Centenary Awards – Round 1
We were delighted to receive 8 applications for funding in Round 1 of our Centenary Awards. Many thanks to all applicants and to the independent panel of judges who freely gave up their time to rigorously assess each application.
The 3 winners who shared the £5,000 available were:
- Brixham YES – £1,765
- Brixham Heritage Museum – £1,470
- Shoalstone Pool – £1,765
Brixham YES
YES, Brixham is housed in The Edge, a redundant chapel in Bolton Street. The building is 180 years old. Fortunately, the structure and roof are relatively sound. However, the floor in the main hall area has suffered over the decades
from damp and in places is decidedly spongy. We would like to affect some repairs to these damaged areas and also to the floor in our upstairs activity, yoga and dancing, room. The second one is important as we don’t want to risk the floor deteriorating and giving way under some of our more energetic visitors.
This work is essential to the smooth running of our community activities which provide activities and entertainment, free of charge, to some of the most marginalised and vulnerable in our town. We are a very frugal organisation and any grant awarded will be well spent. We are very committed to community wealth building and as far as possible, purchase all goods and services locally.
Brixham Heritage Museum
We would like to use the grant money to build capacity for activities at the museum for children and their families in the school holidays. The museum currently has a curator two days a week and an administrator 20 hrs/ week. The money would allow 7.5 extra days for the curator, an experienced heritage and art educator, to design 12 hands-on sessions for children and families to take part in over a year, with some extra time for training volunteers, marketing the events and to run one or two more in-depth workshop sessions.
£190 would be put towards materials for the sessions, with any extra required funded by the museum or other funders. In the Easter holidays, we trialled some craft sessions, offering a keyring making session for £2/ child. This was very popular, being attended by just under 20 children on each of the hour and a half sessions. We would like to offer more craft and handling sessions for both the children of Brixham and our visitors from further afield, but funding and staff time make this challenging.
The first part of this project is already underway, which is to create some explorer backpacks, a self-led activity which will be freely available for visiting families at all times. This second part of the project will add one session per week of school holidays (excepting the Christmas holidays) of hands-on activities led by museum staff and volunteers.
Shoalstone Pool
Shoalstone Seawater pool sits on the rocks looking across Torbay From the fishing town of Brixham. The 53 metre long pool has been delighting locals and visitors alike since 1926. Once in Local authority ownership, it suffered huge neglect but was eventually saved from closure by the brixham community.
Once described as Brixham Jewel we are applying for £3,325 of essentials beautification works which would greatly improved the perception of not just the pool but the whole site and increase participation of this beloved community asset. The works focus on key points which have been identified through public consultation with users, volunteers and first time visitors. These are; Improving the overflow car park, removal of dilapidated structure on site, securement of brown tourists signs, installation of cycle racks, and the re-wilding the former putting green in to a multi-use family picnic area which can double as a flexible outdoor education/ workshop area for use by groups such as holistic wellbeing practitioners yoga and also wildlife education and talks.
Rounds 2 and 3
Judging for Round 2 is now underway.
Applications for the final round, Round 3, close on 24 October.