Thornhill Tenants & Residents Association

The first group was formed 30 years ago when the site was new, some of the members have been there from the start. Over the last few years the present committee has worked really hard, along with other agencies to make the whole of Thornhill a community. We are a very small committee of six people with ages ranging from 30s to 80s (very young at heart!): Shaun May (Chairman)
Gill Kendall (Secretary)
Jan Smith (Social Secretary)
Margaret Steel (Treasurer)
Edna House (member)
Dennis Ford (member) We have a written constitution which gives our aims and objectives. Our constitution was written several years ago so we plan to review our present constitution with the view to making adjustments to parts that no longer apply. We can be contacted at:
9 Berkeley Court
Thornhill
Cwmbran
NP44 5UB
E-mail: ferret@kendall1945.orangehome.co.uk
Contact no: 01633 860787 (Jan Smith)

Driving Force

The initial driving force for us to start was a new site, a lot of problems, landlord slow to react. As the site grew, each court had its own group until several years ago we combined as a single committee representing all courts.

Achievements

Nearly three years ago we consciously sat down and decided to change direction. It's been the best decision we ever made. We approached other agencies working in our area and told them that we wanted to channel our energies into building a community where people would mix and enjoy living in Thornhill. We set out a programme of events, for all ages, for the year ahead and then we went for funding. This was all new to us but we took to it like ducks to water. We believe if you don't ask you don't get, so we asked everyone, and fortunately we have been very lucky.

Last year we set out our programme very early in the year. We were successful again in obtaining funding of £3,249 from Communities First Trust Fund; £250 from the Welsh Church Fund and £300 from Hafod’s Community Focus Team. We have also generated a lot of money by practicing social enterprise and we are now going to apply for more funding to complete our events this year.

Other activities include a residential training weekend for approximately 16 youths plus workers to Gilwern. The cost was in excess of £1,000 and it has been reported that a good time was had but some found it strange to get out of bed at 7am and prepare a packed lunch! The workers were amazed how many youths had never made a sandwich in their lives and some didn’t realize that 7 o’clock came around twice in one day!

We have had trips to Swansea and the Mumbles; Folly Farm (over 100 people enjoyed this trip); Tenby; Porthcrawl and St Fagans.

We have also arranged a Pea & Pie supper with a local celtic band, karaoke, quiz, line dancing and a raffle for senior citizens at the Community Hall. It was a very happy and enjoyable evening and we will be holding another event, a Community Christmas Social Evening, for our senior citizens in December.

We have plans to arrange an adults only shopping trip to Bath Christmas Market and a pantomime.

In addition, our MUGA (Multi Use Games Area) is utilized throughout the year and there is a Cosy Kitchen luncheon at the Community Hall held on a Tuesday lunchtime when anyone can come along and have a meal. The meals vary according to the seasons ranging from salads, soups and rolls, jacket potatoes or just tea/coffee and a chat. There is also a food co-op which is proving to be really popular and laptop computers that anyone can have tuition on and also a book swap club, a line dancing class that takes place straight after Cosy Kitchen. Cosy Kitchen has won an Award from the Food Standards Agency this year, resulting in a £1,000 grant and 2 plaques. This has proved a real boost and we have also drawn down funding from the Communities First Trust Fund totaling £4,000 to help make improvements to the kitchen and to support several initiatives. One of the projects we have funding for which we will do several times a year is “Foods Around the World.” It gives an opportunity to children and adults to try foods and fruits they might never come across and the first time we ran it, it was very popular.

We are very lucky to have recruited some wonderful people to help us with our events. Some volunteers live alone and find it great to be ‘useful’ again. Our community hall is used more now than ever before.

So far this year we have been able to draw down over £9,000 of funding. We have a very full schedule of events this year and we are assisting others by funding them to acheive their goals. We have a lady who lives in Thornhill, she works tirelessly with young children. We are able to fund her to take a coach full of children to Roath Park in the summer for a picnic. Again we are funding play rangers to take approximately 12 teenagers on an outward bound residential weekend to Gilwern. We donated £450 to the allotments in Thornhill, where the young are learning from the not so young, benefits and importance of how to grow food and the health implications. We are funding courses at the community hall for Art, flower arranging and a third to be decided.

Thornhill has been awarded "EXEMPLAR" status, only 12 of these awards have been issued and Thornhill is the only one in Wales. This is a very prestigious award for the area. It recognises exeptional work done by all the partners in the area i.e. Police, Communities First, Tenants & Residents, Hafod Housing, Councillors etc. To make Thornhill a safe and good place to live. Our group is very involved with this.

We still find the time to meet with other groups in our area, and we will be assisting another group with their Fete in July.

Funding

Hafod supply us with a yearly grant and help with internet costs. We get the rest from grants. We have been extremely fortunate with help from Communities First Trust Fund, Building Communities First, Welsh Church Fund, Awards for All, Torfaen Voluntary Alliance, Cwmbran Community Council, Community Focus Small Grants.

Meetings

Committee meetings are held at the community hall six times a year including our AGM and Open Meetings. Sometimes other organisations are invited, among these is a Hafod representative, Police and councillors. We have to be flexible so we have quite a few sub-meetings throughout the year, with so much to organise we would never fit it all in if we just waited for our ordinary meetings.

The Future

We still have several events to do before this year is finished, then we start all over again! We will also still be there to assist anyone on our site who needs help, and liaise with Hafod on their behalf whenever necessary. We are also working tirelessly with the police and other agencies to help keep them informed when there are problems and help when needed.

Links to other organisations

We have links with several other groups and offer assistance if it is needed. We work very closely with the Police, Communities First, Building Communities First, Thornhill 4 U, Community Focus Unit. We have been presented with certificates by local agencies for our work in the community.

Courses

The TPAS Cymru conference is attended each year by at least 2 of our members. Courses attended by members include: Funding, Food Hygiene, Secretary & Chairman Training, Committee Skills, Understanding ASBO's, Risk Assessment, Computer Skills, First Aid & Child Protection Training. Members recently attended a seminar held at the Parkway Hotel in Cwmbran with workshops all to do with being a volunteer. We have also attended courses / workshops / seminars / presentations from Bridgend to Llandudno in the last 12 months.