencer Suite , 9.30am

Congleton Youth Forum

Congleton Youth Forum met recently, full meeting minutes HERE.

 

Highlights include:

Update from members.

 

New Life Church (Jeff Cutts) Working with Town Mayor (Charles Booth) on developing young people “Mad For Congleton”. This will be over a weekend next spring (April). Jeff would welcome support from our forum members. MS will send out a copy of Jeff’s presentation.

Congleton Partnership. (Steve Foster) Steve concerned about representation form the two secondary schools on this forum. We now appear to have a representative from EBA ( Liz Griffen) but nobody from CHS. Jeff Cutts to raise this with CHs on Wed 15th (Linda Franks/ Sarah Jeffs)

Glen to write directly to D.Hermitt and Steve to raise the issue of lack of representation with Richard Benson school governor.

 

CEBC Youth Support Services ( June Maddock) A good number of young people received their  Duke of Edinburgh Awards at Summer camp (29th July to 6th Aug)

 

Had a great day at Handforth involving young people from across Cheshire East. Various workshop covering subjects like Prison (using a mini cell),Grooming, Drugs, Gangs, Stabbings etc. This was a very successful day. June would like to see something like this in Congleton (Visyon,NLC).

 

November is Children’s Rights Month, we have a number of young people working presentations which will be recorded on video for future use.

 

Visyon – Laura Whitaker. Laura reported that the summer programme went well.  The new winter programme is now operative , visiting both high schools to promote this.

 

Drop Ins now operating from 3.30 to 5.00pm Tues/Wed/Thurs, open to all young people, they can just turn up, it is a safe place with use of equipment.

 

PCSO / Cheshire Police – Amie Gillett. Amie reported that currently the Macclesfield Prince’s Trust programme is not running. Hoping to start in early 2018, if you have anyone wishing to take por please contact Amie direct.

 

 

Everybody Sports and Leisure ( Keith Rogers) Keith commented on the growth in youth activity now being delivered by Everbody. This has risen from 13 youth sessions 18 months ago to now 38. These will be advertised on the website www.everybody.org.uk

We cold do with more activity in Congleton, Keith will discuss these at the site, looking for school holiday/ half term programme.

 

 

Youth Fed – Jeremy Kent. Jeremy works part time and will not normally be able to attend all of the meetings. Currently working on a live porthole to communicate with Youth Groups and working with Cheshire Youth United (Uniformed Groups) to support groups with their aims.  MS to contact Jeremy to see what support Youth Fed can offer in terms of workshop / presentation delivery. Also can they deliver some projects working in conjunction with Visyon.

 

 
Mental Health Substance Misuse- PB Funded Project.

 

Glen’s email prior to meeting.During the last 18 months we have focussed our involvement to get a much better understanding of the emotional health issues and the substance misuse issues affecting the youth in the town and developing ideas to address these in a sustained, effective and community involvement way. These ideas have been as a result of engagement of, developed and will be coproduced by youth engagement professionals, young people, emergency services, schools and youth provision.

The purpose of our project is to:-

Raise awareness and reduce the stigma of mental health in young people.

Highlight the negative effects of substance misuse including drugs and alcohol, especially legal highs on their health and emotional well-being.

Provide young people with details of a range of support available in relation to these issues.

The project funding received as part of the Cheshire East Council’s participatory budget process will enable the following solutions to be delivered:-

Presentations to school year groups and youth groups on mental health.

 Substance misuse detached work with youth workers in known hot spot areas. (June and Amie)

 Production and distribution of essential helpline numbers and key facts. (CHS discuss with J.Money)

 Health and wellbeing counsellor appointment to go into schools. (Visyon – Laura)

 Mental health signs, what to look out for workshop – student leaders –

what can be done, what support available?  (Discuss with Jane Commins)

 Drug awareness day focussed around legal highs.(Youth Committee / MP?)

