Community benefits from the 'In Your Hands' scheme
Community groups who won 'In Your Hands' money are already putting it to good use.
Community groups who won ‘In Your Hands’ money are already putting it to good use.
St John Ambulance recently received their cheque for £2,000 from Poulton Neighbourhood Management on behalf of local residents who voted for their bid to provide community training.
The Rainbow Centre has also received £605.26 for evacuation wheelchairs and first aid training for volunteers.
Local residents decided who should receive a share of the £20,000 in February at the 'In Your Hands Grand Voting Event' (Custom).JPG)
. A total of 26 applications were made from local community groups for money to spend on building a stronger community. Residents scored each bid out of 10 and those with the highest scores received their funding.
Participatory budgeting is a way of asking local people to get involved in how public money is spent.
Local groups who needed money to help build a stronger community were asked to apply to the In Your Hands fund for up to £2,000.
The response was incredible with 26 application being made in total. The groups were then invited to present their bid to local residents at the Grand Voting Event which was held at The Platform in February.
Each group had three minutes to present their bid and local residents marked them out of ten. At the end of the day all marks were counted and the highest scoring bids were awarded their money. Thirteen of the 26 bids received funding and even those who were unsuccessful thought participatory budgeting was an excellent idea and an opportunity to promote their work to a large audience.
A DVD explaining in more detail about how participatory budgeting came about and the benefits of allowing local people to spend public money is now available to view online at www.poultontimes.co.uk/poulton-video.
The film shows what happened at the Grand Voting Event and what the participants thought of the experience.
Date Updated: 19/03/09