Cake and Cash

On Tuesday evening community members gathered to either pitch some ideas for community support; provide updates on ideas that had previously been supported or listen to ideas whilst eating madeira and lemon cake and voting.

There were 5 pitches in total for support.

First up was Kath from St Annes Community Garden group. They were pitching for £121 to spruce up the garden in time for the Wigan in Bloom visit. Gill suggested that if they asked for a little more, and if Ben would agree to do the work, then the bench and book creation that remained unfinished could be added to the pitch. Kath agreed on behalf of the group and £160 was accepted.

Brenda came next on behalf of the Family Craft Club. She was pitching for £216.59 to spend on art materials and the outdoor space, including the creation of bug houses. After a discussion about some of the ideas, and realising that one or two might need more thinking about, or work to happen first, Brenda revised the pitch to £115 and all voters agreed to offer the full amount requested.

Jude was up next. Jude is a very active litter picker within the Wigan Litter Pickers community. She was pitching for a ‘womble’ trolley to help her pick more litter and travel for longer. She had seen one for £69.99 in Lidl. Jude would be open to sharing the use of the trolley with other litter pickers in the community. There was a discussion around how much Jude contributes to the community and voters unanimously agreed to gift Jude the cash to buy the trolley.

Next up was Gill, on behalf of Mervyn, who couldn’t be with us. He wanted to pitch for the dog poo dispenser and a years supply of bag. He was committed to looking after it and refilling. There was a discussion about whether this dispenser was too close to others and in the discussion another pitch was formed for one on Acacia Crescent, with the local Councillor, Phyll Cullen offering to look after it when looking after the community notice boards. Both pitches were supported, with a view that we can move dispensers if need be.

Then it was over to updates. Lisa was up first. She had been gifted £250 to grow a face painting business at the last event. Her business was growing well and at the speed she has time for with all her other commitments. She had three parties currently booked and had supported the recent community parties.

Phil updated regarding the community defibrillator. Coop Funeral care were using their own fitters to fit it at nil cost to the community and were happy to go ahead, even though we hadn’t managed to secure a bench just yet. There had been a small rise in costs since the pitch, which we agreed to meet. So that’s ready to order and Phil will deliver it to the Co-op. We shared that 7 members of the local community had taken part in paediatric first aid training on Monday, ready for summer play, and that included the use of defibrillators.

Angela updated about the benches. We had a plan to recycle the benches that had been hanging around in Wigan Park for ages. It seems they have disappeared. Phyll Cullen agreed to get to the bottom of this as we haven’t included budget to buy new benches, only repair them. If we do need to buy them then we’ll need to pitch at the next event as Phil has gathered some initial costs. We are ready to site three, two which require no formal permission processes at the community garden and co-op funeral care, and one that Phyll has been seeking permission for near the Christmas tree.

Gill shared an update around the memorial garden, and the sheltered seating area which is now in place and invited people to visit the space once we’d finished chatting.

Angela wanted to talk about an idea that wasn’t formed, but required some support. As a community we seem to have more than our fair share of suicides and early deaths of late and she wondered if the community might be able to come together to do something about it. One of the ideas that she suggested was an art installation on Spencer Rd Bridge that provided messages of care and support from the community, along with contact numbers. She also wondered if it might be something that requires a public community meeting for us all to think together about. Both ideas were agreed and those who were interested in growing this idea put their names forward.

We ended by thanking Maisie for counting the votes for us and inviting her to think about an idea that she and her friends might like to take forward as we’d love to see more young people pitching.