PEOPLE can now vote for local community project — including a number from the Post area — to receive up to £50,000 funding from the Calor Rural Community Fund.

Rural energy provider Calor is urging people to get involved with the voting stage of its rural community fund, which aims to help community groups gain funding for projects that will improve local life.

Those community groups in the Post area that area are; Bradford Primary School; Little Acorns Nursery, Launceston; Ashwater Parish Hall and Institute; BLEND and camp youth collective, Bude; Holsworthy Gymnastics Club; the hamlet of Truscott, St Stephen by Laucneston.

With five grants of £5,000, six of £2,500 and a further ten £1,000 grants up for grabs, this year’s fund includes applications for community centres, village halls and sporting venues, as well as initiatives to support local children and the elderly.

Bradford Primary School hope that a grant of £5,000 can provide iPads to as many children as possible, so that they can work independently.

At the moment the children sit in groups of four or more around a laptop with only one child being able to carry out tasks, and the others barely seeing the screen.

The iPads would mean that those children who are not used to technology will get the chance to ‘have a go’ so they can learn quickly for researching, navigation and online safety and security.

Ashwater Parish Hall has applied for £2,500 to update and improve its car park, which they say will enhance the hall, church and shop/Post Office facilities, save money on maintenance and benefit the entire community as the car park is free to use and is utilised for a number of village activities such as the charity tractor run and serves as extra car parking for the annual agricultural and horticultural shows.

BLEND and camp youth collective, based in Bude, are hoping for £5,000 in order to purchase a camping equipment trailer, which would benefit the 50 young people they provide a service for and their parents/carers.

The trailer would enable to youth led collective to carry all the equipment they would need for an expedition, including two eight person tents, three two person light weight hiking tents, a shelter as a communal area with sides, ground sheets, sleeping mats and bags, cooking facilities and equipment, survival equipment and a tarpaulin.

It is hoped the equipment will enable the group to learn how to set up camp and wild cook in places like Dartmoor and eventually Snowdonia and Scotland.

The Holsworthy Gymnastics Club, which has 170 gymnasts ranging from age five to 16, hope to receive £2,500 which they say will be put towards an ‘air floor’.

The air floor will allow the gymnasts more air time to work on techniques and help prevent injury. It is suitable for intermediate and beginner tumblers and can be placed on the gym floor and inflated or deflated in seconds using an electric pump.

The gymnastics club already has its own storage facility, which will house this new equipment when it is not being used.

The hamlet of Truscott, which lies within St Stephen by Launceston Rural Parish, has applied for £1,000 of the Calor fund.

They hope to use the money to buy a defibrillator and cabinet to be sited outside Truscott Farm, which is centrally placed in the hamlet. The hamlet is isolated and has a mainly elderly population and it is felt a defibrillator is essential as it could help to save lives until medical assistance arrives.

Applications are now closed, but the approved projects need as may community supporters as possible to cast their vote.

Anyone who lives in the UK and registers on the Calor Rural Community Fund website can vote. Each person gets ten votes, which can be use at any time during the voting phase of the competition — these can be split between multiple projects.

Votes must be cast before June 29.