Community Groups Pitch High for Public Money

Community groups hoping to receive funding for local projects pitched their ideas at the inaugural ‘In It to Win It’ event at The Castle Conference Centre, Castlewellan Forest Park on Thursday 22 March 2018.

Slieve Croob DEA Forum Chairperson, Councillor Mark Murnin said, “The event was organised by Slieve Croob District Electoral Area (DEA) Forum and was an opportunity for community groups in Slieve Croob to pitch for three minutes on projects designed to improve health and wellbeing in their local area. The evening surpassed all expectations with over 10 community groups pitching for the funds.

The groups were allowed to pitch in any format and the Forum was overwhelmed by the creativity and quality of pitches. The groups became the decision makers themselves as they scored each pitch and the groups with the highest score were awarded the money. This type of event has been successfully rolled out throughout other countries and the Forum thought that this innovative approach would empower local people to start making decisions on the best way to spend public monies.

It was obvious that community groups had put a lot of time and effort in preparing pitches for today’s event. I am delighted to hear that the community groups were happy to be involved in this innovative event where they were able to decide for themselves which project should receive the monies. Following the success of today’s event, the Forum is very keen to see this rolled out as an annual event.

Everyone was a winner in my eyes but unfortunately there was not enough money to provide funding for every group today. I am delighted to announce that the group in third place was Clough Play Days which was awarded a cheque of £250. The two groups which scored the highest marks, and were each awarded a cheque of £375, were Kilmegan VC Cycling Club and Shimna Stars Special Olympic.”