Meeting to seek lottery fund-rise for welfare

Press, 30 September 1986, Page 7

Meeting to seek lottery fund-rise for welfare

A bid to get Lottery Board funds through to more welfare groups is being made with a public meeting in Christchurch in a fortnight The Welfare Services Distribution Committee, which gives lottery profits to disabled persons and voluntary welfare groups, wants to explain its funding policy to the public and find out if it is still appropriate. The Christchurch member of the committee, Mrs Pauline O’Connor, said the meeting was a way of letting people and organisations know the committee existed. “Some welfare groups who could get money miss because they don’t know there are funds available from the Lottery Board,” she said. A recent meeting in Matamata had

brought forward several new groups working among the Maori and Pacific Island communities.

The committee distributed $2.5 million of the board’s $2O million total funding last year. Mrs O’Connor said the committee was asked for more than $5 million in grants, and had to make priorities and decline to fund some types of groups or projects. “Some organisations feel upset if they are turned down. Because of this, we want to explain our reasons for the decisions we make, and also to find whether our priorities are in fact the right ones from the community’s point of view,” she said. The committee was particularly interested in

• looking at new ideas that required seeding funding. In the past, Government departments have provided information about funding schemes, but the series of public meetings is expected to reach a wider audience. The Lottery Board’s public relations officer, Ms Susan Harward, said, “A lot of people and organisations, particularly if they are new, are not very familiar with bureaucratic procedures.” “We are even looking at the possibility of taking oral applications for grants, for those who have difficulty in writing applications,” Mrs O’Connor said. The public meeting has been called for October 13 in the Canterbury Public Library’s Stringleman Room, at 4 p.m.