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Dragons' Den - 10 March 2009

The sixth BEST Dragons’ Den took place during the afternoon of 10th March at the Custard Factory in Digbeth. The Dragons on the panel were: Councillor Ray Hassall – Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport & Culture, Bella Jones – Communications Manager for BEST, Jill Cheshire – BEST Programme Manager for Children, Young People & Families Directorate and Chantelle Dingwall – BEST Leader of the Year 2007.

First to face the Dragons were Yvonne Burt & Janet Brisland from the Children’s Team at Central Library in the Environment & Culture Directorate. The team were looking for funding to complete their Children’s Library Charter or “Children’s Promise” that was produced in consultation with an after school club from Harborne.

The “Promise” details how the library will interact with children across the city and what children can expect whilst at the library. Due to funding issues this had never been completed and had left the team unable to fulfil the promise to the children, causing dissatisfaction and upset to their service users and their parents. Yvonne and Janet asked the dragons for funding to complete this project and to hold a launch event at the library. The dragons were delighted to support this project and provide the funding required, and asked for a write up of the event, to promote the impact of the Promise across the organisation.

Next to enter the Dragons’ lair were Julie Brady and her colleague Tony Matthews two BEST leaders from the Highways Department in Development and Culture Directorate. Julie and Tony are part of two depots that were merged in August 2007 and have had to come to terms with all of the associated changes and compromises that this merge has brought about. To help boost morale the team decided that it would be great to utilise the current outdoor space they have and provide an extension to their current canteen area and create an outdoor seating area so that people could enjoy their lunch in the fresh air. The duo put forward not only a compelling case but an excellent presentation and the Dragons enthusiastically agreed to help them with their request and offered them some of the BEST seeds to help grow flowers to brighten up the outside area, as well as contributing to the ‘Sustainability’ Council plan priority.

Facing the Dragons after the break was Denise Douek from the Nightcare Out of Hours Team from the Adults & Communities Directorate. This team provide a community based night care service for adults allowing them to stay in their homes and have carers visit them. The team work between 21:15 and 07:00 hours each night and often have to respond at very short notice to alarm calls from service users. The team currently use A-Z’s to help them navigate around the city which has not only health and safety implications such as having to pull over to find the address within the map. The team believe that purchasing a small amount of satellite navigations systems will make it not only easier for them to find clients addresses, but safer for staff and provide a more efficient and rapid response service for their customers. The Dragons thought that this was a fantastic idea and granted the team the funding they required and asked them if they would be a pilot area for the city and following evaluation, report back the improvements that were made to the service director.

The last team to survive the Dragons’ Den were Geraldine Pigott & Sonia Williams from Cocksmoor Woods Leisure Centre and Druids Heath Library from the Housing & Constituencies Directorate. The two BEST leaders had decided to work together within their constituency to highlight and promote the concept of ‘fit body, fit mind’ to children within the local community.

They presented to the Dragons an idea based around school tours of the facilities to create awareness in children of what is available to them in their community promoting use of the services. The Dragons agreed with the idea in principle but felt that more research needed to be done to enable funding to continue after year one, to make this an ongoing project. They suggested to the team that they should explore other avenues for extra funding and said that they would be happy to support this once the additional work had been completed and a robust evaluation had taken place.

All winners will be invited to one of the BEST celebration events where they will receive their commemorative plaque. For further information or if you would like to apply for the BEST Dragons’ Den please contact Lucy L Kenny on 0121 675 1579, visit our inline pages or www.birminghambest.co.uk or email BEST on Lotus Notes.