Grants available to the Vaynor Ward

Are you a local farmer, business or community group that is looking for funding?

Two new grant funds are available which can provide individual grants of either capital or revenue for between £1,000 to £15,000, which must be fully spent within the period January 2009 to February 2011. All prospective project applicants will be expected to contribute a minimum of at least 20% match funding towards the cost of projects (can be in kind match funding e.g time spent by volunteers etc)

Grants can be made to eligible organisations in the form of:
- Enterprises within the farming and land based sector requiring support to promote non-agriculturally related diversification activities
- Small business looking to extend their activities in ways that support the local economy, improve employment capacity or are related to tourism promotion
- community groups seeking to engage in enterprise or improvement focused activities that add value to services or local features

If you are interested in finding out more, please contact Chris Collins at Rural Action Merthyr on 01685 725017

Cleaner, Greener Trefechan

The Communities First Team in partnership with Keep Wales Tidy and the Cleaner Greener Team from Groundwork Merthyr and RCT held a waste amnesty today in Trefechan. Local Residents were able to deposit unwanted bulky waste and electrical items for free in a skip provided. A free pick up service was also provided for Senior Citizens. Many of the items were taken for recycling at the local recycling point.

The event was a great success and it is hoped that future clear ups will be held
later in the year. We would like to thank all residents and Keep Wales Tidy and the Cleaner Greener Team from Groundwork merthyr and RCT for their support for this event.

New Year, New You !

The New Year, New You Health Week was held in the week beginning the 23rd February 2009, with a range of activities being held from Smoothie making with young people, relaxation and indian head massage, smoking cessation. The Trefechan Health and Fitness Group also ran a series of stalls on the main event.

Do you have items of furniture you no longer want?

Trefechan Communities First alongside Groundwork and Keep Wales tidy will be providing a free skip for local residents to deposit any unwanted items.
If senior citizens would like some items removed please contact the communities first office on 01685 383758 to arrange a collection two weeks in advance.
The free skip will be available on Thursday 5th March between 10am and 1pm outside the Communities First Office.

St Fagans Museum

33 residents attended a recent visit to St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life. For 25% of the residents this was their first visit to St Fagans and all rated the visit as very good.

83% of residents reported that they had learnt something new during the visit, with several residents being expecially interested in the old cottages which previously had stood on the old Rhydycar site in Merthyr Tydfil and the communal bakehouse/oven which stood in Georgetown. Some of the attendees had family that used to live in the area so were particularly interested in some of the exhibits.

There was something of interest to all with several of the young people taking part in pottery tasters and dressed up in costumes in the costume exhibition.