Update on Plans for the Village Playground
The Arnside Village Playground Working Group have been working hard to raise money to fund playground equipment for local children on the site of the current playground on the Memorial Field, Silverdale Road.
The cost for new playground equipment that provides the most durable and exciting equipment and vastly improves the accessibility of the playground for children of all abilities is currently £87,500. So far approximately £66,000 worth of grants have been identified and are in the process of being applied for. There is no guarantee that every application will be successful, and the application has to be carefully timed to make sure the funds don’t expire before the installation can be started.
The remainder of the funds need to come from the Village as a community. Some of the grants are only available as ‘matched’ funding, which means they will only ‘match’ what is raised from local support i.e. nothing raised, nothing to match – which would be a real shame and a waste of time and effort as filling in these applications is no mean feat! The applications also require overwhelming community support to be shown, and currently the feedback from the Community Wellbeing Day held this time last year is being used.
Wouldn’t it be great to have some more recent feedback to show support? You can help do this by donating via the Crowdfunding page which gives a real demonstration of support that can be used as evidence for the grants. The target on the Crowdfunder is £25,000. Today donations are at £175 so, as you can see, a little way to go.
Fundraising events that have taken place include The Coronation Picnic back in the summer, which got things off to a great start, raising over £2,000. The Quiz Night held a couple of weeks ago raised £450. Many thanks to the Sailing Club who gave use of the venue for free.. The next fundraiser is the * Winter Ball * on the 9th December – a great opportunity for get dressed up and enjoy a 3-course meal with Champagne cocktails and canapes on arrival, music and dancing. There are still a few tickets available if you haven’t got your as yet! A full programme of events is planned for 2024 so watch out for details of those – either here on the website or on the Playground Facebook page.
There will be an ‘Auction of Gifts and Promises’ on the night of the Ball , so if anyone has anything to donate – anything at all, We already have a day of joinery labour and a homemade cake every week for a month. Anyone wishing to give, contact Rebecca at rebeccakennington@btinternet.com
The committee is also looking for someone skilled at social media to help spread the word, Could this be you? If so, contact Rebecca at rebeccakennington@btinternet.com
*The Committee have taken the difficult decision to cancel the Winter Ball due to low ticket sales. With just 4 weeks to go, it became clear that the event was not viable, so the decision was taken to cancel. Thank you to those who did buy tickets, full refunds are available from Charlotte at Arnside House..
