Surplus cash in Board's discretionary funding pot

June 12th, 2014
[by David Armstrong]

The Motueka Community Board approaches the end of its financial year with less than half of the budget for discretionary funding of community groups spent.

At its June meeting on Tuesday the board noted that of the $6000 budgeted for small grants of up to $500 to community groups only $2895 has been shared among seven applicants, mostly in 2013.

This prompted comments along the lines of "do we have to advertise to give money away?" from several board members.

The reasons for so few applications are hard to ascertain. Board chairman Paul Hawkes said he had promoted the fund to about 10 groups in recent weeks, urging them to use it if they had projects that fitted the rules. Only one group had done so, and their application came in after deadline.

Some potential barriers to applications were discussed, including the deadline being three weeks before the meeting, application rounds being only quarterly, and the need for money to be granted before the relevant projects start.

The board thought that the scheme could do with more publicity such as in TDC's Newsline. The guidelines for applying and eligibility of projects are set out on Motueka Online: follow this link.

There is also a "Youth Development Fund" currently with an annual budget of $1000, which in this financial year ending June 30th has been overspent by $480.

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