Stafford and District

The Nationwide Community Grants programme awards up to £50,000 to local housing projects that will strengthen local communities by supporting the most vulnerable by:

• Preventing people from losing their home
• Helping people in to a home
• Supporting people to thrive within the home environment

Nationwide believes doing what is right by their members and their communities is at the heart of what it means to be a building society. Following a member vote in 2007, Nationwide invests at least 1% of pre-tax profits to support good causes each year.

A big thank you to our donors for generous donations of food items since we started in 2012, which has enabled us to provide in excess of 70,000 meals for those in need in the Stafford community.

The CCGs are currently running a consultation on a proposal to create a single Strategic Commissioning Organisation (single CCG). If progressed, this would have commissioning responsibility for the whole of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent from April 2020.

We are pleased to announce an additional public meeting date for the consultation:

• Friday 7 June in the Seisdon area: arrival from 1pm with the meeting 1.30 – 2.30pm, Bill Brownhill Room, South Staffordshire District Council WV8 1PX

We would be grateful if you can promote this within your networks.

Staffordshire Warmer Homes is an initiative run by Staffordshire County Council, to fit fully funded first time central heating into houses across Staffordshire. We have started to roll the scheme out in Tamworth.

This is a fantastic scheme that will help keep residents warm and we need your help to start making referrals into the scheme. 

“Beat the Cold, working with Staffordshire County Council, and E.ON are looking for help to find households that would benefit from having free** gas central heating fitted.

In this first phase we are looking for households that have a gas connection, but no gas central heating. (homes which have a gas cooker, OR who currently heat their home by gas fire only, for example.) To be eligible, there must be a member of the household in receipt of a means tested or disability benefit.

The Together We’re Better partnership is launching a 12-week public conversation across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent to listen and understand what is important to you about health and care locally, what works well and what you think should be improved.

As a partner in Together We’re Better, we are working alongside NHS organisations, local authorities, Healthwatch and voluntary and community sector groups to achieve a joint vision of ‘working with you to make Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent the healthiest places to live and work’.

The current contract for Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) services in South Staffordshire is due to come to an end.  In order to comply with Government Regulations around NHS contracts and Procurement, the Clinical Commissioning groups (CCGs -the NHS Organisations responsible for designing services) in this area must award a new contract to provide the service using a tendering process and invite potential providers to apply.

Development of National Safeguarding Resources for the Third Sector

The National Lottery Community Fund has awarded funding to the Safer Social Sector Partnership (SSP) to fund the creation of a comprehensive suite of free safeguarding tools and advice for the voluntary sector.

Ann Craft Trust as members of the SSP have taken on the task of producing resources for the adult safeguarding element of the free resources and to that end they’ve asked if voluntary organisations and users of voluntary organisations could help to shape the resources by completing a survey. 

There was a great turnout at the recent Staffordshire Village Halls Network meeting held at Derrington Village Hall. This second network meeting, held on Monday 20th May was attended by over 30 people representing 19 village halls around the county. Participants picked up some tips on succession planning, attracting new volunteers and widening the customer base, with a lively presentation from Vicky Green of Codsall Village Hall, sharing some of their ideas and experiences.  

April 2018 saw the launch of SASSOT’s new three year strategy in line with Sport England’s ‘Towards An Active Nation’.  Our strategy challenges us as an organisation to develop new ways of working, supporting partners to engage new audiences and developing relationships with new agencies.  This change in focus has raised discussions as to whether our current brand, in particular our organisational name, is ‘fit for purpose’.  At this point in time we have opted to refresh our organisational logo rather than undertake a full rebranding process as we are confident that there is strong brand a