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Greens claim their ‘spend to save’ budget proposals will save £2 million to protect essential services

Green Councillors have released their proposals ahead of todays annual Budget Council meeting laying out ways the Greens would seek to make changes to the present budget.

They argue a spend to save approach to the budget would net the Council an additional £2 million and prevent cuts to essential services.

Their spend to save, approach focusses on the following set of priorities:

♦  Spending to save money: focusing on the value of prevention

♦  Homelessness and temporary accommodation

♦  Getting serious about value for money: Contract management

♦  Raising income through fairer budget redistribution

♦  A long-term approach

Greens maintain their calculations show that the Council would obtain an additional £2 million income should they support the Green approach.

This would more than offset the current plans to cut key services such as Community Youth Work, Early Help, Third Sector Investment, Supported Buses and Community Safety. It would also create the finance to save potential cuts to Allsorts Youth Project and the LGBT/Hate Crime specialist officer in the Council’s Partnership Community Safety Team, which is the last remaining dedicated LGBT post at the Council.

Convenor of the Green Group, Councillor Phélim Mac Cafferty, said: “We hope by making it clear in our document that everyone can see the sound and reasoned approach we are taking. All the evidence supports the fact that if you cut services you will inherit problems in the future. This is why we are committed to a different approach, putting prevention at the heart of our proposals.

Our approach requires all parties to put the evidence about prevention being better than a cure ahead of their concerns about making savings in this financial year. While we can only make amendments, and they will no doubt be challenged, our paper is about our challenge to the Tory mantra of cuts and our push for bold alternatives to protect those most at risk.”

To read the budget document which sets out and evidences the rationale underpinning each of the Green proposals, click here:

Manchester Pride supports local LGBT projects with community grants

Manchester’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) charity, and organiser of The Manchester Pride Festival, reveals first projects to receive grants from its community fund in 2017.

Every year grants from the Manchester Pride Community Fund, which is made up of money raised throughout the year by the charity, are issued to help different groups and organisations that support LGBT+ people.

Grants awarded in January will go to three city centre based groups; Let’s Do Lunch, Mancunian Way and Gay Gordons.

Let’s Do Lunch is an organisation which provides a safe environment for lesbians to meet in Manchester’s gay village, regardless of race, faith, employment status, age or any disabilities. The grant will be used for basic stationery and essential admin costs to enable the group to meet.

Mancunian Way, is a specialist in street engagement and education of young people on personal safety and choice. They work on the streets at the times of greatest need, ensuring young people have access to the help and guidance they need to improve their own life outcomes. Mancunian Way links up with many support partners and statutory agencies to ensure their aims are fulfilled.

The Gay Gordons is a group of Scottish country dance enthusiasts who felt that the gay community in Greater Manchester could benefit from something new and different. The group is open to everyone within the LGBT+ Community and their friends. It holds weekly dances to promote fitness and wellbeing as well as demonstrations during the summer.

The Manchester Pride Community Fund currently stands at £174k after another record year of fundraising in 2016.

The organisation, which fundraises via events and other initiatives including The Manchester Pride Festival, raised £149k last year plus it is putting £25k of unclaimed grants from 2015 back into the pot.

Every year Manchester pride donates 25% of the Manchester Pride Fund to support the LGBT+ Foundation’s Safer Sex Pack and 25% to the George House Trust Welfare Fund.

Grants will also be available throughout the year with awards being made every quarter.

Groups wishing to apply for the grants, click here:

Mark Fletcher
Mark Fletcher

Mark Fletcher, Chief Executive of Manchester Pride, said: “With a massive £174k in the Manchester Pride Fund this year we have a huge responsibility to distribute it to as many causes as possible. We have made a great start with Let’s Do Lunch, Mancunian Way and the Gay Gordons but we want to hear from as many groups as possible throughout the year to ensure that we are able to support a diverse selection of people.”

Manchester Pride fundraising events include The Manchester Pride Spring Benefit which is held annually in May, Dress Down Day in August and The Manchester Pride Festival which consists of The Manchester Pride Parade, The Big Weekend and The Candlelit Vigil, which takes place over August Bank Holiday.

The Manchester Pride Festival is an award-winning four-day event celebrating LGBT+ life. The event takes place in August, with The Big Weekend running from Friday August 25 to Monday August 28 and the Parade on Saturday, August 26.

Tickets for The Big Weekend are on sale now.

 

 

Gogglebox stars to open Cats Protection’s first shop in Brighton

Gogglebox stars Chris Steed and Stephen Webb will officially open Cats Protection’s first shop in Brighton next month.

The cat-loving duo, who appear on the hit Channel 4 TV show, will be at the store to cut a ribbon and meet shoppers on Wednesday, March 8 between 10.30am and 11.30am.

