“Our Community Asset Fund is dedicated to enhancing the spaces in your local community that give people the chance to be active.” – Sport England
RECAP
After delivering our outreach programme in 2019 funded by ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England), the iCan Team and Steering Group came up with the Wheels of Wellness Project to meet Community need and onboarded Xquisite Productions to create a visual for the concept, then began searching for potential Funders.
Julia had spoken to Sport England, but discovered our project would cost too much for one Small Grant fund and too little for the Community Asset Fund.
For the next 20 minutes, Julia went searching for other lines of investment and other options to make the idea a reality when the phone rang…….Answering it, Julia was shocked to find Sport England back on the line with a proposition…
PROJECT UPSCALE
Sport England had considered Julia’s proposition for Wheels of Wellness and asked if there was an opportunity to upscale the project. Julia, being agile and adaptive to any situation, saw the potential for a tie in with the (which was in development) Live Well Guide.
Julia told Sport England she saw an opportunity for growth and would discuss and flesh out the concept with the iCan Team, Steering Group and undertake some research with the Community.
The idea was to expand from the Rebounding sessions which focusses on fun physical health and wellbeing engagement to an additional area which allowed W.O.W visitors to focus on mental health and wellbeing.
With the Steering Group and Community Research, our team developed the Live Well Hub.
INTRODUCING THE LIVE WELL HUB
The wheelchair accessible Live Well Hub has been designed to be a safe space for private or group guidance from a motivator, where you can enjoy a cuppa and chat about what you feel you need to Empower You To Live A Healthier Lifestyle.
This helped our team to identify and solidify one of iCan’s main objectives, “Making lasting and impactful changes’, as an integral part of the Wheels of Wellness Project. As well as offering motivator support, the team decided to offer the Live Well Guide as a Take Home action plan for individuals to continue on their Health & Wellbeing Journey, introduce Chair-based Exercises to empower anyone, especially those with limited mobility, to continue exercising safely at home and teaching techniques for better sleep, coping strategies, eating and drinking strategies for a healthier lifestyle. We also developed a Health & Wellbeing Journey guide which people can access by scanning a QR Code helping them to make empowered decisions on their journey.
RECONTACTING SPORT ENGLAND
Julia contacted Sport England about the planned expansion of the Wheels of Wellness to incorporate the Live Well Hub, along with the projected costings for making the concept a reality. Sport England were receptive to the full holistic approach to Health & Wellbeing and the new version of the venture.
After submitting the funding application, and waiting nervously for the outcome, we were extremely pleased to learn we had been awarded £129,000 from the Sport England Community Asset Fund to be able to build the Wheels of Wellness Facility.
Next on the team agenda was to find someone willing to take on the responsibility of running the project for iCan and convincing Xquisite Productions to build it for us!
Next month we will look at the hunt for a W.O.W Project Manager and the collaborative process with Xquisite Productions.