To hear from Jesal Dhokia.

Jesal Dhokia, Transformation and Community Lead at RBWM, gave the Group an update on community engagement. They had been leading on asset based community pieces of work, which was stage 3 of the project. This involved the recent world cafes, where the council listened to residents and tried to create solution based opportunities. The funding for these solutions was from the innovation fund, round 2 of this fund had recently closed with around 12 projects being funded. These projects had come out of the world cafes and were where organisations were working with residents on solutions which had come out of these conversations. Information was uploaded to the RBWM Together website. Some examples of projects which had been funded included cooking classes to help with the cost of living, walking groups and coffee mornings integrated with the hub scheme. The next world café would be taking place in Belmont ward on 20^th December, with Sunningdale, Old Windsor and Furze Platt planned for the new year. Talks were being given at the Gurdwara around health issues while budgeting classes were also being offered to residents. The team were continuing with the partnerships that had been created and had recently been nominated for an award due to these partnerships. Jesal Dhokia said that anyone interested was able to join the steering group, which was looking to move to stage 4. Community champions were sent emails, usually once a month, from the communications team which would then be distributed as widely as possible. There were usually four online meetings a year, along with a celebration event. Work was being done in collaboration with Maidenhead United Football Club on wellbeing circles to support hospital discharge. The household fund programme had been launched, this was based around supporting individuals to access £145 from the government, it would be useful for organisations to advertise this to residents.

Councillor Price noted that soon there would have been a world café held in every RBWM ward. She asked if the intention was to do another round of events, once this had been completed.

Jesal Dhokia explained that there had been requests to go back to some wards, which would happen. There was an outcomes report, the aim was to link these outcomes with solutions.

Councillor Price asked about the household support grant, should applications be completed through partner organisations or should it be done directly through RBWM.

Jesal Dhokia said that information on the partners were available on the website, residents could either submit applications through partner organisations or through the council.

Valerie Pike said that the world cafes had been a great experience and was a valuable resource to enable networking between organisations. She asked if there was a confirmed date for the Sunningdale world café.

Jesal Dhokia said that the Sunningdale world café had originally been scheduled for September but had to be cancelled due to the passing of The Queen. Contact had been made with the parish council and the proposal was to find a date in January.

Valerie Pike said that she was also keen for a second round of world cafes to take place, some residents had been unable to attend the original dates. It would also be useful for some alternative times to be offered to attract greater representation.

Jesal Dhokia added that the world cafes were financed using external funding, so this was a dependant factor in holding additional events. Different times could be explored, if appropriate.

Councillor Rayner said that the team had been doing a fantastic job. The council had learnt a significant amount about the community since the pandemic. RBWM was reliant on external funding for the project but it had been very successful so far.

Danielle Lane asked if information on the budgeting sessions could be shared, would they be one to one or group sessions.

She was informed that sessions would take place in venues that were accessible, there would be ‘cooking on a budget’ sessions and a six week programme for the digital budgeting sessions.

Danielle Lane said that it would be great to work in partnership with the employment support team, along with the West Windsor Hub and Food Share. She offered to discuss potential venues and other ways to help deliver the project.