October’s Town Matters started with a welcome from the Chair, Cllr Ali Barclay. After approving and signing the minutes from the last meeting there were questions and comments from the public and Cllrs.
Kate Hellard, Frome Town Council’s (FTC) Community Development Manager, was first on the agenda providing an update on the Community Development pilot in Trinity.
The successful work has brought several other services together with the Trinity Community Group who have worked hard to explore a range of issues and deliver a series of projects to improve the place in which they live. These included: Trinity Community Garden, the Detached Youth Work pilot, the Playing Out initiative, and developing a set of resources for residents and community groups which can be borrowed for free for street parties and other neighbourhood events.
The Frome Community pages on the FTC website have a host of useful information on how to organise your own community event or street party. Finally, further discussions were had on moving the projects forward and next steps for 2020. To find out more and read the full report here.
Next, Rachel Griffin, Marketing and Communications Manager, gave an overview of the People’s Budget:Events with a view to next year’s potential activity. Rachel explained how community engagement is an important underlying principle of FTC and the People’s Budget:Events has been one means of delivering this by providing residents with meaningful choices about how a proportion of FTC’s budget is spent.
The successful projects in 2019 were a town fireworks display, Children’s Festival activities, an Active and In Touch Thanksgiving project and Big Red Bus Housing Project. The proposal for 202o is to continue to build on the previous successes of the PB:Events again and Cllrs unanimously agreed to take forward the PB Events to enable a public vote in March 2020 and allocate at least £25k in the 2020/21 budget. Read more here.
We next heard again from Kate who outlined the recommendations for Community Grants made by the Grants Advisory Panel. Cllrs agreed to award grants to Merlin Theatre (£2000), Frome Park Bowls Club (£1500), Jackdaws Music Education Trust (£500), Black Swan Arts (£2000) and Frome Collegians Football Club (£400). Further details can be found here.
Wrapping up the meeting, Rachel detailed a new Busking Code of Conduct. Busking is a long-established tradition which adds attractiveness and colour to the town and FTC hopes to encourage it. The code has been developed with Mendip District Council to promote good practice for buskers. The new code can be found here.
The agenda and details of everything mentioned above can be found here. Dates of future Council and committee meetings can be found here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep updated on everything we’re up to.
Published 11/10/2019
