ROCA APPLICATIONS FUNDED

“Drop In – Box In” at Oldham Boxing & Personal Gardening tools project Portraits: The Pilot Community Partnership Scheme Development Centre Gardens For All Pride in Our Community A taste of real India Gems Parent and Toddlers Group Prison? Me? No Way! ACE (Art and Craft Experience) Get Growing at Oldhal Gallery Project Good neighbour Across the Ages Get Hooked Project Setting Sail for a Brighter Future Active Citizens Groundwork Street Party Radclyffe Outreach Centre Alex Carter Memorial Garden Growing Growers Respect - Urban dance and music Alexandra Cluster Summer Holiday Bridging Project Growing Together Respect Programme We couldn’t have done it without you! Alliance Fun Day Happy Days and Holidays Royton Community Picnic Alt Youth Club Higginshaw Village Schools Out for Summer ANEW education project Holts Art Club Schools Out For Summer 2011 A-One+ Cartmel Crescent Allotments Holts Village Junior Youth Activities and Lunch Club Schools Out For Summer 2012 Holts and Alt Apfel Lane Honeywell FC Sensory Play Arts & Creativity - Summer University Medlock Valley Improving Derker Shaw Derby Day Asha Girls Project Inside Out So Way North Bride the Gap - my generation THANK YOU! Inspired Sport in Our Community Byron Green Welcome Pack and Community International Day Against Homophobia - 170514 St Hilda’s/Clarkwell Play Area Website Knitting Angels St Mary’s Summer Splash CHAIR OF Café Mocca Know My Neighbour - An Alternative View on Step Into the Spotlight CAOS cic - Community Action Outreach Services ROCA PANEL Community Cohesion Stoneleigh Park Young people bowling Feb 2008 Cartmel Crescent Allotments open day and family Kultura to July 2015 event Summer Fiesta Coldhurst Laughter In Mind CDYF Summer Volunteering Project Summer Fun Day Life on Limeside Chadderton Boxing Club Swift Court Gardening Project Life Space Chadderton Events Taste of Oldham Limehurst’s Lunch Chadderton Street Pastors The Caribbean Group Limeside and Westwood Sports in Action Chilax Oli The Friendship Foundation Lol’s art classes Crossley (Chadderton) CHOOSE HEALTH Time Out Looking Inside Out Clarkwell Community Linking Project Tudor Community Sports Lynton and Walkers Road ROC Hall Coldhurst D of E UFE Mahdlo Stars Annual Awards Ceremony Coldhurst Summer Party Valuing Oldham’s History Memorial Garden and vegetable area Commemoration of WW1/Hollinwood Together Volunteer Training Programme Festival More Opportunities New Activities - MONA Washbrook Community Football magazine Net-tastic Waterhead Community Choir Thanks John for making me feel so welcome on Hi John, the panel . I wish you all the best for the future. Community Garden Development - Raised beds Newbridge Scouts Camping Trip for Children with West Oldham Torch Relay Festival special needs It was great to meet you at the last ROCA Community Services Westwood in Bloom James Gore, FixAuto. OL8 Steppers panel meeting (my second meeting!); what a Cooking Counts Woodpark Court Gardening Club Oldham 7’s league fantastic project you have helped to develop, Thank you John for 7 years great ROCA service. You have Coppice Community Garden Young people bowling Oldham Camera Club display boards you will be missed from the group. ensured ROCA has been able to provide over £400,000k of Coppice Mil Jul Initiative Young Peoples Hip Hop Horror Musical Film funding to over 140 community groups doing great things in Oldham Carnival Rootz Festival Best wishes, Steph Hodgson, Contour. Coppice Rangers Football Academy Oldham. You have also built up a strong partnership of key Oldham Community Website Coppice United Football Club and Partners stakeholders that will endure, and all the time making sure Oldham Friendship Club Creative Arts and Digital Media Workshops we have enjoyed ourselves You truly did it “My Way” Oldham LGBT Pride Creative Consultation Dave Smith Oldham LGBT Youth Group supported by the Young Creativity Women’s health Project Crossing Boundaries Oldham Life Story Steering Group Crossley Activities Group Oldham Love and Peace Cycle Club Oldham Mela 2013 On behalf of the Executive Team and the Board of FCHO I would like to express our thanks Dads and Lads Club Oldham Percussion Academy and appreciation for the wonderful work you have done as Chair of the ROCA panel since Derker Community Garden Oldham South Street Pastors it first started in 2008. Your enthusiasm and commitment to the role has undoubtedly Derker Together Oldham Stone Carvers - Outreach and made ROCA the great success that it has become and you will definitely be a “hard act to Derker Youth Club Development Project follow”. You should be very proud of the contribution you have made to the success of so Devon Street Heaven Oldham’s gifted and talented youth dance many community projects; FCHO are certainly very proud of your achievements. company improve and recruit project Diggle Village Green I wish you all the best for the future, Our Crossley John – it’s been a pleasure. Don’t Fence me In John, thank you for all your support, whatever that holds for you and thank. Drop In Beats Our Town - PSHE Community Programme you’re going to be very difficult to The meetings were productive and