SPARK has been negotiating with the Borough and County to try and get a new lease to cover the land that both the Youth Club and KidsRus buildings are on. There seems to be a desire to help us sort this out positively but with staff shortages this takes longer to happen than we would hope. If this is successful we would hope to use one building for Youth activity and the other to help us raise funds for Southill as we are still wanting to get some new equipment for the Play Park. We have reached agreement with the councils and are now waiting for this to be confirmed by the Borough Councillors. There is a lot of potential for Southill to flourish as a community. SPARK already supports the gardening group, the community bus programme, the Well-being centre and fundraising for the play area. Our AGM will be held in January when we hope to confirm some of these ideas so please watch out for details.
If you have ideas or want to help in anyway with developing SPARK please get in touch with Pete Barrow on 07741252302. We would like to see three or four members of the committee and have other volunteers who are willing to help occasionally and so have just given us their contact details.
A successful Easter Egg hunt was held after Easter to coincide with a major tidy up of the KidsRus site which SPARK is negotiating to take over. If we can come to a sensible arrangement with WPBC over the leasing agreement we will be bidding for funds to repair and renovate where necessary so that this building can also be used by the community, preferably young people. You can find more details about SPARK on their own web page.
A small number of children attended the meeting on 11th March to look at restarting a Youth Club in Southill. It was decided to have an action session in the Easter holiday to help prepare the old KidsRus building for possible use by Young people. We want young people to plan and design what they want for themselves, with SPARK helping it to happen. Watch out for FaceBook information on the SPARK and Southill facebook pages so that you can get involved.
SPARK has been formally accepted as a charity by the charity commission with a wide ranging aim of supporting the youth and environment of Southill. It is going to initially focus on four strands of activity:

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SPARK Special General Meeting Agenda/Minutes
Date 10 July 2016 Time 11:00 Venue Southill Youth Centre
Present
Pete Barrow, David Harris, James Symonds, Sarah Polkinghorn, Helen Lainsbury
1 Apologies None
2 Minutes/Action Points from last meeting N/A
3 Action Plan
3.1 Business Case
General discussion on the Action Plan and mtg between PB
and Simon Thompson .PB reported that there had been no changes to the BC
since previous meeting
3.2 Incorporation
PB provided an update on the mtg between PB and Simon Thompson of DCA and the fact that the advice was that SPARK should become a CIO, a motion would go to the AGM recommending this and seeking approval from members
Action PB to word a suitable motion and include in AGM PP presentation
3.3 Building Works Specification
JS updated the group on the outcome of the meetings he had held with DCC and advised that he was very worried about the lack of feedback received. JS
was also very concerned about timescales for delivering the work and the effect any delay would have on our potential main user.
Action DH to send the agreed email to DCC and seek a meeting, both to seek clarification on what financial support DCC are willing to provide and to see if some form of interim arrangement would be possible
3.4 Building Works Delivery
NA as not yet started
3.5 Budget (inc Cash flow)
General discussion on budget etc...
Action JS to send PB the latest estimate on hours PB to rework the budget/cash flow
3.6 Lease
General discussion on the lease and the fact that SPARK requires access to an insured legal adviser.
Action PB to liaise with DCA to seek advice on sourcing legal advice
3.7 Public Support and Volunteer Capacity
PB updated group on the agenda for the Public Meetin
g and the AGM
Actions PB to add slide ref the Skills we are looking for from our new volunteers PB to send email reminder ref Public Meeting PB to drop of leaflet at School and pre school HL to send further Facebook reminder ref the Public Meeting
3.8 Fundraising
General discussion of fundraising ideas.
Action JS to investigate the Crowd funding opportunities
3.9 AOB
The group were advised that all documents were being stored on Dropbox and all had access if they wished to view any of them. Also agreement that all public documents would be stored on the Southill Community website.
Actions PB to give SP and HL access to Dropbox DH to add page to website