Town
Plan Mission Statement 

“Cotgrave, a cohesive community, increasingly vibrant, based on
mutual understanding 
and respect, where people


feel valued and
safe.”

 Town
Plan Manager

 A Town Plan
Manager funded by the Coalfields Regeneration Trust (CRT) for up
to two
years has now been appointed
to oversee the implementation
of the Plan. Julian Stocks
joined the Town Council on the 13^th
March 2005 after spending
the last 7 years working
for a
multi-agency Partnership tackling anti-social behaviour and youth
disaffection in
former coalming communities in the North of the County.

.
 

If you have
any comments on the Town Plan, or you have any ideas for Projects,

you need any help in applying for funding for a Project or you
would simply like to
volunteer for any of the activities in the Plan (see ECO Teams
later in this section)
then Julian would be delighted to hear from you! He is based at
Cotgrave Futures
and can be contacted on 0115 989 1708, mobile 0796 1911165 or by
email at


townplanmanager@copperstream.co.uk

 If
you want to become more directly involved in the implementation of
the Town Plan, you
might want to think about; 

attending
the Cotgrave Community Forum where the town plan is discussed
regularly. The
Forum meeting dates
are
June 21^st 2006, September 13^th
2006, November 22nd 2006
and March 21st 2007 in the
Enterprise Centre.

• 
  attending a Town Plan Committee meeting – at which members of
  the public are
  welcome
  and can participate in
  at the Chairman`s
  discretion. The Committee
  meets at Cotgrave
  Futures and meetings
  start at  9:30am. Dates of
  
  
  future meetings
  
  are June 9^th
  2006,
  Sept 8^th 2006,
  November 3rd
  2006, January 12th 2007, February
  23rd 2007 and
  April 27th 2007.

My Cotgrave

 Around
40 local residents including 15 Young People came together on
Saturday
18^th March 2006 to take photographs
of the
best (and sometimes the worst!) of what
Cotgrave has to offer.
Under the banner of “My Cotgrave”, 24 teams took
out disposable

cameras for the day and took over 500 photographs! These were
subsequently developed
and exhibited at
the Town Plan Launch on
the 5^th April 2006 (see details) below. The
best of the
photographs, voted by Cotgrave Residents
attending the Launch
Event,
will be included in the published version of the Town Plan
which will be available in June. 

Thanks go to
Rushcliffe Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership for funding

the event and to; Cotgrave Town Council, Rushcliffe CVS,
Rushcliffe Anti-Social
Behaviour Co-Ordinator, Nottinghamshire County Council Community

Development Team and Nottinghamshire Rural Community Council for
their
sterling work in ensuring that the day was such a great success.

 Town Plan
Launch Event 

Wednesday 5^th
April saw the launch of the latest version of the Town Plan. Local
Residents
including at least 12 young
people attended an
exhibition of the photographs taken during the
“My Cotgrave”
event. They also took the opportunity to
comment on the
initiatives and activities
set out in the Plan (displayed on the
walls) by sticking coloured notes with their comments on
against
relevant bits of the Plan. Comments ranged from ‘All in all,
the plan is excellent – if I
stuck a note
next to each welcome
bit, the walls would be orange’ to ‘How do we tackle
culture
of fear? Wider problem than just
Cotgrave, but one that
needs tackling all the same.’ Look out
for the final published
version of the plan which will be ready
before the end of June. 

Once more
thanks go to Cotgrave Town Council, Rushcliffe CVS, Rushcliffe
Anti-Social
Behaviour Co-Ordinator,
Nottinghamshire County Council
Community Development Team and
Nottinghamshire Rural Community
Council for their
help in staging and running the event.

 Young
Potential

Young
Potential provides challenging personal development programmes in
their
local community for up to 20 young people aged between 13 and 19.
A number of
Cotgrave Young People have signed up for the current programme.


It has brought
together a partnership within the community, recruited and trained
9 volunteers as
Mentors and will work for up to 1 year with the young people. Each
course includes
an intensive residential phase designed to challenge the young
people to address
their choices and actions, followed by community based follow up
sessions that
enhance the ability of the young people to effect changes in their
lives. The Cotgrave
Programme residential event ran at a location near Ashbourne over
the week
commencing 10^th April 2006 and concluded in a
“homecoming event” at Cotgrave
Welfare on Friday 14^th April 2006.

Every young person on the Cotgrave programme has the benefit of
support from a trained
volunteer Coach/Mentor,
either on a
one-to-one basis or a one-to-two dependent on the
numbers of
volunteers and the needs of the young person. The role of the
Coach/Mentor is
to provide a stable and consistent relationship
with the young person throughout the
programme. This includes
supporting them to attend programme sessions and coaching
on
achieving personal goals and
action steps. Coach/Mentors have at
least one face-to-face
meeting plus one telephone call with their
allocated young
person/s each week. A
residential event for the
Volunteer Coach/Mentors was also held over the weekend of the
25^th
and 26^th March 2006.

If you want to know more about the work of Young Potential, or if
you want to volunteer
as a Coach/Mentor, visit the
Young Potential
website at

www.youngpotential.org.uk
or call Cath Evans on 07830 253830. 

 ECO Teams 

Global Action Plan, is an environmental charity planning to lead
an innovative project in
Cotgrave.  The project,
called “EcoTeams”,
encourages and supports the first steps
necessary for individuals,
households or groups to lower
their ‘ecofootprint’ and lead
more
sustainable lives.

 Serious environmental issues like climate change, pollution and
what to do with rubbish
can seem daunting issues
for individuals
to tackle.  However, the EcoTeams project
hows how
individuals can make measurable differences and is
built upon
a few simple
principles:

·        
No
one can do everything, but we can all can do something;

·        

The work is shared by a group so that members can support and
encourage
one another and share
experiences and ideas;

·        

It’s a step-by-step process that helps you to change your
lifestyle by small
adjustments that become good
habits;

·        

By measuring resource use, improvements can be monitored
during the
course of the programme.

 An
EcoTeam is formed when a group of around 6 households joins
together to meet

once a month (for four months) with a Global
Action Plan EcoTeam Coach. 
At each meeting topics are
discussed with practical ways to reduce a household’s
environmental impact. Also during the four months, each household
undertakes to

monitor their consumption of energy and output of
rubbish and recycling.  After the
scheme, EcoTeamers feel
more confident in undertaking the small, practical steps
that
reduce our environmental impact and as a bonus also tend to have
reduced
domestic bills! 
The project is
delivered free – including all coaching and materials!  

An initial
meeting will be set up where the project is explained in more
detail and
households can ask  questions
before deciding to join
the project. 
If you want to
do your bit for the environment, then
volunteer your household
for the EcoTeams
initiative by contacting
Adrian Williams, tel: (0115) 9178080, mobile 07717 870336 or
email adrian.williams@globalactionplan.org.uk. You can also visit the
Global Action
Plan website
at www.globalactionplan.org.uk