Changemakers: Championing community pride and supporting young people

Ten years ago, the National Lottery Community Fund embarked on a big, bold experiment, to put money directly into the hands of communities who had previously ‘missed out’ – leading to the creation of 150 Big Local partnerships. A decade later, in the face of austerity, a global pandemic, and a cost of living crisis, many of these partnerships act as an immediate lifeline to local residents, whilst also creating long-term change.

Diane’s story

Diane Oxley decided she should get involved in her local community by volunteering as a resident member of Thurcroft Big Local, after reading suggestions for how the Big Local money should be spent in the area.

Other than a short break in 2018 to recharge her batteries, she has been at the heart of Big Local activities in the former South Yorkshire mining village ever since.

“It’s given me a new lease of life,” explains Diane, who recently retired after 42 years of service to the council. Born and raised in Thurcroft, Diane has remained a lifelong resident of the area, giving much of her spare time over the last 10 years to trying to positively impact it.

In particular, her commitment to young people in Thurcroft has been noted by her fellow residents. Diane’s drive to create a youth club and then find it a permanent home in The Thurcroft Hub, which is the Big Local area’s biggest investment and the focus of much of its activity, has been transformative for the whole community.

[The Hub has] brought the community back and everything we do is at affordable prices for people.”

Q: How would you describe Thurcroft?

Diane: Thurcroft is an ex-mining community. Before the pits came in the early 1900s it was farmland. The pit was sunk in around 1903 and the mine was the main job provider. When the mine and the brickyard next door closed down, it became a very poor village.

There’s still a lot of poverty. We’ve got a lot of cheap terraced houses where private landlords have come in and taken over. There are areas that are very run down. But Thurcroft people tend to stop in the village.

Families have lived in the village going back to the early 1900s. It’s a village that stands together. Since we’ve formed Big Local, we’ve managed to do things for families. A lot of the kids nowadays don’t even know what the pit was, which I find hard to believe.

Q: The Big Local partnership’s first plan in Thurcroft listed community pride as one of its priorities. How did you go about addressing that?

Diane: We covered all sorts really. One of the main things was we had an old cricket pavilion. The cricketers came to us and asked if they could have a thousand pounds to do the building up.

It was more or less a prefab building and it was crumbling. We did a consultation and then we put in for planning permissions and we built The Thurcroft Hub.

The Hub has brought so much to the village. We’ve got a youth club, we’ve got football teams back, we do an annual gala there, we’ve got a lunch club that runs from The Hub. We spent half a million pounds on it, but it’s brought so much back.

We put events on for children in school holidays and Halloween. We started a family night on Saturdays, so you can come with your kids and have a drink. The kids can play out because it’s safe. It’s got a gate and the sports pitches are out in front.

It’s brought the community back and everything we do is at affordable prices for people.

Q: What needs within the community were you addressing most directly with The Hub?

Diane: When we set up, one of the big things that was identified was the need for a youth club for the kids. Nobody would let us set up a youth club on their premises. We now have a youth club twice a week at The Hub.

The 13- to 18-year-olds come on a Tuesday and on a Friday, and we do one for the younger end, which is nine to 13-year-olds. We get lots of kids who come in with problems at home. It’s an escape route for them. It’s a safe environment.

I look at my childhood and I can see that it doesn’t cost a lot to give a kid a good time. You get so much back from the little bit that you can give.”

We’ve got a professional youth worker called Shaz, or Sharon, who helps them with everything. Some of the kids haven’t even got sanitary items, so we get that in for them. She doesn’t make a big thing about it; she just points them to the storage cupboard and they get what they want.

She’s teaching them to cook meals, it might only be beans on toast or curry. She will do it with them but she’ll also tell them when it’s their turn to cook the others tea.

Shaz is an employee of Big Local. She comes in a couple of times a week. She also comes along to support a couple of the kids, aged 10 and 11, who represent the youth in our partnership.

She brings sports in from Rotherham United Football Club, sex education experts for the older ones, crafts, all sorts. She’s fair, she’s good with them. She’s done marvels for the kids.

Q: Your childhood was spent in Thurcroft during very different times, when most people had work. How did your experience influence your decision to focus on provision for kids in the village?

Diane: A lot of times, children never went out of the village. They never went on holidays or anything like that. We started putting on subsidised trips. We used to phone up and negotiate a price to get into theme parks, local farms and places like that. We put buses on.

I look at my childhood and I can see that it doesn’t cost a lot to give a kid a good time. You haven’t got to spend all this money on computer games and things they can’t afford. Some just need time. You get so much back from the little bit that you can give.

Q: The Thurcroft Hub was completed in 2017. Tell us about what else it has facilitated?

Diane: Once we’d got decent premises, we put in for a grant and started a lunch club for pensioners in The Hub. The first six weeks were free. They enjoyed it so much that they said they wanted to pay. Since then, it’s been running every Wednesday.

Numbers started off at between 20 and 25 per week. We’ve now got 50 members who come to the lunch club every week. It’s run by volunteers but Big Local supports it.

We pay the rent on the building and the pensioners pay £5.50 per week for a two-course hot lunch. Sometimes we get speakers in to give them advice. They absolutely love it.

You just build up your confidence. You learn to ask people for things. All you can do is try your best.”

The next thing is we want to improve the facilities. The sports grounds have been neglected. My husband started as a part-time groundsman because the fields were a mess. When The Hub opened, he finished his old job and he started full-time as a caretaker and groundsman.

Now that we get funding from Sports England, we have enough money to add grass seed and use machinery to improve the grounds. We’ve had new nets and goal posts provided.

So again, because we’ve got a lovely building, it’s brought more people in. We could fill the football fields 50 times over, but we try to keep them for local teams.

There’s not many days when The Hub is not open. We have children’s athletics on Saturday morning. We allow it for children’s parties and some birthday parties because there’s a bar facility.

We run a tuck shop when there’s football on. Me and my sister volunteer for that. It brings money in that we put back into The Hub. Some weeks it might only be £50. Last week we took £380. We do everything we can to keep it going.

It’s got to be able to work on its own without Big Local backing, which finishes in December 2023.

Q: What have you learned through your involvement with Big Local, Diane?

Diane: You just build up your confidence. You learn to ask people for things. Now I’m on the Parish Council and that’s because people recognise who you are and that you’re doing your best for them. All you can do is try your best.

Interview by Dan Davies.

Read more Changemakers stories from the people delivering Big Local on our Voices page.