Central Warwickshire LEADER

Note of Discussions at the inaugural
LEADER Forum, 11th May 2009

Aim of the Forum was to:

•    to inform and update community and parish groups about the current status of the Central Warwickshire Villages LEADER programme
•    to discuss development of both submitted draft and new ideas for practical community projects
•    to establish the LEADER Forum
•    to officially establish the Local Action Group (LAG) to steer the project

The Big Lunch  is a national project to encourage people to set up street parties on 19th July. The idea is that people across the country will get together to eat and share meals that they have grown, prepared or created themselves. Through Leader we could link local food growing projects with cookery classes for all ages and use The Big Lunch idea as a catalyst for setting up community events throughout the LEADER area - all to be held on the same day. It could be a huge party across the whole of Rural Central Warwickshire, with links nationwide.

This, the first LEADER forum meeting, will be of interest to all community and parish groups who work in Rural Warwick District and Rugby Borough. It will launch the recently funded Central Warwickshire Villages LEADER programme, which aims to fund projects that bring together people in rural parishes and communities. The themes chosen to do this include community growing projects, community art projects and projects that link villagers with farms and rural industries around them.

My name is Graham Stanley.

While my family emigrated to British Columbia, Canada in the late '50s, my mother told me I was born in Great Alne. We lived in Stratford on Avon and Henley in Arden.

I work in economic development in Central BC. The particular area known as the Stuart Nechako Region consists of a population of roughly 20,000 people rattling around 54,000 sq. Km. As you can imagine, the area is essentially a group of villages with the largest being Vanderhoof (pop. 5000).

Here's the thing,

The project aims to encourage communities to develop their own local food production through community gardens.

With the shortage of Allotments in the area (see Coventry Telegraph article of Jan 9 2009) we see that many have waiting lists of up to six years.

Stoneleigh Park whose main aim is to encourage the development of our land for food production could be approached with the suggestion that they allocate sufficient land on their site to the creation of Allotmnts for the use of residents in the surrounding villages and towns.

The shadow Local Action Group (LAG) has just finished meeting with Advantage West Midlands (AWM) at Garden Organics premises in Ryton. The meeting was arranged to obtain AWM's initial feedback of the Central Warwickshire LEADER proposal and we are pleased to report that the feedback was very positive. Over the next few days we will be incorporating the comments and we aim to submit the final documentation at the end of the week.

The final submission of the Business Plan for Central Warwickshire LEADER has now been submitted to Advantage West Midlands. You can download the PDF document here.

Submitted by the LEADER Administrator on behalf of The Rural Media Company (Nic Millington)

The following clip gives a really good idea of the atmosphere generated at the event starting off with Carolyn Reilly in an animated conversation with her workgroup!