Agenda and draft minutes

Summary of Meeting

Assembly Fund Market Place

The Assembly will started with a marketplace event from 7.00pm to 8.00pm. The organisations bidding for a share of the Assembly Fund money each had a stall. The amount available was £12,500.

Attendees were given a voting card and a summary of the proposals. They then visited every stall to find out more about each proposal before casting their votes.

Voters were asked to rank select at least seven projects from the list. The votes were then counted results are shown in section 5 of the meeting notes.

Attendees were also asked to vote on two projects to be funded from £14,000 of Section 106 for community facilities.

1.   Welcome from Cllr Joe Dromey, Chair of the New Cross Assembly

1.1    Cllr Joe Dromey welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained that Cllr Maslin and Cllr Dacres sent apologies.

2. Changes to Youth Services

2.1    Shalena Haughton-Peters introduced herself as the Lead Youth Worker and introduced her colleagues Leanna Morris and Devon Carr who deliver services from Woodpecker Youth Club.

2.2    Shalena explained that Youth First is the mutual had been formed to deliver services for young people, under contract with the council. Being an independent entity allows them to bid for external funding to deliver services.

2.3    Woodpecker is currently open on Wednesdays & Thursdays from 6.15-8.45pm and Fridays from 4.45-7.15pm.

2.4    Every Friday is Food Friday where the young people cook and sit down together at the table to eat a meal together as many of them do not do this at home. During this time they have discussions on a range of topics.

2.5    Currently workers are establishing a Youth Forum so young people can share their ideas on how to develop the service.

2.6    Services during the holidays were well attended with up to 98 young people attending the various sessions.

2.7    There is also a residential trip being planned for February.

2.8    Partnerships include work with Chris Preddie delivering mentoring, performing art and creative projects with Yo-Yo Arts, re-launching the volunteering project and also someone has recently come forward to help run homework support.

2.9    Joe thanked Shalena and her team, adding that it was a difficult decision for Cllrs but they felt that it was important to keep youth service and creating the mutual will help to ensure the future of young people’s services.

Q.     What safeguarding procedures are there in place in the new service?

A.     Shalena confirmed that, as a subcontractor to the Council, the organisation is subject to the same levels of safeguarding as it was when it was a council department. This means that ALL staff and volunteers were subject to full DBS checks.

Q.     Why is the service only running from Wednesday to Friday?

A.     Shalena replied that looking at the budgets so that services can be run Monday-Friday and at weekends. Leanna added that she is current employed across two sites as it was found that Woodpecker was very quiet on Mondays & Tuesdays.

Q.     Are there organisations that would come in for free?

A.     Shalena explained that they are exploring numerous partnerships and can work with organisations as long as those organisations have the same level of safeguarding. They are also exploring a collaborative approach with the community and police service.

Q.     What are you doing to engage parents as I am a local resident and has not received any information about services?

A.     Shalena said that they have been working with the people coming through the door due to the service changes, however they are now starting to go out into the community. She added that they have been doing leaflet drops with the young people to attract more attendance. Leanna said that they have not had much contact from parents but would welcome input.

2.10 Cllr Dromey thanked the team for updating the Assembly.

3. Crowd Funding

3.1    Cllr Dromey introduced Niraj Detani from Spacehive which is a crowd funding platform.

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3.2    Niraj explained that Spacehive specialises in civic projects and the basic principle is bringing a crowd of people together to fund these projects.

3.3    This is not a new idea; the plinth for the Statue of Liberty was crowd funded by Pulitzer who used his newspaper to advertise for donations. This is just one example of newspaper barons using their publications to reach out to the community for funding.

3.4    There has only been one project on Spacehive that reached 50% of its funding target and then did not hit its goal and the tipping point for success on the site is around 10%.

3.5    Some of the projects that have been funded are the waterslide in the centre of Bristol, an old toilet that was turned into a café in Frome and a phone box that became an art gallery on a Scottish island.

3.6    Currently there is about £250,000 of funding available for Lewisham from pots from Lendlease, Lewisham Homes, Growing Green Britain, Hyde Housing and Esme Fairbairn Foundation.

3.7    Spacehive will be holding a workshop at Torridon Road Community Library SE6 1RQ on Thursday 8^th December from 6.00-8.00pm. To register visit

https://about.spacehive.com/events/

Q.      Tamsin raised concerns regarding the suitability for older people.

A.      Niraj agreed to it is not for everyone and that 80% of people who fund projects see these as things that they would want to be a consumer of rather than seeing it from a community perspective.

3.8    Kathy said that they had used Spacehive for Party in the park and that they had used another crowd funding site for the light boxes in the library.

