Discussion with Nicola Dance- Senior Policy & Partnership Officer and Alun Prescott- Neighbourhood Hub Manager
Minutes:
The community councils received a presentation from the Senior Policy & Partnership Officer. It was explained that this training was an initiative under One Newport Partnership to develop skills and knowledge through the Vale of Usk Leader Programme which was the source of funding for the project.
Main Points:
· Free carbon literacy training to be offered to community councils in Newport and Monmouthshire as it was a joint initiative between those two areas.
· Community councils would be learning about the link between human activity and climate change, and that would give them the knowledge to take action to reduce carbon emissions on an individual level or on a community council level.
· A bid was made to the Rural Development Fund which was successful, and it applied to the Vale of Usk LEADER area compromising Monmouthshire and rural wards in Newport including Llanwern, Marshfield, Graig, Caerleon and Langstone. In terms of community councils training the training is to be extended to all the 14 community councils to be delivered in the new year by Cynnal Cymru.
· 116 free online training places available for members of Community Councils and up to 90 free places available for members of the community in the area.
· Train the Trainer also applied where people who had received the training can also go on to deliver the training themselves further down the line.
· Training to run online from January to March 2022 – Two online sessions with one hour of self-directed learning.
· The training will inform people of the facts and science behind climate change, hear about the impact of different actions and develop actions plans using their knowledge. The course was also accredited with a certificate on completion.
· 4 opportunities to sign up with a course in January, 2 in February and 1 in March 2022.
The next step was that as of next week community councils clerks would be written to, to invite people to pre-register their interest with the booking link. One person can register on behalf of their community council with potential to extend that to more people.
Community councils were also asked to help identify groups looking after community buildings in their area and to also promote this training to residents in their area who might be interested.
Questions:
The Michaelston y Fedw representative enquired about the 116 places but only one community councils representative from each council to attend the training and the Senior Policy & Partnership Officer confirmed that the 116 places also included Monmouthshire which takes up the bulk of places and it was also available to organisations running community buildings.
The Marshfield representative stated that there would be a lot of groups interested in Marshfield and enquired as to whether there were any posters available to send on to these groups.
The Senior Policy & Partnership Officer confirmed that the information would be sent out via the Governance Support Officer to the Community Council clerks next week.
Community Councils were also encouraged to follow the One Newport Partnership on Twitter for more information and to share the information on their newsletters.