Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

Green Capital Neighbourhood Grants Fund Monitoring Form

1. Amount of grant received? £1466

Neighbourhood Partnership …Avonmouth & Kingsweston

Purpose of the grant (your summary of what it was for / what you did):

This grant supported the delivery of two events as part of the Festival of Nature.. The 3 core objectives of these events were:

1. Engaging Communities – encouraging communities to connect with nature on their doorsteps 2. Safeguarding local green spaces – supporting groups to make a case for conservation and restoration of local green spaces and biodiversity through engagement and biological data collection 3. Helping young people learn skills for the future – providing volunteering opportunities in the natural heritage sector

Long Cross Tip On Saturday 8 th August we ran a successful event at Lawrence Weston Community Farm including mini expeditions out on to the adjacent Long Cross Tip. The event was attended by approximately 50 members of the public, predominantly families from the local area, many of whom stayed for the duration of the event that ran from 12 noon to 4pm. Activities included a programme of 3 themed wildlife walks (butterflies, birds, w ildflow ers) as w ell as drop in activities in the woodland area of the farm – bug hunting, pond dipping and nature themed photo printing craft activity. Bristol Parkhive (www.bristolparkhive.com), an organisation which raises aw areness and encourages the use of local green spaces, also held a stall at the event. We marketed the event widely in the local area and online. The event was supported by volunteers from Bristol Nature Netw ork and Bristol Naturalists’ Society as w ell as academics from the University of West of England. The event was marketed widely in the local area and through the community farms networks.

Lamplighters’ Marsh On 27 th October we delivered a successful event at Lamplighters’ Marsh with local professional naturalist Ed Drewitt leading bird ringing activities alongside BNHC staff delivering activities around nature identification and recording. We worked closely with the Avon Frome Partnership and Forgotten Landscape Project who

1

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6 delivered additional craft activities and bird feeder making workshops. Inclement weather on the day limited visitor numbers although the majority of the 25 participants remained for the duration of the event (4 hours) getting an in depth experience and close up encounters with birds and invertebrates. The event w as supported by volunteers from Bristol Nature Netw ork.

Lawrence Weston Moor We were not able to get the proposed project partners (Lawrence Weston & Avonmouth Youth Project and Linkage) on board in time to arrange this event so hope to revisit next summer. Resources w ere, therefore, redistributed to increase the impact of the other two events by increasing the number of activities on offer and the level of marketing undertaken

2. Your details:

Name of your group or organisation: Bristol Natural History Consortium

Name of the contact person within your group or organisation completing this form: Matt Postles

3. How was the money spent; please list items and costs and attach copies of receipts

3a. Please indicate below any underspend or overspend against your approved Green capital Grant amount.

Underspend: £0 Overspend: £0

3b. If you have a considerable under / over spend against the grant issued please tell us why this has happened. If you have an underspend please tell us as soon as possible if you have any possible further spend you would like to make which fits with your original application – Bristol 2015 money must be spent in 2015 year. You must get written permission before you go ahead with this spend. You will be required to repay any underspend so that it can be reallocated to other projects.

You must attach photocopies of invoices / receipts for all expenditure with this Monitoring Return

2

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

3c. Volunteer time: Please tell us how many volunteers were included in the delivery of this project, and calculate the monitory value as match funding.

Number of Number of Number of Total Match funding by volunteers hours per sessions/weeks volunteer volunteers session time Multiply by £11.06 12 x event Variable 3 63 63x11.06 = £696.78 volunteers 4 x expert Variable 3 20 20x11.06 = £221.20 naturalists 83 £917.98 Grand total

3.d Area of delivery – please include the address with postcode of all sites the project took place. Lawrence Weston Community Farm – Salmarsh Lane, Law rence Weston, Bristol BS11 0NL Lamplighters’ Marsh – Nr The Lamplighters, Station Road, Shirehampton, Bristol, BS11 9XA

4. Impact of your piece of work

Please state how your project has delivered against one or more of the Green Capital Priorities – please go back to what you said in your original application to tell what impact your work has had.

4a. What impact has your piece of work / project made against the following priorities? There is no requirement for projects to have delivered against more than one priority so please only fill in the table for the priority/ies that are most relevant to your project. If it has impact on more than one, please tell us about all of them.

Priority How did your project impact How did you record and on this (e.g. 21 people to evidence your achievements receive training, one (please send any photos, community event with 150 signing in sheets – don’t include attendees) personal details, only postcodes) 75 members of the public Photos Inspiring and engaged in wildlife activities at educating local sites of nature people about conservation interest nature and how to care for it.

3

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

4b. What is the long term impact of your piece of work? What will continue after the Green Capital Funding has been spent? For example, has there been behaviour change in the neighbourhood, is there something physical left for the community, or any activities that will continue for the community, will people continue to work together beyond 2015?

Events, even at small community scale, provide excellent focal points for local partnership development. At Lamplighters Marsh we were able to bring together local naturalists and an established regional project together with a relatively new locally focussed project providing a platform for collaboration going forwards. The event also provided some excellent learning and piloting activities for the Forgotten Landscape project and skills development for staff who were new to this style of engagement. At Long Cross Tip we were able to introduce a number of naturalists and academics to a new, exciting wildlife site that many had never realised was hidden behind the Community Farm. Several of the naturalists expressed an interest in returning to the site to explore the possibility of conducting further wildlife surveys with the potential to support re-designation of the SNCI to Local Nature Reserve in future.

