Representatives from the Tiverton and District Community Transport Association and the Tiverton Museum will attend the meeting to give a short presentation about their work.
Minutes:
Representatives from the Tiverton and District Community Transport Association and the Tiverton Museum attended the meeting to give presentations about their work.
Representing the Tiverton and District Community Transport Association, Ms Fay Ashton gave an introduction, in which she explained the work of the association. She highlighted the problems that elderly residents could suffer if they lived alone, had mobility issues or living in rural isolation. This was a local charity that had started in 1989 as a voluntary car scheme and in 1990 had added a ring and ride mini bus. The vision of the Association was to help individuals to have unhindered access to transport options. The mission statement of the Association was “to help people with special transport needs”.
The Association now covered the whole of Mid Devon, having recently taken over the Crediton side of the District.
Schemes now available included:
· The Ring and Ride scheme
· Shopmobility
· Voluntary Car schemes
· The Passenger Club
· Voluntary Accessible Car
· Community Bus
· Tivvy Getabout
· Hatty and Cathy Scheme.
The Association also took bookings for non-emergency ambulance journeys and sign-posted callers to other services when required.
There were currently 62 volunteers, who between them had donated 6719 hours in the last year.
Fund raising was ongoing, with bric-a-brac sales and events planned.
Ms Ashton informed the Group that the Association was constantly reviewing its schemes, seeking to improve services and adapting to changing times.
Surveys had suggested that the people that accessed the town centre at Tiverton by using these schemes had spent over £24k in the last year.
The Association was looking to rebrand in the next year, to celebrate their 25th birthday and find a new, catchier name.
The Chairman thanked Ms Ashton for her presentation.
The Tiverton Museum was represented by Ms Pippa Griffith, Museum Director and Mrs Andrea Rowe, the Chair of Trustees.
Ms Griffith explained that the Museum had been in existence for 55 years and had a vast collection of artefacts representing Mid Devon life.
The Museum was popular with families and the introduction of free entry for children had increased visitor numbers. Explorer back packs were available for children to make their visit more interesting.
There was an education department which was used by local schools. The schools found this to be an excellent resource and 1200 pupils had been involved in the last year.
A toddler group had recently started and had been well received.
In a Daily Telegraph poll for family friendly museums Tiverton came in the top 20.
43% of visitors to the Museum were over 60, which included grandparents with their grandchildren. Reminiscence Therapy was available, where collections were taken out to residential homes and to community groups such as Age UK.
The Museum was fully accessible to people with disabilities.
The Museum had taken over the Tourist Information Service in 2013 which Ms Griffith considered had proved to be a beneficial agreement. Further information regarding this would be provided to the Group at a later meeting.
The Museum relied on volunteers and in the last year the service that they provided would have cost over £107k in monetary value.
The Museum had worked hard at branding and publicising itself. A pop up display was used in empty shops within the town and displays were in place at St Peters Church and the Exe Valley Leisure Centre. A good relationship with the local paper was in place, with a weekly ‘local memory lane’ page.
It was estimated that the museum generated over £153k for the local economy.
Mrs Rowe explained the staffing structure of the Museum, the financial incomings and outgoings and how the team were working to improve visitor numbers and had improved the shop.
The Chairman thanked Ms Griffith and Mrs Rowe for their presentation.