The store, in Beaconsfield Road, will stock good quality second-hand clothes, toys, books and household items. All proceeds will go to help care for unwanted and abandoned cats.

Chris, whose much-loved cat Ginge died in 2015, said: “Stephen and I love cats and we love Brighton, so we’re really looking forward to coming along to help launch Cats Protection’s new shop.

“Cats give so much back to their owners in terms of companionship, loyalty and support, so I think it’s wonderful that this new shop will enable the local community to raise money to help cats in need, particularly after losing my beloved Ginge a couple of years ago.”

Cats Protection is the UK’s largest cat charity, helping around 500 cats a day – or around 200,000 a year – through a national network of 32 centres and over 250 voluntary-run branches.

Cats Protection Area Retail Manager Mark Verity, said: “We’re really looking forward to welcoming Chris and Stephen to our store for an opening celebration. Brighton is a fantastic cat-loving city and we’re very much looking forward to getting to know the community.

 “There’s already a lot of buzz and excitement around the new shop, with lots of local people wishing us luck. The new shop will have a modern boutique feel which we hope will appeal to lots of shoppers, from discerning dressers to keen book-lovers.”

The new shop, at 70a Beaconsfield Road, will be open Monday to Saturday from 9am until 5pm and on Sundays from 10am until 4pm. Donations should be delivered during shop opening hours.

For more information or to check the items which can be accepted, click here:

Or telephone: 01273 565675.

LETTER TO EDITOR: Silence for Trump!

Looking on the bright side there are many reasons to be cheerful regarding the visit of America’s ‘so called’ newly, duly elected.

President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump

He must be a godsend for every worthwhile British male and female comedian. Not forgetting our highly talented and internationally respected satirists. We the British public could do with a big belly laugh post the Brexit vote.

As preparations are being made to vent our anger at this State Visit no one wants, we have to take on board the situation that has been forced on us.

Rather than do our usual and predictable gathering in our thousands, to line the route to the palace, screaming and shouting various abuses, getting sore throats, bad-tempered and hot under the collar, may I respectfully suggest a different kind of protest all together. SILENCE.

Yes please do gather together in our hundreds of thousands but as soon as Trumps cortège comes in sight all of us turn our backs to the road, our backs to him personally and do not utter a sound. Not a pip squeak.

The massed ranks of the British people in complete SILENCE, with their backs turned to him would unnerve him. He is a creature of the overblown American media.  He thrives and survives on sound.  Any kind of sound, be it hostile or adulation.  It is all oxygen to his over-inflated ego.  It might show the world we still, as a nation, retain our dignity. Despite what Mrs May might do.

Our glorious Queen Elizabeth, has over the decades, seen off many a murderous criminal thug from Eastern Europe and scandalous assorted dictators from the Commonwealth.  She is well able to do what she does best.

After all this is a first, in her long glorious reign. The first time she has hosted a dinner party for international celebrity White Trash.  Keep an eye on the cutlery and condiment sets Ma’am.  When it’s all over she and the family will have a wealth of material for their games of Christmas Charades.

I think our news anchors and journalists have a much more difficult job.  Keeping a straight face when interviewing any of his backing band of Barbie Grannies.  I look aghast at the number of those ‘Old Biddies’ as my mother would have called them.  She never being one to undervalue the proper honorific.

Every one it seems has been liberated from the Palm Springs retirement home for old showgirls. These Lazarenes are game I’ll give them that. These fatal females, the Americanisation of the original French, can hiss and spit up a storm when defending their saviour.  All those years of back stage infighting can finally be put to good use, even in their twilight years.

Each it seems shares the same plastic surgeon and hairdresser. The fright sight. The cascade of acres of luxuriant highlighted blond tresses. Well extensions anyway. Extensions.  Hair sold by some of the poorest women in the world so they can put food on the table. Beautiful hair washed, bleached then stitched into rows so they can be worn by some of the worlds wealthiest, scariest women. Sisterhood writ large on their thin over painted faces. Make up, war paint in their case, exquisitely applied by the same old darling dressing room artist from Las Vegas. Daringly up front gay and put upon in the late 60’s but thoroughly enjoying getting his own back in his late flowering years.

Getting his own back on some of the most selfish, pushy hoofers he ever had the misfortune to work on.  Yes, yes, yes citizens of GB.  Line the route in your hundreds of thousands but keep stchum, very stchum indeed.

Have a good day.

Michael James

International travel conference come to Brighton Centre

VisitBritain, the UK’s national tourist board, will host its flagship annual event ExploreGB in Brighton next week.

The tourism event will take place at the Brighton Centre from March 2-3, 2017 and is estimated to be worth an additional £1m to the local economy.

