Author: Laura

By Kiera Lambert, Community Organiser

A big thank you to the team at Rotherham College ESOL department for allowing me to come along and speak to their more advanced English learners! I was able to speak to them about all things RotherFed, our services, and how we can help support them!

There was a fantastic response by the students there who were all keen to get involved in some way or another. The session allowed RotherFed to hear from a group of tenants who can often be left unheard and promote ourselves to the diverse community within Rotherham.

We look forward to continuing our work with Rotherham College and expanding our support for BAME tenants alongside this.

By Rob Gooding, Community Organiser

The Peregrin Way TARA’s committee decided to step down during lockdown after years of service to the community, working with Nicky Hayes from RMBC Neighbourhoods and Kiera from Rotherfed, we set about holding engagement events to identify new members that are interested in taking over the running of the group.

We identified several members that could fill these rolls moving forward. Despite a number of setbacks over the last few months Julie and the committee are now happily in position and running regular sessions from the centre.  Residents have stated that they would like to see new activity’s taking place in the centre, and not just the usual bingo and luncheon clubs. We are currently working with the residents to identify activities that the new group would be able to hold in and around the centre. So far, the group has mentioned gardening clubs, knit and natter’s, craft groups and potentially a breakfast club one or two days a week.

The first event held was an open event for the local community to come along and put their ideas forward. This event was a big success with people from Peregrin coming along to have a chat and discuss what their interests would be. We hosted with tea and coffee, cakes, and even an art station which had an extremely positive response from the attendees. The group are now currently running these coffee mornings every Monday morning and hope to expand to other activities soon.

By Sam Dixon, Community Organiser

Groups of individuals from all over the Dalton Thrybergh ward have been litter picking and participating in other Green Spaces projects for a number of years. As all of these groups have the same aims it was suggested by Cllr Michael Bennett-Sylvester that they all come together, formalize and then the group can start applying for funding and ensuring sustainability for the future.

The East Herringthorpe Pickers: A project run by Michael and Natalie, a local resident who has been engaged with RotherFed for more than 3 years. No matter the weather, Natalie and Michael meet in East Herringthorpe every single Thursday and pick litter from the streets where its agreed need the most attention that particular week. The group has had coverage in various local publications including the Advertiser.

By Dan Barron, Community Organiser

Rother Phoenix FC has progressed incredibly well over the last few months from non-existent to an ambitious footballing community group. Dan had first spoken to Natasha about a football project for children currently out of education. Tasha was then assistant coach in Kiveton. Due to circumstances could no longer work with the club. Natasha started looking into a community football group for Ferham. In doing so parents and children have followed Tasha’s football sessions to Ferham Park as well as engaging residents.

Natasha had spoken to parents who have said they would follow the project to Ferham because of Natasha’s reputation of putting the welfare of the children first. It only took a week for parents to come forward for potential community leadership roles as well as some volunteers who want to help the project with less responsibility. That is a massive credit to Natasha and her passion to become a coach in football and engage with children in sport. Natasha brings previous footballing and coaching experience enabling the project to begin immediately.

By Sam Dixon, Community Organiser

“In 1880 John Brown & co were listed as being the owners of Aldwarke Main Colliery. The name Aldwarke refers to an area in the Don Valley two miles north of Rotherham South Yorkshire. To the west of Aldwarke is Parkgate and to its East the villages of Dalton and Thrybergh.

By Dan Barron, Community Organiser

Back in August 2021 Cllr Ian jones was promoting a community meeting for those interested in in a community project at Masbrough Cemetery. Attending the meet was Cllr Ian jones, Chris Willis and 5 Masbrough residents. Cllr Ian jones started the introductions and we all spoke about our reasons for attending. Some residents were interested in the meeting because they have family members buried on the site and others have identified their ancestors buried on the site as well as having local connections.

Chris Willis the bereavement officer for RMBC spoke to us all and answered our questions about the cemetery, gave us a tour of the site and was able to talk to us about the current usage of the cemetery. Whilst we were walking around Chris highlighted areas of the grounds that had succumbed to the green overgrowth as we saw grave sites overrun with ivy, shrubbery due to the lack of maintenance. We also spoke about the 2 chapels being 1 of 3 sites in the UK to have both an Anglican and catholic chapel built as a mirror image that also separated the burial land by religion. Chris was very informative and spoke about the current situation of the site, services involved and other Friends of projects that the bereavement services are operating in other areas. Whilst at the site we decided on another meeting but this time we want to get stuck in with a community day of action to start working on the overgrowth of green mass currently residing in the grounds. So we have set up an official Friends of Masbrough Cemetery Group as a page to communicate future activities, events and relevant topics. The group is just over 6 weeks old now and already has 98 members who have joined the group. The page has seen over 1000 photos uploaded to the page as well as interactions asking about relatives, events.