Kesgrave Good Neighbour Scheme–Latest News

 

 

Below are extracts from our latest volunteer newsletter, edited to remove any personal details and confidential information.

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We had a great turnout for the January meeting at The Bowls Pavilion and met 4 new “fully fledged” volunteers. A warm welcome and thanks to them. Their details are now included in the phone holders manual but please break them in gently! We have 3 more volunteers in the pipeline  Many thanks to them too for sticking their head above the parapet!

April Meeting – Saturday 20^th April 2013, 12 noon

This meeting is now confirmed and we have a special VIP guest to come and talk to us.  Attendance will be by invitation only - volunteers have first refusal so I would be very grateful if you could let me know whether you can attend.  After that, depending on places available, we may invite some representatives of other local groups etc.

Warm Homes Healthy People Scheme

We arranged a table for the Rural Coffee Caravan and Warm Homes Scheme at the January Kesgrave Market and they came to talk to us at our meeting afterwards. They also gave us a few mugs, bags and other goodies which was very generous of them. If you know of anyone who is struggling with their heating, the Warm Home Schemes can help and have a sizeable fund for this year’s scheme which, in theory, finishes in March. It’s council backed and the number to call is 08456 037 686. The website is www.suffolk.gov.uk/warmhomes

Lofty Heights

I have added their details, along with a few other organisations, to the blog.  They will clear lofts for people at hopefully a reasonable cost and this “unblocks” the problem some people have in taking advantage of free insulation schemes, etc. I have plenty of leaflets if anyone wants them.

Kesgrave WI

As some of you will have spotted in your Kesgrave News, the WI are having an “at home” event – afternoon tea and entertainment - for housebound residents on April 8^th. They will pick up and drop off attendees if needed.

KGNS Funding

Most of you will now know that we are fully funded for 2013 thanks in large part to a very generous grant from local charity SPARKS. Funding may be less straightforward in future years and we’d like to organise a small event in 2013 to raise some funds ourselves. Current ideas include a sponsored walk around the streets of Kesgrave, a roadshow, a craft fair and a scarecrow festival. More suggestions to come and all ideas welcome! If possible we’d like to avoid needing to hire a venue.

Spreading The Word

Thanks to a specific project based grant from The Suffolk Foundation we are in the process of having enough cards printed to drop through every letterbox in Kesgrave. Distribution of the cards will start in March so we’ll be expecting/hoping the phone to be a bit busier! Having said that we are averaging more than one call a week now and have had some very successful visits.

Phone Rota

Attached is the new phone rota.

Next Social Meeting For Existing Volunteers Or Those Who Might Be Interested In Volunteering

Wednesday 27^th February 2013, 7 30pm, Kesgrave Social Club

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Proposed New Development – Longstrops

Whilst the Kesgrave Good Neighbour Scheme is not a lobby group, we do take a keen interest in our neighbourhood so, after an eagle eyed volunteer spotted the above announcement in the local paper, two of us went along to the presentation last night to find out a little more about it. We had a good long chat with the consultants and duly filled in the feedback forms expressing our own, personal opinions.

This posting is simply designed to alert our neighbours to the proposal if they have not already heard about it. You can find the outline plans by following this link Suffolk Coastal JDI Consult - Kesgrave Development Proposal . Briefly, the proposal is for 300 new house by Longstrops with an access road cutting through the existing footpath/walking area to Millennium Way and other access to eg Dobb’s Lane. The presentation last night is a first “foray” to assess local views and get some input into possible changes required to the plans before a formal application for planning permission is made to Suffolk Coastal. A presentation was made to Kesgrave Town Council just before the display opened to the public yesterday. As we understand it, Kesgrave Town Council will have influence on Suffolk Coastal’s decision but are not decision makers.

There is a very short timescale for initial feedback – deadline 13th February – and presumably the better the initial feedback, and the higher the volume, the more influence we can have on this proposal. The address given at the bottom of our feedback form for postal returns is:

Mr Will Lusty, Savills, Unex House, 132-134 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PA

Looking For A Local Tradesperson?

Our Good Neighbour Scheme can’t offer any “professional” or skilled trades but we can help out on eg changing a light bulb, a one off front garden clear up, helping to move things, etc. And we have to be a little careful about recommending people and organisations. That being said, the best advice we can normally offer is to have a good look at your monthly Kesgrave News. Most of the advertisers in there have been around for a long time and are therefore tried and tested.

The other organisation we have come across lately is Checkatrade. One of our volunteers has a chimney sweep who registered with them last year. They are one of the more expensive Trade Organisations (for the organisation that registers with them), which is probably a good thing, and they also follow up, on a random basis, on feedback forms completed by customers to make sure they are genuine. Our volunteer had a call a couple of months after the chimney was swept.

The website is free to use for the customer, very easy to navigate around and carries some really useful information. Try it for yourselves by using the link that follows! Checkatrade

2013 Starting With A Bang!

After an action packed volunteers meeting at the community centre on 19th January, we had another great turn out for our volunteers monthly social meeting this week – normally the 4th Wednesday of every month, 7 30pm till 9 pm at Kesgrave Social Club on Edmonton Road.

In the photo you can see the early birds in deep conversation over the price of beer -

very reasonable at this venue

There was plenty of news to catch up on – calls are on the increase as people get to know about us, we have three new volunteers in the pipeline who should be ready to join the team next month, we have made contact with Kesgrave WI – see below, our cards are ready to go to print so that we can drop one through every letter box in Kesgrave over the next few months (kindly funded by The Suffolk Foundation) and our volunteers are itching to get busy so please help them out by calling us if you need a helping hand.

We’d also like to say a big THANK YOU to SPARK, a local charity who have given us a very generous grant towards our annual modest operating costs. So that means we can concentrate on helping our neighbours rather than scrabbling around for funding! We’ve now added them to our useful links on the right hand side of the blog.

Kesgrave WI “At Home” 8th April

Kesgrave WI are holding an “At Home” – an afternoon tea and entertainment for house bound residents on 8th April. They will pick up and drop back anyone who is interested so, volunteers, if you think any of our neighbours might be interested, please ask them and, if they are, let Jane have their details which she will forward onto the Secretary of Kesgrave WI and she will send them an invitation. More details on page 16 of your February edition of Kesgrave News which, incidentally, celebrates its 20th birthday this month.

Staying In Touch With News

After a nudge from one of our IT savvy volunteers, we have added a “Follow By Email” box on the top right hand corner of our blog. If you enter your email address (which you will be asked to verify) you will automatically be notified each time a new post goes up. Blogger assures us that this will not lead to any additional spam and even the blog “owner” can’t see who has subscribed.

Next Meeting

We have a very special guest coming to our next quarterly volunteers meeting on April 20th. More news soon!