Teams from the city council’s marketing and conference arm VisitBrighton worked to secure the event for the city, beating off stiff competition from other UK destinations who were also keen to host the valuable event.

ExploreGB offers tourism destinations and businesses the opportunity to meet and do business with key inbound tourism markets from across the globe. More than 400 international buyers from 40 countries will do business with 430 travel industry suppliers from across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Buyers from Britain’s largest and most valuable inbound visitor markets including the USA, Germany, France, Canada and Australia will be attending. Important growth markets including China, the world’s most valuable outbound market, India, Italy and the Gulf countries will also represented.

The two-day programme includes one-to-one appointments, seminars and workshops hosted by industry experts in the Brighton Centre, and a gala dinner at the Hilton Brighton Metropole Hotel. Delegates will also take part in 3-5 day familiarisation trips at a range of UK destinations, including Brighton where groups will visit a number of VisitBrighton partner restaurants and attractions including Terre a Terre, Riddle and Finns, Silo, The Royal Pavilion and the British Airways i360.

Cllr. Alan Robins
Cllr. Alan Robins

Commenting on VisitBrighton’s successful bid to bring the event to the city, chair of BHCC’s economic, development and culture committee, Alan Robins, said: “ExploreGB is a prominent event in the tourism business calendar, offering an opportunity for UK businesses to meet and boost trade with a significant number of key markets all under one roof.

“This is a great example of what goes on behind the scenes at the council day in day out to support and promote business in the city.  In this case, the VisitBrighton teams have worked hard to secure this event, knowing what great benefit it will bring both economically and as an opportunity to showcase our city offer on an international stage.”

Sally Balcombe
Sally Balcombe

Chief Executive Sally Balcombe, said: “With its vibrant arts and music scene, heritage buildings, boutique shopping and the draw of its lively seaside and famous pier, Brighton is a fantastic destination to showcase the diversity of our tourism offer.

“The hundreds of International buyers and journalists attending ExploreGB will return home in no doubt as to the outstanding facilities and tourism products on offer across Brighton and beyond.”

For more information about VisitBrighton, click here:

 

 

Brighton Centre
Brighton Centre

FEATURE: Talking Heads – encouraging men with mental health issues to open up

Just how honest can two men with mental health issues be? Through their new venture MenTalkHealth, local gents Damian Friel and Davey Shields certainly try to be just that. Craig Hanlon-Smith met up with them both to chat about their new venture.

Davey describes himself as a snowboarding, shirt lifting, media worker in his thirties, who has spent the last eight years trying to manage his diagnosis of depression and anxiety. Damian a twenty-five year old mental health nursing student and part-time barman from Derry in Ireland with a long-standing diagnosis of depression and anxiety, and more recently Tourette Syndrome and OCD. As a barman in local runaway success Bar Broadway, Damian is a familiar face in Brighton, not least of all following his appearances on TV discussing his mental illness and appearance on Channel 4’s First Dates.

The whole point of the podcasts, explained Davey is to get men talking about their own mental health and we felt the best way to do that was to share our own experiences, bring people on our journey as it happens and hopefully to find some humour in the darker moments.

We hope that the humour will be what does it Damian adds, that through listening to that and hopefully relating to it, men in particular will talk about their own experiences too. We want to break the stigma.

I suggest to Damian that breaking any kind of stigma is certainly no small task no but you have to start somewhere and were starting by challenging the stereotype that men shouldn’t cry for example, through to it’s ok for men to have mental illness and talk about it openly.

Davey goes on to say: We know that it works through my own experience. Talking through my own incidents of mental health, opening up to Damian, thinking about the humour in it all, making my experience funny – sort of makes what I went through worthwhile. And I can honestly say that whilst working on this, which enables me to talk and I can talk a lot, has in many ways started to make be feel better. We hope that translates to other people.

And indeed it does. Both Damian and Davey have received countless messages of support and honest feedback via social media specifically twitter. Including one from a former friend who now works with the police, sharing that he loved what they were doing and that in the workplace whilst it can be a struggle to get people to understand issues around mental health, the mixture [in the pod casts] of humour and reality could be a real help. Davey shares others include ‘Listening to your conversations helps me with mine’. And that’s what we want, to be a conversation starter to talk about mental health in a way that’s accessible.

Both men are clearly enthusiastic about the project from the moment we meet, chatting openly and at pace. We honestly believe that it makes the whole experience less scary using humour enthuses Damian, people feel at ease. Nowadays people find that humour can get them through adversity and really horrible illnesses such as cancer and we thought, why can’t it be the same with mental illness? We want to say it’s ok to talk about it. The difficulty can be that when you’re in the middle of your own symptomatic period that may not be the right time to discuss the issues. You can feel ashamed of how you’re feeling  – when you’re out of the woods, or when you listen to others, you can hopefully feel people will understand. That’s the idea.

