Tendring Community Assets Full Final Report

34 with some dedicated support, with food banks perhaps sharing resources in devising the meals. The ingredients could be gathered through the targeted donations and a recipe card prepared with simple instructions to be handed out with the food. Local supermarkets might be persuaded to work with the scheme by being encouraged to add prominence to those ingredients suggesting them as the preferred choice for donations to the food bank, and organisations such as Adult Community Learning have already suggested that they would go out to teach food preparation skills 8.6 Food Preparation and Cooking 8.6.1 With many community centres and schools across the district having commercial standard kitchens, these could be used to deliver practical support to everyone in the community through sociable cooking groups. These could be run for short burst simple courses, preparing the sort of food that the people attending like to eat (such as ‘Learn how to cook 5 basic meals in 5 weeks’). 8.6.2 Food preparation sessions such as this in schools could be targeted at young families and the cooking groups could also be inter-generational. Stakeholder feedback suggests that enabling older children to bring younger siblings may enable this to happen as a free after school activity as often teenagers are the main carer of younger family members whilst parents are at work. Older people with cooking and food preparation skills could be encouraged to act as mentors and instructors, whilst the bereaved might come along for practical advice, with the added benefit of participating in a social event. 9 INFORMATION AND ADVICE 9.1 In addition to the actual mapping of services, the exercise itself proved useful as it provided a clearer understanding of how communities might find out about the activities and services available to them locally. Some websites are easy to find, up to date and provide very detailed information on what is available and how people might access it, any cost and who is it aimed at. However, information about the majority of services is fairly fragmented and the following issues prevail: 9.2 In many locations there is not a single organising body and providers rent space on an ad hoc basis, designing, publicising and delivering their own service or activity or allowing external organisations or individuals to hire space and advertise with the rest of the centre’s activity. Usually in these circumstances a phone number or email address for the organiser is provided with varying information about what the activity might be, occasionally giving additional information about cost and/or who the activity it is aimed at. Experience has shown that whilst many organisers are helpful, quick to respond and very knowledgeable about their local facilities but not all can be reached and some fail to respond. This might dissuade some users from pursuing things further. 9.3 Services are often not publicised in a way that easily reaches potential new users. Publicity can be limited to a poster pinned up outside the building where the activity takes place so new users who do not already visit the location would not see it. In some circumstances the information is inside the building on a notice board, making it impossible to access from outside. Some activities are advertised in local free magazines, but not comprehensively or regularly. The information might then not be fulsome enough to attract or encourage someone new. 9.4 Where websites exist they are not always found through searching by location or service, users would often need to specify the name of the building or location or even the provider of the activity, rather than being able to browse a range of local options and choose from available opportunities.