4

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

5. Wider impact

5a. What went well? This is your chance to show off about what your project achieved to meet your original goals and any other benefits. How can you demonstrate this impact? Please include any feedback from local people and any media coverage.

Engaging communities: Activities were well received by participants with the vast majority of people attending the full duration of the sessions despite the activities being of a ‘drop-in’ nature. One parent remarked:

“It’s amazing seeing what [wildlife] you can find so close to home. Even with the weather, we’ve had a lovely day and the kids are loving it!”

Particularly popular activities included:  Bird ringing, pond dipping and bug hunting – the opportunity to get up close and personal with local wildlife  Arts and crafts beyond the basic – whilst colouring, leaf rubbing and modelling clay are excellent staples for themed arts and crafts activities, we found that bringing something a bit different in the form of a cyanotype photography printing activity using nature table items really captured the attention and imagination of families.

Safeguarding green spaces: Through the events we were able to conduct simple wildlife survey activities identifying and recording some fo the species and habitats present on the sites. This data is being compiled and will be passed on the the Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre where they will contribute to a knowledge base used to support land management and planning decision making processes. As mentioned, several of the naturalists attending the Long Cross Tip event have expressed an interest in returning to the site to explore the possibility of conducting further wildlife surveys with the potential to support re- designation of the SNCI to Local Nature Reserve in future.

Skills for the future: 12 young volunteers from Bristol Nature Network took part in the events practicing skills in public engagement, species identification and ecological field techniques as well as supporting small scale event setup. All informally fed back having thoroughly enjoyed the events and many went on to volunteer at further events through the summer.

5b. Who benefitted? (look back at your application form – tell us about impact on any equalities groups/communities of interest you identified as well as the general population

Local residents and visitors from surrounding areas BNHC Volunteers from Bristol Nature Network

5

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

5c. How many people benefitted?

75 members of the public engaged in wildlife activities at local sites of nature conservation interest

12 young volunteers received experience of public engagement and wildlife recording

4 experienced naturalists gained experience in public engagement and shared their skills and knowledge

5d. The total number of people who attended your event / activity 91

Please only complete this section if you have already collected this information during your project, the following questions are not asking organisations to undertake new surveys but to give those who have already collected this information the opportunity to share this data with Bristol 2015 / Bristol City Council.

Equalities Monitoring

Age Number Any way in which your project benefited people from these groups 0 - 15 16 - 24 25 - 49 50 – 64 65 - 74 75 or over Preferred not to say Information not collected X

Gender Number Any way in which your project benefited people from these groups Female Male Preferred not to say Information not collected X

Transgender Number Any way in which your project (Is gender identity different benefited people from these groups from the gender assigned at birth?) Yes No Preferred not to say Information not collected X

6

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

Ethnicity Number Any way in which your project benefited people from these groups White British background Other White background Black and minority ethnic background Preferred not to say Information not collected X

Disability Number Any way in which your project (People who considered benefited people from these groups themselves to be disabled) Yes No Preferred not to say Information not collected X

Sexual Orientation Number Any way in which your project benefited people from these groups Lesbian Gay Bisexual Heterosexual (straight) Preferred not to say Information not collected X

Religion / Belief Number Any way in which your project benefited people from these groups Yes No Preferred not to say Information not collected X

General Monitoring

General Monitoring Number Any way in which your project benefited people from these groups Disadvantaged groups Low income groups Homeless People Families People in rural areas Local Residents Alcohol / drug addiction Any other relevant specific groups

7

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

6a. What have been the benefits of having this one off Green Capital funding?

The grant enabled specific activities to take place in areas not usually reached by these kinds of activities and supported the wider Festival of Nature programme with local outreach content.

6b. What, if anything, would you do differently with hindsight?

We encountered a few challenges with this project outlined below:

Staffing: Unfortunately our project officer contracted Lymes Disease over the summer and there have been a few changes to the project. We have worked hard to make the existing programme as large as possible and drive as much value of out of the events for local people. We proactively attempted to contact the Neighbourhood Partnership to discuss and agree these changes in advance. This drop in capacity made establishing relationships with local groups much more difficult, ultimately resulting in a third event planned with ‘harder to reach audiences’ having to be cancelled when the key audience partners could not be reached.

Weather: As with any outdoor events we were subject to changeable weather conditions and the scale of the Lamplighters Marsh event was hampered by inclement weather.

Competition: Due to limited calendar space at the venue, the Long Cross Tip event at Lawrence Weston Farm clashed with a major public city centre event: The Balloon Fiesta. This may or may not have had an impact on such a local community event in a different part of the city, however any effect may have been compounded by the hot weather, increasing the number of alternative activities available to potential participants.

7. Attachements checklist: (please tick which you attach items in red are needed for all projects

Photocopies of invoices/receipts

Signing in sheets

Participant evaluation

Photographs

8

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

Pond dipping at Long Cross Tip Poster for Lamplighters Marsh event

Bug hunting at Long Cross Tip Recording findings at Long Cross Tip

Bird Ringing with Ed Drewitt at Lamplighters Marsh

9

Monitoring form Bristol 2015 Neighbourhood Grants Fund V6

Signature of Project Manager

Date ______02.02.2016______

Please return the completed form to: Wellbeing / Green Capital Funding, Neighbourhood Management Service Bristol City Council, P O Box 3176 Bristol BS3 9FS or by email to [email protected]

10