Thousands of pounds awarded to local groups by area board

MELKSHAM Area Board awarded a number of grants to local initiatives at their meeting this month.

A total of £8,756 was awarded at the meeting held on Monday 6th January from the area board’s Community Area Grants scheme and their Health and Wellbeing Fund.

Melksham Community Meals, a lunch service for vulnerable and isolated older people, was awarded £1,000 towards costs incurred when the service moved to the Spencer Sports and Social Club last month. The grant will cover the costs of removals, set up, promotion and targeted marketing to old and vulnerable client groups.

Melksham Men’s Shed was given £300 to run health and safety training for members. The Melksham Area Board health and wellbeing group noted that the training is essential for the health and safety of the ‘Shedders’, many of whom are old and working with limited supervision.

St Mary’s Church Broughton Gifford was awarded £5,000 towards the installation of a disabled access toilet. Their application said, “Our objective is to make the church more user-friendly, so that it can be opened up to wider use by the community. The most pressing need is to have a toilet. This is much in demand at weddings and funerals, when people have often travelled some distance. Also when it is being used by the school and a child needs to go to the toilet, this means that a teacher has to be absent with the child for up to 20 minutes. Our plan is to install a toilet with disabled access in what is now the vestry at the west end.”

£810 was given to Conigre Mead Nature Reserve volunteers towards the cost of two new benches for the area. Their application said, “The two benches have been requested by visitors to enjoy and observe wildlife. As a small community group we have very limited reserves of £585 and these have been promised to help with a new liner for the pond, to be installed by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.”

The West Wiltshire Multi Faith Forum, which provides ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) lessons to women in Melksham, was awarded £996 to help continue their work in the community.

Their application said, “We build and introduce new activities projects depending on our service users needs. We know of their needs usually through ESOL classes. The project provide ESOL lessons to women from different racial backgrounds and organises a few events for the purpose of community engagement with statutory and voluntary sector bodies and developing the skills of women to speak in public.”

Great Hinton Memorial Hall was given £650 for replacement LED lighting. Their application said, “The hall lighting is a combination of fluorescent tubes and tungsten lights which we want to replace with LED fittings. This will reduce our running costs and maintenance as well, with less frequent replacement of failed lights. This will be a step to improving our carbon footprint and an investment in the future of the hall, as fittings should last for 20 years without maintenance on present level of hall use.”