Corona-19 Devon strikes back

Email template of what Communities in Devon are doing to confront the Corona-19 virus. To be continued!!

1. Community emergency grants for new & old resilience groups across Devon https://www.devoncommunities.org.uk/grant-funding-emergency-flood-resilience 

New groups that have been formed in response to the pandemic may wish to apply under scheme one to support costs associated with formalising the group into a community emergency planning group and creating a community emergency plan; a document that helps to plan your response and is shared with relevant local authorities and emergency services. We can also provide practical guidance, advice, and support around the creation of a community emergency planning group and writing a community emergency plan.

For questions and queries about grant applications please contact louise.macallister@devoncommunities.org.uk. For questions and queries about practical guidance and support in forming a community emergency planning group and writing an emergency plan please contact martin@devoncommunities.org.uk 

2. Devon Highlights is a community project led by Devon Communities Together, that supports older people (aged 55+) living in 6 areas of Devon, who may be at risk of loneliness and isolation. The project has but in place a number of measures to help ensure that older people are still able to access the support of this project throughout the Covid19 restrictions, please do share this information with those you know who may benefit from this. We are now operating a one to one telephone service for those people that do not have access to the internet or are unsure how to use digital devices.  

We are also using Zoom to hold groups online, so that participants can still see each other in real time, and talk about activities they are doing. In fact, this is a great opportunity for anyone that is 55+ living in Devon who wants to get connected.  

Devon Highlights is here to connect you in this time of isolation. For anyone who wants to get involved they can contact us on – info@devoncommunities.org.uk, or via telephone: 01392 218919.

3. A village community working together – practical  example – Ashreigney Village Hall have shared how they are looking after the hall and supporting the community during the Covid19 restrictions;

The Hall is now closed except for Friday mornings 0900-1100hrs when our Post Service operates.

The Foyer is cleaned on a Thursday afternoon each week prior to its opening and our Risk Assessment has been updated accordingly.

The Hall is physically checked twice a week by 2 Charity Trustees to ensure that all is fine.

We will look to turn off the heating in the next couple of weeks; all other electrical items have been switched off.

We have reduced the Committee to a quorum so that any decisions that have to be made can be done more quickly; this was done with all Trustees knowledge and agreement.

On the Contingency side, our Contingency Gold Group meets over Zoom and information is promulgated down through the ashreigneyhelp email. 

We have a list of volunteers who have all been individually contacted by email and been given guidance on protocol, health and safety and general well being.

We have also produced a list of local producers and shops with contact details and payment methods as well as price lists.

The Co-ordinator manages the list of volunteers and updates information as we feed it in to her.

Following the delivery of the Ashreigney and Riddlecombe Emergency Measures information sheet to all households which provides the names and contact details of the co-ordinators and how to seek assistance, we currently have a number of active requests for help which are being managed.

I should also say that the community is managing a lot of self help and care for neighbours and friends; the purpose of the volunteers is to fill the gaps where existing support networks fail or have not been established.

Our church bells ring out every Thursday at 8pm and last Thursday we had a wonderful accompaniment of drums as well as clapping!

Around a hundred of Devon’s towns and parishes have an Emergency Plan registered with Devon Community Resilience Board, others have unregistered* plans.

Many Emergency Plans include a local response team, ready to take action when an incident occurs.

4. A message from Martin Rich (martin@devoncommunties.org.uk) We want to find out how the local emergency teams have become involved in the response to Covid 19:

Has your group been activated?

Is your group leading the community response?

Have you joined up with others in your community?

What are you doing?

What difficulties have you come up against and how have you resolved them?

Do you have any outstanding requirements?

How have you funded your activities?

How are you communicating with your community?

How are you communicating within your group?

What have you done that other groups might want to know about?

When circumstances permit, we want to hold a Resilience Forum event to learn from this emergency. It may not be a further hundred years until there is another comparable event; also learning and experiences from today may help address other events. 

Please tell us about your experiences and help us to compile an insight into Emergency Planning in action.

Thank you.

* Registration of a plan means that local details are available to the emergency services and primary response organisations in the event of an emergency and for data analysis.

5)Community Business Survey

We are keen to continue gathering more information to understand the many ways in which the Covid-19 crisis is affecting community businesses. So to help us to understand which government-backed support packages are actually being accessed by community businesses we are inviting you to please complete this short survey.