Cheques Campaigning success for IoF

The announcement that cheques will be kept as a valid payment method following the Payment Council's investigation into their future is a major success for charity fundraisers and the Institute of Fundraising 'save our cheque' campaign.

According to an announcement on the Payment Council's website "cheques will continue for as long as customers need them and the target for possible closure of the cheque clearing in 2018 has been cancelled."

Simon Morrison, Director of Marketing and Communications at the Institute of Fundraising, comments:

'We are delighted that the Payment Council has disposed with the proposed end date for cheques.

'This will make a world of difference to a lot of our members, especially as some charities currently receive up to 80% of their funding by cheques. For a large cohort of donors cheques are a preferred method of donation.

'However, the next generation of secure payment still needs to be investigated by the Payments Council.'

(Source: Institute of Fundraising)

Llangattock wins British Green Streets Title

A village in the Brecon Beacons has been named Britain's greenest community.

Llangattock Green Valleys project won the Welsh final of the British Gas challenge in 2009, but has now scooped the British title as well.

The village, near Crickhowell in Powys, has won £100,000 to spend on a local environmental project.

Judges said villagers had shown "some amazing levels of commitment to cutting carbon emissions".

Llangattock was chosen from 100 projects across the UK to be one of the final 14 communities who would go head-to-head over 14 months as part of the Green Streets challenge, a project helping communities to save energy and generate their own energy.

Michael Butterfield, from the Llangattock scheme, said: "Winning Green Streets is incredibly exciting.

"We've all worked really hard towards this and it's great to see that British Gas really understands and appreciates what we're trying to do here in Llangattock.

"Llangattock Green Valleys' aim is to make our community carbon negative by 2015, so as well as promoting energy efficiency across the board we plan to become a net exporter of renewable energy.

"As well as reducing our carbon footprint, this strategy will bring revenue, jobs and skills into the community and help us build a strong community asset base.

Source: BBC online

Congratulations to Llangattock on their success and best wishes for the future!

Ponthafren Success with Gwirvol grant

The Ponthafren Association in Newtown, has been awarded £4,130 from the GwirVol grant scheme.

The award-winning Powys charity provides support, information and education to members of the community affected by mental health issues and/or social exclusion or isolation. ‘Anim8 2 Motiv8’ will be a series of taster workshops to capture young people’s thoughts and ideas on what inspires them to volunteer. This will then be followed by a series of animation workshops involving young people, with the aim of producing a DVD on the ‘story’ of what Ponthafren does and the benefits of volunteering.

Nicky Morris Co-ordinator at Ponthafren said “we are very excited about this grant which will help us to target young people between the ages of 16 and 25 in a way that will really work. My son is 17 and I had produced a leaflet which was supposed to be aimed at encouraging young people to volunteer – he took one look at my attempt and said that if he was given the leaflet he would not have read beyond the second paragraph as it was ‘way too wordy and boring’! This made me rethink the whole way in which we engage young people and instead of inflicting my ideas on them – for the ideas to come from the young people themselves. We have now carried out the first of our initial taster sessions with Health and Social Care Students from Coleg Powys and have received very positive and helpful feedback that the project is going to be a great opportunity to support young people on their career pathway – volunteering will give them the experience they need to gain employment within the Health and Social Care setting and inspire them to great things.”

(Source WCVA / Ponthafren Association)

Congratulations and thank you to Ponthafren for sharing their success with us, we look forward to seeing the results of this project.