funny. Cath Green, CEO, I missed a few but looked forward to them. Eden Drop In Café Out in Oldham replace. Good luck for the future, First Choice Homes Oldham You’ll be missed. Good luck in your new Friends of Coalshaw Green Park - Craft Club Performance Plaza - The Arts Hub All the best from Anne McCulloch. endeavours. From Cowhill to Crossley Place Chris Standish, Regenda. Fun For All Portraits of Recovery Dear John, OLDHAM EVENING CHRONICLE, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2012 —— 25 Ex-bailiff used to chase debts, now he distributes funds Sorry to hear that you are no longer going to be the Chair Just want to say what an absolute pleasure it has of ROCA, thanks so much for all the time you have given. been working with you on the ROCA panel. You have Rewarding The very best regards, Jayne Winterbottom. been an amazing Chair bringing humour to the role and making the meetings thoroughly enjoyable while role for ensuring we got through the business in a timely and effective way. You held the Reins Well while still leading ensuring everyone’s views and opinions were heard and your commitment to ROCA is inspirational. lawyer WHEN I sat down with Thanks you for leading us (not into temptation), your John Porter, one of MARTYN Oldham’s leading legal eagles, little did I expect MEETS contribution has ensured that many community to step into a world of sub- A regular profile of Oldham’s movers terfuge, intimidation and and shakers kidnapping! by MARTYN TORR For here I was in the com- projects and activities have made a positive difference pany of the chairman of “I didn’t wear a leather jacket ROCA — more about the and carry a baseball bat. It was- n’t at all like that.” JOHN PORTER . . . as chairman of ROCA — the Respect Our Community Awards — he helps support amazing organisation grassroots projects to Oldham, behind the acronym later — So what was it like? I was not a man of substance who is expecting to hear half of what “Eventually the father and his the firm’s current senior part- Club lunches in Foxdenton Hall also an independent member came next —a fascinating tale sons paid the debt, but then ner Godfrey Pickles. and being made to mingle.” of distress warrants, hysterical they said, ‘Now we’re going to That was in 1991 and after only of the board of First Choice women with bread knives, being Mingling is something he has have some fun’. six weeks he was moved into the Homes Oldham. chased by a man driving a JCB done extremely well. He was a “Andthey did. They put us in a epicentre of the Wrigley opera- All the best, Jodie Barber In short, a man from the old- and, oh yes, that minor kidnap- board member at the Kickstart room with a burly guy on the tion at the Union Street offices, est law firm in town, a firm that ping... charity before the organisation door to make sure we couldn’t then in the Prudential was taken over by Positive Steps was involved in the building of When John told me that he the Coliseum Theatre when it leave. Then these guys walked Buildings. Oldham and that experience and had once been a bailiff I couldn’t around with metal pipes and His early days saw him in grounding led to his current acted for construction firm help but ask: But why? Emanuel Whittaker almost two every now and again they would Oldham Magistrates’ Court — appointment as chair of ROCA centuries ago. The incredulity in my voice give us a light tap. Not serious as an advocate I hasten to add — — the Respect Our Community must have triggered a defence but enough to bruise. Not that John was around and many questions were asked Awards. mechanism because John “I was only 22 and obviously i of the young Mr Porter for his This is an initiative estab- then, he assures me, after all immediately, well, defended wasn’t happy. My colleague was father, Bill, was once Supt Bill lished within First Choice he’s only 48 and doesn’t look a himself. “It’s wasn’t a danger- more senior and after while he Porter of Oldham Police and Homes by (now retired) execu- day older. ous job, well, not for me anyway. said we were going to make a Bill had been a formidable tive director Steve Yorke and But he has been in Oldham for Well, not really. OK, there were run for it. policeman and popular man. a long time, often working his colleague Jayne some incidents, but generally I “We legged it past the guy on A life dealing with felons and below the radar, and as head of was serving distress warrants Winterbottom. the commercial department at the door and when we got to the criminals clearly wasn’t for the and distraining.’ van it was snowing and the haz- budding young lawyer. “I Tribute law firm Wrigley Claydon, Distress warrants, ok, we have which has offices in Union ards were on, so the van would- remember being locked in a cell FCHO provides core funding all heard of those, but distrain- n’t start!” with a violent criminal whom I Street and a branch in ing? and this is matched by dona- Todmorden, he specialises in John smiled as he recounted was representing. I just wasn’t tions from the private sector. employment and housing. That’s the list that the bailiff Emanuel Whittaker has been makes on his visit to the Hence his connections with long-term, committed ROCA premises of the person who has- partners, says John, paying ful- Oldham’s major social housing n’t paid the bills — and distrain- provider, FCHO, which has more ‘I got a handle on what life some tribute to everyone who ing is listing all the items that contributes to the fund. than 13,000 properties in the bor- the bailiff believes he can sell to ough. A neat fit, you could say. make up the debt. “People can apply for help, be was like for people struggling it money or physical, practical Degree “I would make the list and then say, ‘Right these are mine assistance. We help in any way But how many of John’s col- now, if you can’t pay up this is to pay their way’ we can. leagues on the board, the execu- what I will take when I come “We support communities and tive management team, the back with the van’. groups and people. We help councillors, the tenants and, of comfortable, not one bit, and “People would get upset, of this tale and how they had run grassroots projects and work in course, his fellow independents, around the industrial estate ended up hammering on the any area where FCHO has prop- are aware of his dark past — course they would. I would door saying ‘Get me out of value a television at, say £50, trying to blag some jump erties. deep in the depths of Redditch, leads... here!’” that Worcestershire town of a and they would tell me they had “The truth is we can’t always 1,000 (and probably more) round- paid £500, but the value to the Happy days? “Of course, I real- And so it came to pass that he fund everything, but we can abouts? bailiff is what he can get at auc- ly got a handle on what life was now lives in Littleborough to always help in some way. tion. And that’s the value I like for everyday people, who For reasons known only to where he moved when he took “It is hugely rewarding. I wrote down.” were always struggling to pay the Todmorden office job — remember ROCA being himself John chose to spend 12 their way. months in the Midlands on com- So, interesting times . . . with wife Jo, whom he had met approached by a group of pleting his law degree at near- Oooohhh yes. “One lady was “I honestly felt I was connect- when she was student in Filipinos who had been relocat- by Wolverhampton University rally upset and chased me round ing with people and now that Birmingham, and children — ed to Oldham. They wanted to Dear John — “Wolverhampton is where you her coffee table with a bread I’m a lawyer, I honestly believe and he began the slow climb to integrate into their new sur- go if you only just get the A lev- knife....it was like one of those that I have connected with peo- what is obviously a more roundings and expose their new els,” he confided, almost as an scenes at the end of a Benny Hill ple more than your average respectable calling as a com- neighbours to Filipino food and aside. television show. lawyer.” mercial lawyer. culture. He took a year out — and “I wasn’t worried she would On leaving the bailiff service He was always encouraged by “Now they are a successful Many thanks for your commitment became a bailiff. catch me, but she could have he completed his legal training colleagues, in particular former dance group and have made Yes, a bailiff, one of those fallen and there could have been at Chester College of Law and senior partner Paul Vincent, to many, many new friends. guys who goes around collecting an accident.” was articled to a firm in get out into the community and “That’s was ROCA does. It debts on behalf of others, in The most hair-raising inci- Cheetham Hill for two years. network. works in the community for the and leadership of the ROCA group John’s case the local council dent concerned a debt collec- John then took a job in “I didn’t know what network- community and we hope we pro- which was chasing people who tion from a small family busi- Oldham with Wrigleys, initially beinging was, sent but to I Oldham do remember Export mote respect within the com- since its inception. You will be had not paid their council tax. ness. at the Todmorden office with munities of Oldham.” sorely missed, Best wishes. David Martin and the Coliseum Team Dear John, I am sorry you are leaving the panel; it has been an Best wishes and thank you for absolute pleasure working with your inspiring and committed you, thank you for all your support approach as Chair. over my last 4 years with ROCA. Daniel Mountford. Panel meetings just won’t be the same without your style and sense of humour! Best wishes Joanne

John Thank you for the pleasure of working alongside you for the last 5 years and for your help and support during this time. I wish you every success for the future and I know the meetings just will not be the same without you! All the very best, Lisa Fowles, Villages.

John, you have been a great ambassador for ROCA and Oldham and Best wishes and good luck in your can be proud of your achievements. We will miss you. Best wishes future ventures John. You will be for the future, sadly missed by everyone From Jackie at OCL from Mike Beaman and all at Housing & Care 21 Best Wishes for the future and thank you from Rachel – Arts Development