Category: Funding

charity, Community News, Funding, fundraising

An encouraging final phase of the year as funding rolls in

The Net Community Hub

Huge thanks to us from three of our biggest supporters over the last five years.

Firstly, we received another £10k grant from The National Lottery Community Fund, which will cover most of our regular activity sessions for the next twelve months.

Following on from the advise of that, the Sir George Earle Benevolent Fund via the Kent Community Foundation has awarded us £3000 towards our costs costs, covering the period now to the end of February.

And at the end of November, we will be receiving our main tranche of funding from the Cooperative Community Fund, which will be used to run our Brainstormz! session (Saturdays, 1-4pm).

None of what we do would be possible without the generous support of our local community, both national and Medway lottery players and the fundraisers brought together under the Kent Community Foundation banner. You’re our heroes!

The Medway Lottery is an ongoing opportunity to raise funds for us – set up your account and choose us as your charity here.

Activities, Community News, Funding, walderslade together

Celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

The Net Community Hub

The BIG bank holiday weekend is almost upon us, and thanks to the ever-wonderful Kent Community Foundation, we’ve been awarded £1900 to help Her Majesty celebrate!

While maintaining our usual activities, we’ve extended our opening times with bonus editions of arts and crafts with the fabulous Natasha at Creatabot, an afternoon tea, courtesy of WALT, finishing off with live music and other activities in the Big Tea Party.

The full calendar is below, do come along and join us!

Wednesday 1st June: 10am-3pm

Open Cafe with Chairobics at 11am and Creatabot Arts between 12.30-2.30pm.

Thursday 2nd June 12noon-4pm

Waltie’s Open Cafe and Afternoon Tea.

Friday 3rd June 12noon-4pm

Open Cafe with Creatabot Arts in residence from 1pm.

Saturday 4th June 11am-4pm

The Big Tea Party with WALT. All welcome to drop in for live music and activities throughout the day.

We do hope you will join us to raise a toast to Her Majesty 🙂

Activities, Community News, Funding

Brainstormz! to receive Coop support

The Net Community Hub

We’re delighted to advise that The Net’s neurological support group, Brainstormz! has been selected by our local Coop as one of their charities of the year for 2021/22.

Brainstormz! was instigated by our volunteer, Sue, back at the end of 2019 and carried on via Zoom throughout the lockdown. However, it’s now back in person and funding we receive from the Coop secures it for another year. Funding from Comic Relief enabled the project to begin.

To support the project, please select Brainstormz! on your membership card. Every penny makes a huge difference!

Come along and join in the sessions, which take place on Saturday afternoons between 1-4pm. A donation of £2 to the group helps to cover any further outgoings. Read more about it here.

Thank you 🙂

Funding, Premises

Making the most of lockdown

The Net Community Hub

Normally, we’d be open throughout the week, welcoming our members and residents into the space.

With the enforced lock down, sadly, as you know, we had to close our doors. So, we set about making some premises improvements, and thanks to the Clothworkers’ Foundation awarding us a one off capital grant, we are the proud owners of a brand new kitchen!

It’s something we could never have installed under normal circumstances, as we would have had to voluntarily close the space down for two weeks.

We’re looking to make other improvements too, but in the meantime, we hope to open the doors on a restricted basis, with small social bubbles. Keep an eye out on social media and here on the blog for updates.

A deep clean will be undertaken in the next few days, and precautions such as face coverings, hand sanitation and temperature readings will help give confidence as we slowly return to normal.

We look forward to welcoming everyone back in due course.

Activities, charity, Community News, Funding, fundraising, walderslade together, walt

The 2.6 Challenge to raise much needed funds

The Net Community Hub

26challenge

The 2.6 Challenge is a simple and fun way for everyone to do their bit to help save the UK’s charities. 

Sunday 26 April was the scheduled date of the 40th London Marathon, traditionally a huge earner for charities throughout the UK.

Due to the COVID19 outbreak, this – along with many other fundraising activities – has been cancelled. In response, the organisers of the biggest mass-participation sports events across the country have come together to create a new campaign to raise vital funds to help save the UK’s charities.

This is a challenge for all ages and abilities and all you need to do is think of an activity based on the London marathon around the numbers 26 or 2.6.  

This could be something as simple as pledging to run 2.6 miles as your daily exercise to doing 26 minutes of yoga or even juggling for 26 minutes non-stop. The only requirement is that the activity must follow the Government guidelines on exercise and social distancing. 

Thousands of fundraising events across the UK have been cancelled due to Covid-19 with a devastating impact on charity income that means many charities are facing closure. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) CEO Karl Wilding estimates that the UK charity sector will lose £4 billion in income as a result of the pandemic. 

This impacts all sectors of society – from children to the elderly – as well as the vital work in areas such as palliative care, serious diseases, mental health, housing support, food supplies and countless others that charities support. 

We’ve seen overwhelming support from the public for Medway’s charities and community groups, working with Public Health Medway, to ensure that the vulnerable people we represent are not forgotten during the lockdown. To help us cover some of our income losses due to the hub closing, and to prepare for getting back to normal, please do what you can as part of the 2.6 Challenge and donate to our fund here: https://localgiving.org/charity/the-net-community-hub/

Thank you.

Activities, charity, Community News, Funding, Support Services

We’re part of the Comic Relief Community!

The Net Community Hub

Brainstormz! Flyer (2)

Our lovely volunteer, Sue, has been rewarded for all her hard work with regard to the Brainstormz! group – our project has received a £3,977 grant from the Comic Relief Community Fund (England), which secures it for the whole year!

