By Rachel Cole and Rob Gooding, The Tenant Involvement team
As part of our new contract with RMBC, RotherFed must deliver two pop-up events across the brough. Our first one was held on the Fitzwilliam Estate in Swinton, and this was a huge success. We thought of the White Bear Estate at Wath for our second one and after agreement from RMBC staff we started to plan this. The White Bear Estate is a disengaged area where we have struggled to get residents involved, despite many years of trying! FLUX have recently been putting some activities on the estate which residents have become involved with and have enjoyed.
Prior to the event we produced and delivered over 250 leaflets around the estate as well as promoting it on social media platforms.
Our event took place on Wednesday 28 August from 12pm until 4pm and luckily the sun was shining. DB Entertainment brought a bouncy castle and slide and provided free hot dogs for the children to enjoy. Early Years Help attended with activities along with our Energy Know How Stall and Tenant Involvement. The face painter was kept extremely busy over the 4 hours, painting lots of different faces. It was a great event with a fabulous turnout. We had approximately 250 people attend the event, with around 60% being children and the rest parents or guardians. 90% of residents attending were council tenants. We signed 12 residents up to the Connectors Pool who expressed an interest in becoming involved in council’s services/meetings. We also spoke to 3 residents who are very interested in forming a TARA on the estate, which is amazing news. Rachel will organise a meeting with these tenants very soon and move things forward. RMBC Housing and Neighbourhoods staff also supported on the day. It was a great day and hopefully the start more activities to happen on this estate.
An update from the Energy Know How team – one of the attendees who spoke with the energy team whilst at the event has been awarded 6 x prepayment vouchers worth a total of £294.00 because of their application to the Centre for Sustainable energy.
Quotes from a couple of residents.
“It’s so nice to see the field full of activity and children enjoying themselves”.
“Would like to see activities like this happen more often on this estate, it been a lovely day”.
