“Derby Born - I know your community must appreciate your tireless efforts. I learnt that my children's former secondary school no longer has a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) through lack of volunteers, which is a terrible shame. In any community you find that it is only a small core group of people willing to give time and other expenses to a good cause.

I have gained a lot of satisfaction from doing a wide range of voluntary work over the years from helping in a Nottingham coffee bar for homeless men and teaching a man to read in my local college in the 1970s. In Derby in the 1980s I taught English as a second language to a Vietnamese lady in her own home. I¿ve also helped at a playgroup in my local community centre and at school throughout my children's years of education. I then volunteered with young offenders. In recent years I've been volunteering for groups in the Black community and in Church.

I understand what you mean about non response from the Council and am glad it is not my local authority. As a concerned member of the community I went to Nottingham in Feb 2008 to see Mr Twilight Bey, a fantastic social intervention specialist, deliver a ¿gang¿ workshop and saw how he really engaged with the ¿at risk¿ youths in the Meadows in Nottingham. From Feb 2008 (since before we had our first wounding by gun shot in Derby) I¿ve been trying to see if the Council could arrange for him to speak with the youths at risk of gang crime. I thought it would be such an easy task but even though we have now lost a young man to gun crime, my letters of Nov 2008 were literally ignored by councillors and the Cabinet Member for Children & Young People. Our Director of Children & Young People did not even comment on my suggestion. As much as I respect the police; the police authority and our Chief Constable, Mr Creedon did not enquire about Mr Bey although Mr Creedon did arrange for me to meet with one of his senior colleagues. Mr Bey is amazing and his fee would be well worth it. As the saying goes ¿If you want something doing ...¿ so with a few friends it looks as though I will have to try and arrange for Mr Bey to come to Derby.”

“That's all well and good if the buildings are in pristine condition to begin with, however reality is the council are exceedingly slow to do repairs to the buildings and so they are run down, dismal places. Many years my children attended holiday schemes at the community centres and they were clean well maintained buildings. 20 years on and this is no longer the case. If the council want communities to take on the running of the centres then they need to put their hands in their pockets and make sure the buildings are fit to be used.”

“I am actively involved with the Community Centre in my area. We are run independently but the Council are responsible for the upkeep of the fabric of the building. Although trying to get them to do things is very difficult at times. They seem to be pushing a lot of paperwork our way but not following it up. For example despite the fact that we did our own Risk Assessments we had to start doing Council version Risk Assessments last year. We did this with some help from the council. Of the 30 plus items that required action, 4 of these were our responsibility the rest were down to the Council. We managed to sort our actions, the Council managed none of theirs. The form was sent out again this year for us to fill in on our own, complete with all their actions still open. Some of these are important. We are just ordinary, normal locals. We are not H&S experts. I¿m the only one on the committee who has had any form of training (through work). What is the point of filling these forms in, apparently wasting hours of my time if they do not follow them up? Another example is the main door into the Community Centre. We have had 2 attempted break ins this year, along with a paint attack. The door has been badly damaged. We obtained a quote from a reputable company for the door and a replacement notice board. We informed the Council of this but are not allowed to use this company for the door as they are not on the Councils approved list. We can use them to replace the notice board, as this is our responsibility! We know them to be good tradesmen as we used them to replace our kitchen last year. The upshot is that we are having a replacement notice board but have to wait for the Council to go through the long, painful process to decide if we need a door or not.

I believe that the ultimate aim of the Council is to pass on the full, financial responsibility to the Independent Community Centres. This would obviously mean that we were free to choose whoever we wanted to replace our door. (Or would it?) Which is fair enough as long as there is some funding there to do it. I personally think that this would be one of the first targets in future years when spending cuts are required.

On another, connected point. Although the Council are responsible for the fabric of the building we are responsible for maintaining and keeping up to date the rest of the property. The replacement kitchen and a full re-decoration being just 2 of the recent examples we have either funded ourselves or obtained grants for. To be honest with you all, with the Council being responsible for the building, the ability to obtain grants and the fact that we are currently well used (this brings in rental), money is not our biggest concern. What is a big problem now and is likely to get worse later this year when 3 long serving committee members (me included) finish, is getting local people to help! I can honestly see a well run, well attended Community Centre possibly having to close unless more there are volunteers to help run the place. They do not need to give up tens of hours a week, if there were enough then just a few hours a month would be all that¿s needed. But trying to get anyone involved with the Community is getting very difficult indeed. I do not know the answer to this problem; if someone out there does can they please let me know.”

“Good to see my local centre mentioned but what makes Mickleover sucessful is the volunteer run Tea Rooms. This must bring in income for the centre and helps to cover the running costs. How would the others cope with covering their costs if they only have a limited income and who would be willing to take on that responsibility.”