Lockdown #3 Eastside Community Trust update

We hope you managed to have a peaceful and restful festive period even if it was difficult in some ways.

Last year ended positively for us. 100 hampers were delivered before Christmas and gratefully received. Our Christmas holiday opening at Felix Road Adventure Playground was a huge success with families eating and playing together in a safe and supportive environment, over 350 hot meals were served over 6 days.

We started back on 4 January like many others making plans for what the coming months had in store and how we could support the community in Tier 3 restrictions.

These plans have been turned on their head with the reintroduction of lockdown and the rising number of COVID cases in our community. As an organisation we spent last week taking stock, talking to partners, our staff and trustees to make plans for the coming months.

We are sad to say that our buildings, Easton Community Centre and Felix Road Adventure Playground, will be closed to the public for at least the next four weeks. We want to comply with government advice to stay at home and encourage our community to do the same.

The good news is some of our projects can continue during this time including the works to improve the playground and the community centre. So, when we can reopen, we will have new and improved spaces for the community to come together again.

Our communications work will continue throughout lockdown to make sure local people have up-to-date information about support available.

We will also be resuming our weekly doorstep visits to check in on families who visit the playground. While we won’t be delivering food this time, we aim to make sure people have the support they need from us or others who are well placed to provide it.

It feels like the situation is constantly changing and we want to make sure we are flexible and responsive to local needs as best as we can be.

We have a staff team in place who will be overseeing this and monitoring what is happening in the community and city so we can respond as required.

If you need us, please get in touch, we are here:

Finance and Easton Community Centre
Tracy 07922 422153/ tracy@upourstreet.org.uk

Families, children and Felix Road Adventure Playground
Tom 07817 022123/ tom@upourstreet.org.uk

Community development, placemaking and citizen action
Stacy 07922 422156/ stacy@upourstreet.org.uk

Facilities and building maintenance
Rob 07922 422154/ rob@upourstreet.org.uk

Communications, Up Our Street magazine and information
Becky 07903 089002/ becky@upourstreet.org.uk