Flood relief funds available

The trustees of the Gloucestershire Flood Relief Fund met yesterday and decided to extend the fund’s closing date indefinitely. A further large donation is likely to be made to the fund by Severn Trent Water.

The trustees have received a low level of applications for help from Stroud residents and a further opportunity now exists for any resident who has not claimed to do so. Claim forms were available from Reception at Ebley Mill and on the Council’s web site. If you become aware of any residents in your ward or parish whose homes have been flooded (not second homes nor businesses) and who might be in a position to benefit please urge them to make a claim.

Opportunities for older people to carry out research

A team of researchers from the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) is carrying out a local evaluation of the Gloucestershire Partnerships for Older People Project (POPP) in Gloucestershire. UWE are keen to offer older people the opportunity to take part in their evaluation as researchers. The two main opportunities are for older people to be involved are by:
- Helping care home residents to complete a quality of life questionnaire; and
- Carrying out in-depth interviews with older people about their quality of life.

Training will be provided to help older people carry out these research tasks and any travel expenses will be reimbursed. If you would like to find out more about taking part in the UWE evaluation please contact: Simon Evans by telephone on 0117 328 1120 or by email at Simon.Evans@uwe.ac.uk

The big green challenge

UnLtd together with NESTA have launched the Big Green Challenge. Big Green Challenge is a £1 million prize fund to encourage groups of people to come up with new ways to tackle climate change. Run over two years, it challenges not-for-profit groups and organisations to demonstrate new and better ways to reduce their CO2 emissions by 60% in their communities. Projects can be local, regional or more widely spread. The Big Green Challenge will seek to select ten finalists, once selected, they will have a year to show Big Green that they can turn their BIG ideas into action. The winner will be announced in late 2009. Eligible challengers have to be constituted not for profit organisation although newly formed groups can apply for this status later. The closing date for entering the challenge is the 29th February 2008.