 Promote positive alternatives which provide access to wellbeing opportunities – sports clubs, youth clubs, uniformed groups, healthy exercise. (40 things to do in Congleton – reprint? / half day Leisure Centre – school holidays)

After discussing the above it was felt that we need to take certain actions:-

1.     Get the schools engaged in accepting the offer of support/activity.

2.     Allocate parts of the programme to Forum Members to take responsibility to deliver.

Glen to resend the project and funding detail to the group.

Some responsibilities were allocated on the day and are indicated in RED within Glen’s email, others will need discussion with various individuals, schools, service providers.

Need to hold another meeting prior to Xmas, Wed 6th and 13th December possible will confirm a.s.a.p
A.O.B

No further issues discussed.
Next Meeting.

 

December 2017 tbc.

 

Meetings will be held 4 times a year and alternate between Tues / Wed and both secondary schools.

 

Senior Health & Wellbeing Fayre – Friday 29th September.

As part of celebrating International Day of Older Persons, Congleton Partnership along with its partners Connected Communities Cheshire East and Cheshire Community Action organised a Senior Health & Wellbeing Fayre in Congleton Town Hall.

The event was attended by more than 60 residents and supported by 36 exhibitors. It covered four key subjects of The Community, Technology & Finance, Winter Wellbeing and Health. All 4 elements were well support with great advice, information leaflets, freebies and in some cases free to attend workshops.

Practical sessions included ITea and Chat, Talk on Scams and how to recognise them and a session on how to become a dementia friend.
Everyone there enjoyed the free tea and cakes and in some cases took the opportunity to socialise with other residents well after the event had finished.

Next year we may well look to combine the event with a Macmillan Coffee Morning as the two activities fall on the same week.

Senior Health Fair Congleton

Mike Smith

ms@congletontowncouncil.co.uk

Congleton Dementia Friendly Steering Group meeting minutes

Congleton Dementia Friendly Steering Group 2nd meeting took place recently, the full meeting minutes HERE.

Highlights include:

Goals for Dementia Friendly Congleton.

Claire Halsey suggested that we should look to set ourselves some goals to target and work towards.

Goals.
1. Aspiration for 100% of the general population to become Dementia Aware by:-
(a) Friends awareness sessions –Currently we have a number of sessions organised, CTC 30th Nov, 6th & 7th Dec.
Museum Sat 2nd Dec 11.00am ans Sun 3rd Dec 2.30pm
(b) Champions workshop, Jess to set one up for 1st Qtr 2018.
(c) Publicity. D.Ritherdon to kick this off using The Chronicle, PCSO to support through social media.
(d) Video online – can give a first taste of Dementia Friends and may be a good way for larger companies to get the message across to their staff.

2. Events / Activities x 4 regular per month.
Members to come to the December meeting with ideas/ proposals of activities they can do on a regular basis(Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly)
Irregular Activity. Cotton Club, Kings Arms have shown some interest.
Leisure Centre- Mixed changing. MS to discuss with Maria Tatters at Congleton Leisure Centre.

 

Next Meeting:-
Tuesday 12th December, 2.00pm, Old Saw Mill.

Congleton Sustainability Group meeting minutes 06.11.17

Congleton Sustainability Group meeting minutes, download the full meeting minutes HERE.

Highlights include:

Dane Valley Community Energy.
No real change from the last meeting. Still waiting for wall renovation to take place.
Issue around Derwent Engineering and when they would be able to commit to the work. Still hoping for Spring 2018 but could be more like Spring 2019.
Community Share drive will be dependent on the above time table.
Extraction permissions have been sent to the Environment Agency, full planning application should go in by the end of the year.
Next newsletter should be out soon.

 

Neighbourhood Plan.
Monday 13th November is the last day of the 6 week consultation process. The steering group will then meet to discuss the results of the consultation and add anything significant before forwarding to Cheshire East to prepare for the Regulation 15 stage.
The final stage to adoption will be a public referendum. This completed document will include a delivery plan of actions which will help some of our long term project planning.