4. Consultation on Gypsy & Traveller Site

4.1    Cllr Dromey told the Assembly that Lewisham was obliged to provide a site for the gypsy and traveller community but that, since the redevelopment of central Lewisham, there was not a site in the borough.

4.2    The potential site has to be council owned and meet certain criteria  Two potential sites have been selected there is currently a consultation on the council website which closes on 30^th November.

4.2    One site is in Bellingham and the other is on Hornshay Street which would involve the loss of the Wheel Shunters’ Social Club and a multi-use games area (MUGA).

4.3    The Cllrs are not opposing the site as it is acknowledged that facilities for travellers are needed and that as a community they face discrimination from many people. They have been very active with visits to the local community to ensure that they know about the consultation and that their views are represented.

4.4    Cllr Dromey informed the Assembly that, should the site in New Cross be selected, they would be working with planning to ensure that the MUGA was re-provided at that the Scotney Hall was re-opened to replace the loss of the social club.

Q.     This is a community that faces discrimination on many levels. Why are these potential sites in the poorest areas, could this decision be re-visited?          

A.     About 80 sites were scoped to develop a long list of about seven or eight for further investigation, but you could request this as part of the consultation. The other potential site is in an area that is not so deprived.

Comment  There are three sites in Southwark which are near to the New Cross site, the Bellingham location would offer greater choice.

Q.     The community has been using the land next to New Cross Station, could this not be explored as a site?

A.     This is not council owned and we do not have the funds to purchase sites.

Comment  One resident expressed concern at the loss of community facilities.

Q.      How big would the site be?

A.      There would be six pitches.

Q.      Some of the travelling community were using the land next to the station, could that bedeveloped as a site?

A.      One of the criteria for consideration in selecting potential sites is land ownership and that piece of land is privately owned.

4.5    The consultation finishes at midnight and residents can comment at

https://lewisham-consult.objective.co.uk/portal

5. Results of the voting for the Assembly Fund and Section 106 for Community Facilities

5.1    Sarah announced the results of the votes for the Assembly Fund as

5.2    All projects were funded as the Cllrs added their discretionary fund of £2,500 to the total of £12,500. There was also some under spend from 2015-16 which was used to top up the fund to a total of £15,696 , allowing all projects to be funded.

5.3    Sarah explained that there is £14,000 S106 money for community facilities from the development of land at Wardalls Grove. Two projects were put forward for consideration to be awarded £7,000 each. The projects were

6. Community Updates

6.1    Scott Barkwith explained that he was from Deptford Folk; the park users group that looks after Deptford Park & Folkestone Gardens. They are holding winter events and consultation.

6.2    Tamsin Bacchus introduced the work of the Lewisham Pensioners’ Forum who are involved in campaigns, consultations and events. There is a Save Our NHS group too

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6.3    The Forum have collated information on the Christmas lunches for lonely and isolated people across the borough and there is a leaflet for these. Please take one and pass them on to anyone who may want to attend.

6.4    If anyone wants to become a member it is £10.00 per year. For this you get newsletters, meeting and outings. We also offer gift memberships.

http://www.lewishampensionersforum.org/

6.5    Marie Hurley introduced herself as the new Community Development Worker for New Cross Assembly based at Moonshot Centre in Fordham Park.

6.6    Moonshot are offering free space to organisations that want to run health projects for young people. Please ring Marie on 020 8691 6099 if you would like to take up this offer.

6.7    David told the Assembly that Lewisham Emergency BME Forum are holding their Christmas party on 23^rd December from 5.30-7.30pm at St Michael’s Church of England Community Centre. Samuel

6.8    Sam Hawksley told the Assembly about Lewisham Local and the work they are doing to promote volunteering in Lewisham.

6.9    He told residents that it was Giving Tuesday which is an international day set up as a response to Black Friday, to encourage people to give time, skills and/or money to their local communities. Today the community had worked on several projects including young people baking cakes to give away in their local community at Somerville and New Cross learning promoting volunteering roles at the library.

6.11Cllr Dromey reminded everyone that we would be lighting up the Christmas tree in Deptford High Street on Thursday 8^th December at 6.00pm. Please join us for singing, a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine.

6.12Diana Hofler explained that she worked for Community Connections and they still have a little bit of funding for Techy Teas for older people. These events link people up with volunteers who show them how to make the most of technology such as a tablet or mobile phone.

6.13 There are opportunities for people to volunteer to demonstrate technology too.

7. Feedback sheets and close

7.1    Cllr Dromey thanked everyone for attending and reminded them complete the feedback forms.

There being no other business, the meeting closed at 9.00pm with no declarations of interest.

Note: These are not verbatim minutes therefore questions and answers have been summarised.