If you donate to us via Localgiving.com  from 9am on Monday 14th May – Localgiving.com will match your donation £ for £ for the whole of the week- so it’s a great way to help us raise much needed extra funds.

Check out Localgiving.com to find out more and to see how your donation could really make a difference to children’s lives in Nottingham.

You’ll also be able to explore our amazing Scrapstore which is full of fabulous recycled arts and crafts materials from paper and plastic to foil and feathers and visit the Art Shop for affordably-priced creative goodies.

The event is free and includes refreshments. Simply turn up on the day or call Ellen Smith on 0115 958 9199 to find out more.

Parents are welcome to join the Scrapstore for just £10 a year (£5 if you’re unwaged). As a member, you can buy a whole basketful of scrap from the Scrapstore whenever you like for just £2. Saving you £s off the usual cost of arts and crafts materials. Plus, you’ll be helping to do your bit for the environment by using recycled materials!

Click here to read the article in full

The ‘Beyond the Cuts’ report estimates that the 34,000 charities in England which work primarily with children and young people will lose £405 million in statutory funding in the next few years – and that’s a cautious estimate.

The public sector cuts to children and young people’s charities are disproportionate too, compared with the voluntary sector as a whole.

Click here to read the NCB press release in full

NCB and the Independent on Sunday contacted Playworks after hearing our news that we’re still in talks with Nottingham City Council about our funding being cut from April 2012.

Playworks is also taking part in an NCB report called Perfect Storm, which is exploring the issues faced by children and young people’s charities in the wake of funding cuts, due to go to Ministers in June.

Hopefully, you can spare a few moments to read the article and press release as they highlight the way in which children and young people are being adversely affected by the cuts – something which is especially worrying in Nottingham given that the city is already in the top ten for child poverty in the UK.

If you’d like to discuss the issues raised please contact Liz Asher, Senior Manager at Playworks on 0115 958 9199.

We can’t publish the whole article here but anyone who subscribes to Children & Young People Now can read it in the 17th-30th April edition or view it online.

The article is about a report published last month by the National Trust, which is warning that everyone involved with children, from policy makers to teachers, health practitioners and families must overcome their risk-averse approach to play – to halt the ‘dramatic decline’ in children’s experience of the outdoors.

The article also looked at how funding cuts and the lack of a national strategy for play is impacting on this.

Children & Young People Now got in touch with us after hearing about Nottingham City Council’s decision to stop our funding.

The article says:

“Nottingham charity Playworks, which uses trained professionals and volunteers to run community play facilities is under threat of closure because of changes to the council’s funding for voluntary organisations. This month, the charity lost its core funding after missing out on a bid to provide voluntary sector infrastructure support.” 

The article goes on to quote Wendy Russell who believes the loss of outdoor play will affect deprived communities the most.

“We know public sector cuts are hitting the poorest hardest and particularly women, children and families. Adult-organised opportunities for children to play can help mitigate these hardships – in terms of helping children to become more resilient and more able to cope with a range of emotions and stress. The services offered by Playworks are the very ones that can support play provision in these times of cuts. It seems counter-productive to cut funding to such an organisation at this time, since the effects may well cost more in the long run.”

It’s currently at the printers but if you’d like a sneak peek – simply click the link below.

As you’ll see we’ve got something for everyone – including families, schools, nurseries, neighbourhood groups and community organisations.

Whatever you need to help children and young people play – we can help!

Take a look at our leaflet

Feel free to get in touch with us if you’d like printed copies.

A reporter from Radio Nottingham visited us yesterday after hearing that our funding from Nottingham City Council is ending this month and the affect that could have on the hundreds of families, schools, nurseries, play providers and community groups we support – via resources such as free training and our Scrapstore.

The reporter interviewed our Director Liz Asher about how, in our view, we’ve ‘fallen through the gap’ in the City Council’s new system for accessing funding, on a ‘technicality’ and what this means for Playworks and play in general in Nottingham.

The reporter also spoke to a couple of the community play projects we support and visited our Scrapstore, which they described as an ‘Aladdin’s Cave of children’s playthings’.

The Council declined to comment on Playworks specifically, and gave Radio Nottingham a general statement about the new funding system.

You can listen to the programme online for the next 7 days. If you want to skip straight to Liz’s interview and the full news story you can scroll into the programme 2 hours – the Breakfast Show starts at 6am and we were on around 8am.

In the meantime, it’s very much business as usual at Playworks and rest assured we’re doing all we can to make our concerns known to the City Council in an effort to resolve the situation.

Click here to listen to us on BBC Radio Nottingham

At present, we’re trying to resolve the situation because our closure would have a devastating effect on families, children and young people in Nottingham – who are already being hit hard by the funding cuts and high levels of unemployment.

We’ve put together a press release to explain why it’s so important that the City Council continues to fund us, even if it’s at a reduced level.

Click here to read the press release in full

If you can offer us any support of any kind please feel free to give Liz Asher a call on 0115 958 9199.

For example, a local forum for parents and carers dropped by to find out how they could improve their website, whilst a new play group in Newark came along to get advice on how they could launch themselves and encourage people along to their group.

The surgery was run by 13 Souls, the marketing and communications agency that designed our website. 13 Souls has a lot of experience in the voluntary sector and they were happy to pass on their knowledge and experience to help providers.

If you would be interested in attending a similar advice surgery in the future please feel free to let us know and we’ll arrange another one.

Feedback from people who attended yesterday’s surgery included this comment:

“Very grateful for all advice given and would recommend to anyone.  Fantastic!”

Click here to read Ellen’s column in full

We’ve recently heard that we’re losing our funding from Nottingham City Council – including funding for our Scrapstore. We’re currently doing all we can to protect the Scrapstore and the other play services we provide.

Please tell us what the Scrapstore means to you and how you would be affected if the Scrapstore had to close. Your feedback will hopefully help us to find new sources of funding. Many thanks for your help and support.

Please note: it’s still business as usual at the Scrapstore and we’ve got lots of exciting new materials in stock – including lots of netting!

We hope to see you very soon!

Click here to read the article in full

The article quotes Nottingham City Council as saying “Playworks had the opportunity to tender, either on its own or as part of a consortium, but appears to have chosen not to take part in the tendering exercise.”

However, we were clearly told by Nottingham City Council that we couldn’t put in a tender to provide play infrastructure services on our own and we were not selected to take part in the consortium bid, led by Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service.

We have made a formal complaint to Nottingham City Council regarding the way the new tendering process has been handled and are currently awaiting a response.

In the meantime, we’d like to reassure our members that it is ‘business as usual’ at Playworks and that we are doing everything in our power to protect the play services that we provide to communities throughout Nottingham, including our Scrapstore.