 

The Old Saw Mill .
Café. This is going very well and showing a 600 to 700% on last year when first opened. More staff have been taken on both paid and volunteers.
PR /Events. Harriet is working towards her NVQ Level 3 and making great progress getting our message out to the general public with some god turnouts resulting for our recent activities.
Partnership. PA wished to record OSM’s thanks to The Partnership for its financial support in the extra power sockets and equipment required to meet our energy demands with all that is now going on at the centre.
AJ, Cider & Vinegar/ CSG relationship. PA /DJ reported on the substantial growth in both production and overheads since taking the drink production in house. The upfront purchasing of bottles, labels and various pieces of equipment that was previously the responsibility of the outsourced juicer has had to be met by OSM. Two directors have loaned the OSM close on £5000 which will need to be paid back through sales/ 2017/18 profits.
Once this has been completed then an agreement will need to be reached between OSM & CSG on the level of profit that should go towards future operating costs and towards CSG projects. PA, DJ & PR are working on a paper which will lead to a PENCE per bottle agreement (30p/40p) which will then be annually negotiated.
CSG will need to draw up a list of potential projects (possible ideas drawn for the emerging NH Plan) which can then be made public and meet our community promise to use AJ to improve our environment.
Storage for the product is an issue, the Community Store at The Park has no space available, if anyone is aware of places that may be of use please let the production team know.
DJ shared a recording document with the group. This shows production Volumes, Dates and Batch Codes by Product on one spreadsheet, with Sales by Batch Code, Type and Quantity on another. This will be vital information for various reasons as the “business” grows and accurate stock and sales figures become a requirement.

 

Green space / In Bloom – P.Pinto.
MG. Major successes for Congleton In Bloom, with Gold and Best Small Town in the North West, which once again puts us into the Britain In Bloom National Competition. So plenty of new ideas and commitments for 2018. PA stated that The Rossendale Trust involvement at OSM may offer an opportunity for work with them on improving the environment in the around the area local to OSM.

 

Next Meeting:-
Mon 4th December 2017 , The Old Saw Mill ,10.00am

Senior Forum Meeting Minutes 17.10.17

The Senior Forum meeting took place recently, download the full meeting minutes HERE.

 

Highlights include:

One You Cheshire East – Johnny Gorman.

 

Johnny has taken over as the One You CE person that now covers Congleton. Currently they operate 8 x 12 week programmes that can be accessed online. Congleton Leisure Centre is currently running a 12 week exercise programme which on completion will offer the opportunity of reduced price ongoing membership.

The re-shape weight loss course has yet to be offered in Congleton- this is directed to healthy eating.

Full programme is available on http://www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/livewell/health-matters/keeping-well/one-you-cheshire-east/one-you-cheshire-east.aspx

 

Peter and Johnny to discuss about how to action this at The Old saw Mill.

 

 

Dementia- Helping Congleton become dementia friendly.

Steering Group now formed to drive this project forward. Chair S.Rathbone, Deputy Chair L.Alcock.

Meeting planned for 4th October cancelled next meeting planned for 8th November (2 to 4pm The Old Saw Mill).

Items for discussion and action included:-

Drop In’s which offer Activity for The Person with Dementia and a moment to relax over tea and cake for the Carers. (issue raised at July Dementia Awareness Day)

Dementia Friends briefing for Town Council staff and councillors

Dementia Awareness for business.

Dementia in its widest form now affects over 850,000 people and it is projected that by 2020 that figure will be well over 1 Million. This will be our most important project over the coming months.

 

Senior Health & Wellbeing Fayre 29.9.17

Around 60 members of the public attended the event which was somewhat hamper by the very poor weather at the beginning and a clash with a lot of local Macmillan coffee morning activity. We need to look at timing for future events, hold it later in the day or change the date completely.

It was felt that we should keep the format, it was well supported by service providers, the talks were well received but not as well attended as we would have liked (Scamming and Dementia worth keeping).

The group thanked Alyssa for all the excellent work she had done driving this project and wished this to be recorded in the minutes.

Sub group for next years’ event to be formed around Easter.

 

Meeting Finished at:4.17pm

 

Next Meeting:- Tuesday 9th January, Spencer Suite 3 to 5pm.