Grannies Attend Regen.
Back To School For Cutsyke Grandmothers
Sixty-four year old Pat Hardisty and 54 year-old Maggie Beckett are going back to school nearly a decade since they waved goodbye to their jobs as a clerk and receptionist respectively.Pat, chair of the Cutsyke Community Group in Castleford, west Yorkshire and Maggie, its vice secretary, have teamed up to attend a 20 day training programme to learn skills and knowledge that will help them play a hand in turning around the fortunes of the local community of Cutsyke. They are two of four volunteers from the Cutsyke Community Group, who, with two volunteers from The Green, Ferry Fryston, make up six local community people being offered regeneration training free of charge as part of The Castleford Project - a collaborative initiative between the Council, various regeneration organisations and Channel 4 TV, all working together to support the regeneration of the town, which will be showcased on national TV as a five-part series next year (2005).
Regen School is being funded over two years with £227,000.00 from The Coalfields Regeneration Trust - an independent charity and partner of The Castleford Project, that aims to achieve social and economic regeneration in Britain?s coalfield communities. A community-run organisation based in Sheffield, Regen School provides practical support and training for people who are setting up projects to regenerate and improve their neighbourhoods.
Run over nine months, students work side by side with a mentor experienced in running a similar project who can share their knowledge with new or struggling projects. Two residential weekends are included along with a series of practical workshops ranging from how to get funding and how to set up non-profit making companies, through to recruiting volunteers and running social enterprises.
Despite both having undergone open-heart surgery, Pat and Maggie are determined to put in the effort to make the area a better place for youngsters to play. The scheme they are involved in is the Cutsyke Green Lane Play Area, an idea they had before The Castleford Project came along, to create a safe environment for social play using natural features and landscaping on a strip of land owned by the Council alongside the rugby ground used by the Cutsyke Crusaders Rugby Club.
Through the Castleford Project, and working alongside mentor David Gray, development manager of Heeley City Farm in Sheffield, Pat and Maggie are developing their outline ideas with the Council and the Wakefield District Play Forum who are helping them in the planning, design and obtaining of funding for the project.
The Cutsyke Community Group was set up by the people of Cutsyke four years ago in response to a decline in the neighbourhood that local people wanted to do something about. Already the Group has secured a home on Westwood Road - two former council flats joined together - and which now teams up as a drop-in centre for young people and a computer training station. The Cutsyke Community Group has also liaised with the Council for replacement windows, doors and central heating to upgrade council homes in the area.
A parallel larger scheme in Cutsyke is also being helped through Regen School with local volunteers Sue and Gordon Hooker and is one of the Projects that will feature as part of next year's TV series. It involves the development of a piece of land in Cutsyke with allotments, a community garden, an innovative "play forest" and a multi use games area. The Group also has further aspirations to develop a purpose-built community centre. The garden has already got planning permission and funding. The Architects for the "play forest" are Leeds-based Allen Todd.
Speaking about the Cutsyke Community Group - which now has about 15 members, the youngest of them only 20 -, Rheta Davison, who has been instrumental in raising over £65,000.00 already through various government and agency funding channels and who is local project champion for The Castleford Project comments: -Cutsyke is a determined and hardworking community with bags of enthusiasm and we will do whatever is necessary to make this area a better place for everyone. Back to top