Trust opens £125,000 spring grant round

Greenham Common Trust launches its spring grant round today (Tuesday, January 5) giving £125,000 out to local residents.

Community organisations and charities can apply for grants of between £50 to over £10,000 to help fund Arts, education, recreation and leisure and community projects in West Berkshire and north Hampshire. The Trust's Distribution Committee has a pot of £65,000 for standard grant applications (£50 to £9,999) and £50,000 for major applications (grants over £10,000).

To gain a younger perspective, the Trust also asks local sixth form pupils to sit on a Youth Distribution Committee during the spring round to decide who will receive up to £10,000 of Trust grants.

Berkshire County Blind Society received £10,000 in the last grant round to enhance the quality of life for 145 visually impaired people living in and around Newbury. Berkshire County Blind Society's Fundraising Officer Ross Taylor said: "This grant will help the Society support members to live as independently as possible when their sight deteriorates. We want to create opportunities, particularly for people to socialise and gain in confidence, so we provide a range of events and activities from crafts classes, day trips, interactive theatre visits to cookery classes. Older people can become quite isolated and lonely so we organise transport for people too. We also organise home visits to explain what resources are available to help people continue to live independently."

The Trust also gave £14,000 to West Berkshire Citizens Advice Bureau in the last grant round to enable it to continue its rural outreach programme for vulnerable people. As well as funding important major projects in the district, the Trust also helps smaller organisations such as Ecchinswell Home School Association, which took all 75 pupils from the local primary school to attend a behind-the-scenes trip to the pantomime and workshop thanks to the Trust.

In 1998/99 when the Trust opened its first reactive grant round, it gave away £25,000. This year the reactive grant aid will be ten times that figure at £250,000. Greenham Common Trust chief executive Stuart Tagg said: "We understand it is tough to get funding at the moment and we want to help people who need help the most."

Greenham Common Trust has given over £12 million in community grants to help youth initiatives, nature and conservation projects, the arts, education, and recreation and leisure activities for residents in West Berkshire and north Hampshire.

The Trust works closely with West Berkshire Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) to increase the number of funding opportunities to benefit the lives of local residents. The LSP is currently considering what level of grant aid it will make available. In partnership with the LSP, the Trust's senior Distribution Committee will also distribute £38,000 from the local authority's West Berkshire Small Grants Scheme (grants of up to £1,000).

For more information and to get an application form visit the grant awards page or call or email Melissa Elliott on 01635 817445 or melissa@greenham-common-trust.co.uk. The deadline for applications for the spring round is February 5.

Don't forget that the reactive grant rounds are only part of the charitable assistance the Trust makes available to the local community. Local organisations can also apply for the Greenham Gift, a grant of up to £50,000 uniquely voted for by the public. Applications for the Greenham Gift open in April. For more information please contact Communications Manager Julian May on 01635 817407 or email julian@greenham-common-trust.co.uk.