The podcasts, and so far there are five in all, have a chatty, discursive feel, almost like a pub conversation with a friend and certainly have the effect of normalising the subject at hand. Damian tells me We felt after episode one that it was so discursive and chatty we had better drink less wine whilst recording the next two!  As the podcasts are centred specifically around men’s mental health, I am curious to hear about the inclusion of their friend Eli who has now made an appearance in all three encounters. It was our intention for Eli to drop in occasionally as she does in episode one, Davey says, but we had such great feedback about her involvement we asked her to do as many as possible.

Just talking about yourself and your own condition can get very insular Damian adds, but with Eli there she can ask questions or give a woman’s point of view. It’s also interesting that as Damian and Davey are both gay, Eli brings a heterosexual element to the podcasts in discussing her own relationship and boyfriend as part of the recorded episodes. Being two gay men, we’re already by default challenging that heteronormative stereotype, but we wanted a show for everyone and Eli helps us to achieve that Damian explains. My hope though is to have a broader listener base says Davey, yes to build on the support from the gay community first but the contact from the police for example, he’s straight and it appealed to him.

I ask them both why they think that incidents of mental health are so much higher in the LGBT+ community compared to our heterosexual equals. Whilst one in four heterosexual people are expected to develop some form of mental health episode, it is thought to be as much as three in four amongst the LGBT+ population.

Damian begins I think it all links to society at large. And whilst there are lots of everyday elements that now fall underneath the LGBT+ rainbow, we still have a long way to go in getting broader society to be more tolerant.  I suggest that living in the deep and darkest wilds of the UK may be a different experience than living in a large city and certainly Brighton. Yes but even here Damian passionately interjects, there have been homophobic attacks and there are slurs shouted at you which if you’re already verging on the vulnerable can impact on your self-esteem and worth. There’s potentially a lot up against you that many hetero people just won’t come up against – internalised homophobia for example.

I ask if either of them have ever had to access any of the voluntary mental health charities in Brighton both on and off the gay-scene. We’re massive fans of what they are doing and they have supported us on social media. And although neither of us has accessed their support directly Davey explains Anyone we know who has with says they are amazing at what they do.

So where to go from here boys? Will you bring in different people? Yes, definitely. Other people with different diagnoses to us but also  people who have looked after us, looking at the challenges of mental health support on those around us. Both have two best friends who have looked after them when they have been unwell. It’s important to look at the bigger picture, keep the conversation going.

All podcasts from MenTalkHealth can be found on iTunes or via SoundCloud.

For more information on the pair and their venture, click here:

Forever LGBT+ families needed for sibling groups of three

Parent and Children Together (PACT) search for adopters to provide a forever family for groups of siblings who need to stay together.


PACT supports families across the south-east through adoption, award-winning therapeutic support and community projects. Last year they placed 91 children with 58 families through their adoption services.

PACT works with a range of adopters from all backgrounds, including those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) community.

There are currently more than 2,000 children waiting to be adopted in England, many of them are in sibling groups of two or more.

The charity is particularly looking for adopters who can take a sibling group of three children to enable brothers and sisters to stay together.

 

Harry and his wife Claire’s dream of a family was realised when they adopted three siblings, all under four years old, through PACT in 2016. He said it had been hard but that the three children had deserved to stay together.

Harry, from Oxford, who will this April be running the London Marathon to raise funds and awareness for PACT following the help and support it has given his family, added: “To adopt a sibling group of three has been the toughest and single most rewarding thing my wife and I have done. This is why my tagline for life has quickly become “Will it be Easy? Nope. Worth it? Absolutely!”

“Our children have been kept together which in turn has helped with their transition to our family whilst also helping to keep their identity. Seeing their smiling, excited faces when I come home from work or get off early and pick them up from school is more than I had ever dreamed of.”

 

Jan Fishwick
Jan Fishwick

PACT Chief Executive Jan Fishwick, said: “Finding adopters with the skills and space for three children is crucial so that brothers and sisters, who have often had an unsettled enough start to their life, can be adopted and stay together with a new forever family.

“Our teams are well-experienced at matching and placing sibling groups of three and in helping with the specific challenges such placements can raise. And, as is the case for all our adopted families, we will support families who have adopted three children for life through our specialist support and therapeutic services.

“I would encourage anyone who could consider adopting a sibling group of three to get in touch with us and find out more about what is involved. Our friendly enquiries team will be able to answer any questions you might have, or there is lots of information available on our website www.pactcharity.org.”

Names used in this story have been changed to protect identity.

To find out more about adopting with PACT, click here:

Or call 0300 456 4800.

For more information about adopting three children, click here

To sponsor Harry run the London marathon, click here: 

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