Barrhead sees 900 people have their say through PB - Event report
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Barrhead Housing Association have deep roots in the town south west of Glasgow and go beyond being a provider of housing. Their mission is to be ‘At the heart of the community’. On Saturday 2nd March they achieved that in spades as they welcomed over 900 people to their participatory budgeting Community Voting event.
Building on a successful event in the previous year, this was an opportunity for the community of Barrhead to have a direct say in how £48,000 of Scottish Government Community Choices funding should be best invested in the community.
Bryan Dando coordinated the event on behalf of the housing association, he said “we see ourselves as a community anchor organisation, we are also about community development, supporting community projects and finding out what the need is in Barrhead. We want to go above and beyond simply looking after our tenants, it’s about our wider Barrhead area”
The community of Barrhead’s response to participatory budgeting was so great that the voting event moved to a larger hall in Barrhead high school. Despite the size of the hall there remained a busy, warm celebratory feeling to the event. With colourful stalls of organisations bidding for funds hosting lively conversations.
Barrhead Housing Association had taken steps to ensure that people not attending were included, with over 100 of the housing association tenants returning a postal vote.
Transparency was important at the event, with voting rules on clear display [picture]. An interesting change this year was a decision, inspired by the recent Year of Young People, by the community steering group to split the funds between a pot focusing on young persons projects and a pot for the community as a whole.Everyone in Barrhead could vote, and each were give six votes which they had to spread across projects.The steering group decided on a voting age of 12 but young people decided that people age 5 or older should have the right to vote for projects that benefit them.
Groups making a difference
Janet Jones was at the event from ERA, East Renfrewshire Additional Support Needs Parent Action Group. They are made up of every day heroes who, as well as working and supporting their own children they volunteer in what time they have left to run groups activities and support for children and their families, from ERA juniors to teens.
The £3,750 funding requested would help ERA in two ways: support independence by enabling them to recruit staff with expertise in working with young people and at the same time, give parents a well-earned break. It “would be so nice to get a couple of hours were just once they could do something for themselves”. It’ll make a difference to young people and families.
Janet thought today’s event was fantastic, but not just because of the funding on offer: “it gives you the chance to get out there and get our name out there and let people know that we exist. Because word of mouth works better than anything”. [picture]
Janet saw the event as a way to grow the group for new members and families, which is a win whatever the outcome of the vote.
Rema McGuire hosted a stall for a Community Safety and Health project sees that there’s more to the event than money alone: “I’ve lived in the area all my life, and involved in the community but I don’t know that most of these groups existed”.
I was drawn to chat to Margaret Reilly (as she has the same name as my mum), she was at the event as a volunteer at Band F Disabled Forum.
“We want to help the community by getting folk out of isolation and give them a better quality of life by bringing them along to the club for a gab, a cup of tea, knitting, parties and outings”
Margaret Reilly
Margaret told me that Band F have members who don’t see anyone apart from them from week to week, other than the carer who is paid to be there. “We exist on £5,000 a year and are asking for £4,000 from this fund to just keep going”. We like that decision are made in the community but worry that older people who use our club wouldn’t be able to come down and vote. [Picture]
Shirley Robison, Chief Executive of Barrhead Housing Association was delighted that the hard work had paid off, contrasting the turn out with other community engagement work “I’m so impressed at the turn out, people are so much more attracted to events like this than our consultation events”
I was drawn to chat to Margaret Reilly (as she has the same name as my mum), she was at the event as a volunteer at Band F Disabled Forum.
“We want to help the community by getting folk out of isolation and give them a better quality of life by bringing them along to the club for a gab, a cup of tea, knitting, parties and outings”
Margaret told me that Band F have members who don’t see anyone apart from them from week to week, other than the carer who is paid to be there. “We exist on £5,000 a year and are asking for £4,000 from this fund to just keep going”. We like that decision are made in the community but worry that older people who use our club wouldn’t be able to come down and vote. [Picture]
Shirley Robison, Chief Executive of Barrhead Housing Association was delighted that the hard work had paid off, contrasting the turn out with other community engagement work: “I’m so impressed at the turn out, people are so much more attracted to events like this than our consultation events.”
