This piece first appeared in Saga Magazine in February 1998
The text here may not be identical to the published text

Millennium Awards for All


Do something worthwhile in your community

Do you fancy becoming a Millennium Fellow and helping local people as part of the celebrations for the year 2000? Anyone can do it as long as they have the right idea. It comes with a grant - amounts vary but £2000 is typical - to do something worthwhile in your community. And we are not talking street parties. We are talking serious community action that really will make a difference and transform people's lives into the next century.

The money is being provided by the National Lottery through the Millennium Commission. The Commission is one of the five so-called good causes which have so far received £880 million each from the twice weekly draw. The others are Sports, Arts, Heritage, and Charity. The bulk of the money from the Millennium Commission is going to major building works of which the Millennium Experience housed in the massive Dome at Greenwich is probably the best known. But a significant proportion of its funds are going to help communities. A total of £100 million has been set aside over the next five years to pay for awards to individuals in their communities. And by the time the year 2000 arrives, 40,000 people will have had a Millennium Award and be on their way to becoming a Millennium Fellow.

The money for the Awards is channelled through existing charities or voluntary organisations. One of these is Help the Aged which was given £2.5 million to fund older people especially in rural areas. And one couple who wasted no time in applying for an Award are John and Elizabeth Leckenby. They live in Helmsley near York, a place with great beauty but some drawbacks, as Elizabeth explained.

"It's a beautiful place, one of the best in the world. But one of the disadvantages of a rural area is that it is miles from the nearest hospital. York is 25 miles away and Scarborough is about 30. The buses are practically non-existent and if you do get one into York you have to change and there could be a three hour wait to get back. Well if you're in your eighties you cannot do that. So our scheme pays drivers to take people to visit friends or relatives in hospital. We pay them 40p a mile and they wait and bring you back and often they go into the hospital and help you find the ward, because it's a bit of a trek even once you get there."

This simple but useful scheme got a grant of £2000 which Elizabeth hopes will see her through the winter when things get busier. She offers the free transport to and from the hospitals to anyone in the parish of Helmsley using her team of nine volunteer drivers. She organises the service and tries to ration the trips out out when demand is heavy. A taxi is prohibitively expensive and reluctant to wait and return and an alternative scheme by the social services department makes a charge which many people cannot afford. Elizabeth has spent around half her money and is now getting concerned now what will happen at the end of the year when it runs out and there is nothing to replace it.

Her service offers a straightforward direct service to the local community. It is exactly the sort of thing Help the Aged had in mind when it launched its scheme last year [1997]. Other awards have gone to people organising a community newspaper, a local Internet training scheme, and help with keeping gardens tidy.

Over in Northern Ireland one group has combined pottery with arthritis care. Margaret Gilbert says she applied for her Millennium Award for very simple reasons.

"The East Tyrone College of Education has 17 steps up to the front door and 20 more to the pottery room. I did a pottery course there and know how useful it can be . But a lot of senior citizens cannot make it there. To work with clay, if you have arthritis, is very therapeutic. You use your hands and arms, you keep the muscles going."

Her grant of £7411 allowed her to buy the clay and glaze needed to teach a class of local retired people - currently 15 strong - to throw pots. They operate out of a mobile classroom on the site of an old building but the advantage is that to get in it you have to negotiate only a gentle ramp. Class members pay £6 each towards to the cost of their tutor. Margaret says

"You don't really need artistic ability. Just be willing to have a go and have a laugh and keep your muscles and joints going."

Arthritis is the special concern of the the Arthritis Care Millennium Awards. They received nearly £1 million to fund 300 awards of £3000 each to establish a network of volunteers - all with arthritis - to provide support and training for people all over the United Kingdom. Gareth Gault, regional coordinator at Arthritis Care, explained why it was so important to them.

"The millennium money allows us expand and improve the network and to give more training and support to the volunteers. It is building upon existing practices and opportunities. It also allows us to concentrate in areas that it is particularly needed."

Half the volunteers have already been recruited, but another 150 are need in 1998. Apart from comprehensive training the money will be used to reimburse the telephone and car expenses of all volunteers.

The Millennium Awards are not just about health and ageing. The Millennium Forest for Scotland is making 270 awards for projects to involve local people with their local woodlands. Everything from surveying the trees to learning how to manage them is on the agenda. And if you fancy something a bit more political, The Scarman Trust is over 500 Awards to people who want to become what it calls 'moving spirits' in cities to put into action priorities for improving their communities.

Bryan Preece, a local cafe proprietor in Norwich, has been awarded £3700 to pursue something that he believes is as important as it is ignored - the health and fitness of older men.

"For a number of years I have been involved with keep fit for men over 50, mainly with classes in the adult education college. There is so much evidence of the benefits of exercise in reducing the two great killers heart disease and stroke. It also helps with diabetes, arthritis, and osteoporosis. All you need is 30 minutes of moderate exercise preferably daily."

His grant has been spent on providing heart monitors and scales so that men who come to his classes can be accurately assessed and their progress measured. Although the exercise programme should be carried out at home as part of their daily lives, many of them like to return for reassurance and praise at what they have achieved.

"You need about 30 minutes to get the metabolism up to a certain level. Over a period of time that will mean the heart pumps more blood and the number of red corpuscles increases. The trouble is many men don't ever see a doctor until something goes wrong. If everyone did this sort of exercise we would save the National Health Service billions."

These three examples are just a few of the hundreds of imaginative individual initiatives already funded by Millennium money. A spokeswoman for the Millennium Commission told us

"The whole aim is to find and fund things. To find new volunteers, to reach people through the partner organisations who we couldn’t otherwise reach and give them the money to help their communities."

So important is this part of the Commission's work that it has decided to continue it long after the year 2000 has itself passed into history. Apart from the £100 million to be spent over the next five years, another £100 million will be set aside in a trust fund and the interest on it will perpetuate the Awards, hopefully throughout the next millennium - to the year 3000!

But long before that many of the first 40,000 volunteers will have become Millennium Fellows. That means they have got their grant, used it, and achieved their target. Eventually, it is hoped that the Millennium Fellows will be able to meet up at a national conference. Although some of the projects are aimed at older people, many are specifically aimed at younger ones. So one aim of the conference will be to promote understanding between the generations. And that could be the best legacy of all for the next thousand years.



More new organisations are becoming Millennium Award Partners this year. So there is a good chance that there is something local you can do to apply for a grant. For more information ring the Millennium Commission on 0171 880 2030 to register your interest. They will then send you the information about the Award Partners so you can then pick something you want to do and find out more.

February 1998


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