Piloted in December, Sue has worked tirelessly to build the group, both physically in the hub (every Saturday from 1-4pm) and on Facebook. It’s open to anyone with a neurological condition (including but not limited to e.g. FND, fibromyalgia) who wants to drop in for a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen or just for tea and biscuits.

Sue hopes to expand the offer of the group, with guest speakers and activities. If you’d like to be involved, drop us an email: community@waldersladehub.org.

The Comic Relief Community Fund (England) provides grants to grassroots organisations to develop their capacity or deliver a project in at least one of Comic Relief’s themes: Children Survive & Thrive; Fighting for Gender Justice; A Safe Place to Be; and Mental Health Matters. Find out more about the fund here.

Activities, charity, Community News, Funding, fundraising, kent messenger, Volunteers, walt

An eventful year comes to a close

The Net Community Hub

What a year it’s been for us, here at the Net!

With fundraising events, successful bids and an ever-strengthening partnership with Walderslade Together, we’re looking forward to consolidating our offer to the residents of Walderslade and Lords Wood as we enter 2020.

A huge part of our success is down to our fantastic Walties – the volunteers engaged by Walderslade Together who support so many local people. Whether it’s shopping, taking to hospital appointments or just chatting to them, our volunteers tirelessly give their time and energy to making peoples’ lives better.

To say thank you, we held a special Christmas dinner for them last week.

Our Arts & Crafts Club has been given a boost by volunteer Cat, and the new Brainstormz! support group is run by Sue, a dream to make happen she’s had for a long time.

If you would like to become a volunteer at the hub, and start an activity group or support session for something you’re passionate about, drop into any of our sessions, email Jaye via community@waldersladehub.org, or call us on 01634 319633.

To find out more about the volunteering opportunities with WALT, contact Sharon via volunteer@waltcic.org.uk.

A huge thank you to the Coop, with their community fund netting us the awesome amount of £6,378.94, and to the KM Group for their support as Charity of the Year, for the Medway Messenger this year. And, of course, to the Kent Community Foundation for their ongoing support, which culminated in them awarding us core funding for the next three years.

We’re also indebted to The National Lottery and Magic Little Grants, whose support enables us to do so much more.

Here’s to 2020!

Funding, Premises

It’s going to be a warmer winter!

The Net Community Hub

IMG_2626

Our new windows and doors are finally complete and been given the thumbs up from our regulars 🙂

It seems like forever since we first decided to replace our old windows and wooden doors, which made the hub too warm in the summer and too cold in the winter, but thanks to a combination of funding from The National Lottery (our previous award), Medway Rotary Club, The KM Group and the Co-op Community Fund,  the installation has been carried out – and it all looks fab!

With huge thanks also to Clarke’s Glazers of Gillingham, whose service was excellent.

There are still more improvements to be made but we’re very proud of our progress in the past two years to make the hub as welcoming as possible.

With core funding secured for three years, thanks to the Kent Community Foundation, we’re looking forward to expanding our services and activities, so if you’ve any ideas of what you’d like the hub to offer, please do get in touch on 01634 319633 or email community@waldersladehub.org.

We also have evening and weekends (and some daytime slots) available for hire at very reasonable rates – £7 per hour for community groups and charitable organisations, or £10 p/h for individuals and businesses. More information on hiring the space can be found here.

Before, during and after …

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Activities, Funding, Resources

Fabulous news from Awards For All!

The Net Community Hub

digital-white-background

We’ve done it again!

Two years ago, we were fortunate to be awarded £10,000 Awards For All funding, which kick-started many of the projects we currently have running, i.e. Chairobics, Time To Talk etc.

We’re delighted to announce that we’ve just been awarded another £10,000 by the National Lottery Community Fund (aka Awards For All) which secures Time To Talk and Brunch and a Bit More for another year, and allows us to open up a Reminiscence Cafe once a month too, working even more closely in partnership with WALT than ever before.

This, coupled with the Kent Community Foundation’s core support funding, means we can truly go full steam ahead in our aim to get the space open seven days a week. Part of the previous fund is also paying towards our new windows and doors – and installation is now scheduled in, thanks to various other donations!

It’s been a helluva year all round so far, with the Co-op fund going great guns, and the support of the Medway Messenger too. Most importantly, all our volunteers, and those of you who play the lottery and support the work of thousands of charities like ourselves – thank you!

The Net Community Hub Open Cafe

Activities, Funding, fundraising

Magic Moments! We’ve been awarded £500 from Magic Little Grants.

The Net Community Hub

MLG logo 2

In partnership with Postcode Community Trust, Magic Little Grant from Localgiving has awarded us £500 to support our Monday afternoon Chairobics activity, securing it for a further year.

The session has gone from strength to strength since we instigated it two years ago, with over 25 people taking part regularly. It runs from 1.30-2.30pm on a Monday afternoon, although many participants stay after our coffee morning, or arrive early to have a chat and a cuppa. And often, there’s more chat afterwards! It’s hitting all the right notes with regard to gentle physical exercise for those less mobile, and offering a chance for people to meet and make friends. Drop by anytime!

The Postcode Community Trust is a grant-giving charity funded entirely by players of People’s Postcode Lottery. Localgiving is the UK’s leading membership and support network for local charities and community groups.

For information on how you can apply, visit the following links:

www.localgiving.org/magic-little-grants/
www.postcodecommunitytrust.org.uk
www.localgiving.org/

Find out how to play the People’s Postcode Lottery, and support even more charities by clicking here: www.postcodelottery.co.uk

MLG Logos

As part of this grant, we’ve been provided with an annual Localgiving membership. This will enable us to benefit from a range of online fundraising services and campaigns. We’re able to receive donations through Localgiving via this page:

www.localgiving.org/the-net-community-hub