Update for STV Feb 2022 Kiltwalk Funding for Go Beyond - 2021 Following our report in August 2021 we are happy to report some further developments that we feel have been a direct result of the initial £10,000 grant from STV. As reported, we recruited Kieran Power to work with us on communications across the Go Beyond network. This initially helped in the all the ways outlined in our original report. We became part of a consortium bid to develop Community Wealth Building in South West Edinburgh, which would mean that we would be able to access funding from the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal. This project was led by Capital City Partnership in Edinburgh with a third partner, West Lothian Council. This bid was successful and we recruited Gemma Smith 4 days a week for 12 months as Community Wealth Building Project Lead in July 2021. This project is allowing us to, through the Go Beyond network explore CWB from a grassroots perspective, we felt that much of the communications around this is laden with jargon and difficult for local people to understand how it can benefit them. The Go Beyond budget for this project is around £50,000 for 12 months. CWB interim report – Go Beyond Interim Project Report by whalearts - Issuu Although the funds for the Community Wealth Building project via CCP are held by WHALE Arts and Gemma is employed by WHALE Arts, the approach is still wholly collaborative, and we have developed an MOU for Go Beyond which now includes all the chairs or co-chairs of the small area networks – Oxgangs Forum, Pentlands Forum, Wester Hailes (Living Well Wester Hailes), Broomhouse/Sighthill (Joining the Dots), and Gorgie/Dalry Forum. We meet every 4 weeks to share learning, funding opportunities, training ideas and to coordinate speakers for each of our network meetings, and we try to operate using collective leadership principles. Following the end of Kieran’s contract in August 2021 we decided that the communications role was important to retain – the aspects that we wanted to continue were the Go Beyond newsletter ( Go Beyond Newsletter December 2021 (mailchi.mp); the South West Resources Map (EDINBURGH SOUTH WEST ESSENTIAL PROVISION MAP (mapme.com); and the Go Beyond Slack workspace. Because there was not a clear funding route for this work, WHALE Arts, Space and Big Hearts decided to co-fund Gemma to work on Go Beyond Communications for ½ a day a week until the end of March 2022. This move made sense as Gemma attends all the forums and is becoming well embedded across South West Edinburgh through her work on the CWB project. Gemma’s post runs until August 2022, and out most recent development is a collaborative application to Edinburgh’s H&SCP new funding stream ‘Capacity to Collaborate’ to develop this role further, taking aspects of the CWB project forward, retaining the important communications aspects and hopefully moving towards into an evolved role of Go Beyond network coordinator. It is also being discussed that we might look at setting up Go Beyond as a SCIO, in the future. And other areas in Edinburgh are interested in our model, which puts the third sector at the heart of conversations with statutory partners, but with a shift to this being more on our terms
Hopefully this explains the importance of the initial £10,000 we were offered by STV from Kiltwalk funds – without that we certainly would not be where we are now. Thank you from all of us, Go Beyond Leadership Group Allistair McKillop (Dementia Friendly Pentlands + Pentlands Forum) Catriona Windle (Health All Round + Gorgie/Dalry Forum) Craig Wilson (Big Hearts + SW VSF) Elaine Aitkin (Oxgangs Care + Oxgangs Forum) Leah Black (Whale Arts + Living Well Wester Hailes) Neil Hay (Space + Joining The Dots Broomhouse/Sighthill) Rossi Craig and Fiona Partington (The Health Agency + Living Well Wester Hailes) And: Gemma Smith – Go Beyond Community Wealth Building Lead