been making grants from the profits since 2003 towards a wide variety of community projects.
These grants now total over £120,000 and offers totalling £20,000 have been made for this year.
Dales Festival of Food and Drink was joint winner of the Social and Community category of the North Action for Market Towns Awards.
Digital Teesdale is a community broadband project that covers the whole of Teesdale. It aims to deliver next generation broadband access to rural communities that currently have no or very limited access.
It is available to residents and businesses at affordable rates in areas that wouldn’t otherwise get serviced.
Barnard Castle Vision found funding to bring broadband to Teesdale and formed a steering group. The first service delivery began late in 2010, and the first paying customers came on board early in 2011.
The group chose WiMAX wireless solution as the most suitable for coverage of the large geographical area – this avoided the cost of laying cables.
The service benefits farmers in the area who will be able to complete their DEFRA returns online, visitors at the Bowes Museum who benefit from free Wifi and residents of Teesdale Housing Association properties, many of whom would not be able to afford a home broadband service.
Free town wifi has been well used since its launch and is particularly popular with visitors to the Tourist Information Centre and the town’s young people.
Digital Teesdale won the Partnership and Strategic Working category of the North Action for Market Towns Awards.
Gillingham Work (Job) Club aims to help unemployed people make the most of local knowledge to identify opportunities and resources in their communities to gain employment, experience, training and support.
Launched in November 2010, the club provides help in a warm and welcoming atmosphere to anyone of any age who is looking for work.
The club meets every Friday in Gillingham Town Hall,
raises all its own funding and is run entirely by volunteers from the community.
The club has 12 volunteer advisers on its books and handles an average of five job seekers each week, some new, some returning. They plan to extend their help to ex-prisoners and to young people looking for apprenticeships.
Advisers greet visitors with a smile, a cup of coffee and a private, informal chat to find out why they’ve come and to see how they can help them. Once the visitor joins, the adviser gives practical help on everything from writing a CV to using voluntary work or internships to gain experience.
Most of all, the club gives attendees the two things that not having a job can destroy: confidence and identity.
Gillingham Work (Job) Club won the Business and Economy category of the West Action for Market Towns Awards.
The Make it your Market programme combines free
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