Hello
Did I say last week that the Plan just needed a little polishing and buffing before it would be ready for wider review and comments? Well, that will teach me not to get ahead of myself. More below along with some feedback and further thoughts on funding.
1. To buff or to burnish? And what’s the difference…
- The Steering Group’s 2nd session to polish the draft Plan took place this week. And this time we entered into the nitty-gritty section of the document: reviewing the individual policies we need to ensure our objectives are met.
- I was being overly optimistic in thinking a bit of buffing (surface shine) would suffice to ensure the policies were strong enough. It soon became clear that a much deeper ‘clean’/burnish is required. Some key policies need a fair bit of re-work to ensure they are worded tightly enough for our purposes.
- The good news is that the Group is fully engaged in this work and lots of actions were handed out to undertake further research to make sure the backing material – the evidence we need to justify our proposals – is all in place.
- The bad news is that this will take longer than I had originally anticipated. So, the exercise we are doing to revamp our project plan will need to incorporate an extended timeline to produce the Plan itself.
- Despite the delay, it will mean a much stronger Plan overall. Given we have to delay the next stage (as reported last time), it means we have the headroom to produce a good quality product. More on this as we go forward – as you already know, producing the Plan is our top priority.
2. Funding focus
- Thanks very much to everyone who responded last week with thoughts on crowd-funding. The responses (a dozen or so) were all positive with people offering their support with hard cash. I wasn’t quite sure what level of support we could expect to see, so it is gratifying to see, yet again, the positive feedback.
- Of course, a dozen responses doesn’t mean we’ve resolved the funding situation. But the Steering Group are examining how best to take this forward and what is the best on-line tool to use. We’re looking at both “Gofundme’ and ‘JustGiving’ sites as possibilities – they seem to be the market leaders. But if you know of other sites worth investigating please let us know
- Following last week’s digest, another funding avenue has opened up – that of a professional fund raiser. One such organisation (based in West Bridgford) has approached us during the week and we have been in touch for an initial conversation. Which was positive, so we are looking to meet up next week to see how best to take it forward.
- This avenue may/may not be suitable for our immediate task – we know it can take several weeks for grant applications to be processed (10/12 weeks for Awards for All). Nevertheless, we feel it worth exploring as a possible solution for immediate needs – but if that is unrealistic then perhaps for longer term funding.
3. And finally….
- Land for sale at Toton. Did anyone spot the East Midlands Today news item on the lunchtime edition last Wednesday? I half caught it and after a bit of googling around online I came across this ‘notice of sale announcement’. The land in question is either side of Stapleford Lane i.e. directly behind Cleve Avenue and (part of) Katherine Drive. The sale is on behalf of Heart Church (T Land is a subsidiary of the church, we believe).
- HS2 Ltd meeting. Given our focus with finishing the Plan, our meeting with HS2 Ltd will be put back for a couple of weeks. This suits HS2 as well since they are still finalising their report on the outcomes of the consultation last autumn.
- DIO meeting. I mentioned a while ago that we had been invited to meet with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and Homes England regarding their current plans for the Barracks. Things have been quiet since that first approach so we will be asking them to firm up a date for the meeting – now likely to take place in June. We’ll keep you posted.
And that’s all for this week folks. See you next time.
Kind regards
Graham
Broxtowe Lotto: tickets available from our CTTC Forum page where you’ll also find details of the scheme.