Agenda item

Councillors are reminded that they will need to declare any interest they may have in budget applications, and/or indicate that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applies to them.

The following funding applications have been received:

Name of Application: Art House

Submitted by: Sue Ryan (on behalf of Art House)

Amount requested: £250

Details of the application:

To provide 2 hopper buses by Leicester City Council Operational Transport to transport people between the Art House venues, one going clockwise and one anti-clockwise. Estimated costs are £350 - £380 to include 2 drivers and fuel.

To also provide promotional flyers for Art House: 15,000 printed by Scotia Press for £370.

The event is planned or 8/9 June 2013 and involves over 40 local artists in homes and studios in Stoneygate, Clarendon Park and Knighton. It is expected to receive over 600 visitors in the area. Art House has been running since 2008.

£250 is requested towards the costs of Art House.

Name of Application: Hart Trips

Submitted by: Highfields Association of Residents and Tenants

Amount requested: £500

Information submitted by the applicant:

Many families and children in South Highfields rarely get a chance to get away for the day. We propose to arrange, as we did in 2012, three subsidised day trips for local families and children in 2013. In 2012 we organised trips to West Midlands Safari Park, Wheelgate Park and Abbey Park Fireworks Display. They were funded by contributions by participants, the grant from the ward meeting and fundraising by HART through a table top sale. We will monitor the number of adults and children who go on the trips.

Cost estimated to be £1500 for 3 trips at £500 each. £500 is requested from the Stoneygate Community Meeting.

Name of Application: Project Y

Submitted by: Highfields Association of Residents and Tenants (HART) on behalf of itself and ERNA

Amount requested: £5000

Information submitted by the applicant:

Our proposal is to bring young people in our diverse community together through their common enthusiasm for different forms of art, enabling them to feel safe in each other’s spaces. We will run a series of five facilitated arts workshops, each four hours long, where young people aged 13-25 can learn and share arts skills and techniques. This would be followed by a public exhibition and demonstration of their work. The workshops and final event will take place at the Ark Theatre in Sparkenhoe Street. We will employ, on a sessional basis, a professional arts worker to facilitate the workshops. The first spark of an idea about this came from volunteers from HART and ERNA who, together with the police, run a weekly youth club at the Evington Road United Reformed Church. This facility was set up because the Slovak Roma young people had nowhere to go. While it has been amazingly successful, it has not attracted many other young people. It seems that young people in our vibrant multicultural community can lead parallel lives, not interacting with young people from other communities. An initial planning meeting had a majority of young people. It included people of African, African Caribbean, Asian (including Muslim), white British and Slovak Roma heritage. When we brought young people together for the first planning meeting, they were keen on using the arts, bowled over by the possibilities offered by the space at the Ark Theatre (which none of them had seen before), and wanted to explore, through art, issues around safety. We plan that the workshops and final event take place within three months. The process of encouraging young people from different communities to learn with each other, learn from each other and feel safe in a shared environment is hugely important. The church where the youth club operates is due to close in April. The community is working to try to save it as a resource, but it is likely that the youth club will have to move. The Slovak Roma young people feel this is their only space. If they can be a part of a multicultural project in a shared space, if they can feel safe outside the immediate environs of Evington Road, there are so many more possibilities for all of us. All of the young people at the first planning meeting have artistic abilities. There are probably many more we can reach through them. Once we have a group of young people who have been successful in sharing skills, wearing the T-shirts, organising a public event, anything is possible. A group of young people making art together to enable us to feel safe and empowered throughout our community.

Details of funding requested:

Kalvaran Sandhu, Member Support Officer attended the meeting and presented the Community Meeting Budget. Kalvaran reported that, prior to this meeting £7,300 had been allocated, leaving a total of £10,700 to be spent.

The following applications had been received since the last meeting and were to be considered: -

i)          Art House                                                                 £250

An application submitted on behalf of Art House to fund part of the cost of hiring two City Council Recreational Transport minibuses, with drivers, to transport people between the Art House venues.

The Art House event was planned for 8/9 June 2013 and involved over 40 local artists in homes and studios in Stoneygate, Clarendon Park and Knighton.

Councillor Unsworth, in attendance as a local resident , disclosed an Other Disclosable Interest as he was married to one of the artists.

RESOLVED:

that, having considered the application it be agreed to support the application in full - £250.

ii)         HART trips                                                               £500

An application was submitted by Highfields Association of Residents and Tenants (HART) to fund approximately one third of the cost of arranging three trips, at a cost of £500 each, for the benefit of local residents who were unable to fund such activities.

RESOLVED:

that, having considered the application it be agreed to support the application in full - £500.

iii)        Project Y                                                                   £5000

An application was submitted by Highfields Association of Residents and Tenants (HART) and Evington Road Neighbourhood Association (ERNA) to fund a proposal to bring young people within the local diverse community together through their enthusiasm for art. The aim was to run a series of five facilitated arts workshops, each of which would be for four hours where young people aged 13 -25 could learn and share arts skills and techniques. These would be gfollowed by a public exhibition and demonstration of their work. It was envisaged that the workshops and the final event would take place at The Ark Theatre in Sparkenhoe Street.

RESOLVED:

That, having considered the application, and generally supporting the proposal it be agreed to make available funding of £3,000 to get this proposal started, particularly as activities for young people in the Stoneygate area were diminishing. Should the funding allocated not be utilised for the purpose outlined the City Council would expect the funding to be returned.

iv)        Highfields Festival                                                 £2,000

An application was tabled to part fund the third Highfields Festival to be held in June 2013. Funding was being sought from Stoneygate, Spinney Hills and Castle Wards.

Members questioned how many people actually attend the 2012 Festival from the Stoneygate area and were informed that this information was not available.

RESOLVED:

that, having considered the application it be agreed to support the application to a maximum of £1,000, with a request that the organisers monitor more effectively the attendees to the festival that could ultimately assist future decisions.