Further Funding for Community Chesterfield

The last few months have been an interesting time for us at Community Chesterfield; we have both been preparing for the end of our project and its next chapter simultaneously because of the uncertainty around funding. We have been lucky enough to have a brilliant intern, Lauren, who has been working with us on our evaluation – to make sense of the last three years, collate data and collect more. We have also been reflecting a lot on the last three years, what we have achieved, what could have been different and what we have learned. I won’t dwell on the pandemic here, but I think for our project it has brought both advantages and disadvantages.

All of this reflection however, has made me proud – really proud of what we have achieved, what the project has done, and the work that our colleagues have done over the past three years. I feel very fortunate that we have been in a position to be part of so many people’s journeys. Our final evaluation will be published on the website in the next month, so do look out for it.

I also feel very strongly that our work has only just begun. In the last year we have created twice the number of meaningful connections between the University and community groups than we did in the first year of the project. The work we are doing, engaging with students, bringing voluntary groups to lectures and embedding real life experiences within the curriculum is only just gathering pace. We have also begun to build relationships with other areas of the University which have massive potential to bring benefits to the voluntary sector. In addition we have proved that cross sector collaboration is worthy of further exploration with the potential to bring in skills and resource to the voluntary sector.

We are therefore delighted that we have been granted a further two years funding from the National Lottery to continue our work. This news came sooner than expected and we were able to celebrate it at our showcase event, which was just incredible, to be able to share the news with so many of the people we have worked with from both the University of Derby and our local community and voluntary sector groups.

We are so happy to be able to continue to work alongside you all for the next two years and excited about what more we can achieve together.