Rift House and the Mayor's 'Charities'

[fred c]

The young woman running Rossy Cafe has a 5 year lease..... I popped in, looks a canny place to have a full English..... 10 item brekkie is £3.

[steveL]

 . . . Apparently, there's going to be a new internal car park to replace the small children's play area, an outdoor gym and a Hi Tech Octagonal Clear enclosure that a person can stand inside with a football and kick it at lights projected on the walls to gain a score on an electronic score board. Sounds an interesting choice for a park plagued with vandalism issues."

[norfolkngoode]

The young woman running Rossy Cafe has a 5 year lease..... I popped in, looks a canny place to have a full English..... 10 item brekkie is £3.

They do wonderful cheap take away Sunday dinners too, its a very popular and successful little business, (popular and successful?........ Something the council has no experience of)

They should keep well away from it.

[Inspector Knacker]

. . . Apparently, there's going to be a new internal car park to replace the small children's play area, an outdoor gym and a Hi Tech Octagonal Clear enclosure that a person can stand inside with a football and kick it at lights projected on the walls to gain a score on an electronic score board. Sounds an interesting choice for a park plagued with vandalism issues."

Absolutely ridiculous. Play area removed so some hi tech novelty can be installed at God knows what price for whose benefit?
Let's be honest, it's not for kids
Wonder who'll turn up to cut the ribbon, now let me guess.
So where will the smaller kids go now  ?
Where do they get the money from by the way. I thought they were skint?

[steveL]

In terms of space, I think the play area only loses 30% to the car park

[jawsbbc]

can someone send me a link to the rossy proposal as a   grandparent my granchildren use rossmere park extensively and if the play area is going to be removed is it going to be replaced with like for like ?? pre school children use this play area will they be anything for them a rethink is in order here

[Inspector Knacker]

The things they are installing will appeal to an older age range and the place will become less appealing to younger kids. Only on architects 'visualationns is there some  fairy tale scene of everyone happily using a facility.

[steveL]

can someone send me a link to the rossy proposal as a   grandparent my granchildren use rossmere park extensively and if the play area is going to be removed is it going to be replaced with like for like ?? pre school children use this play area will they be anything for them a rethink is in order here

I don't think there's much to worry about. The play area isn't being removed but it is losing about 1/3 of its area. I believe new play equipment will also be added.

[jawsbbc]

thanks STEVE L

[fred c]

An article in the on-line Mail earlier this morning had the Mayor P Beck pictured after a charity collection in Tesco's.....for whatever reason it no longer appears, but in it, the Mayor thanked people for donating over £930 pounds which would be donated to his nominated 'Charities' which are, The Rifty Project and The MacMillan charity.

The Mayor is being dis-ingenuous by describing the Rifty Project as a 'Charity' it isn't, up to 5 or 6 weeks ago, the Charity Commission had no record of the Rifty Project, so unless SAB has recently registered it, it isn't a charity, the constant use of the term 'Charity' by P Beck is mis-leading, he is in effect making donations of publicly donated monies to an organisation that is acknowledged by many to be SABS pet project.

The Borough solicitor and through him the CE are aware of the concerns raised in the points above, charity contributions are public donations, given in good faith and I am led to believe the Mayors charity is administered by the council (I may be wrong) but as with many things connected to our council and councillors it is almost impossible to ascertain any information.

If the council are responsible for the Mayors charity accounts, can we expect those accounts to be made available to the public at the end of the Mayors term in office. ?

[steveL]

Of more concern is the fact that even after it has been acknowledged by Peter Devlin that the Rifty Project is NOT a charity, the council's spin department is still insisting on describing it as such in its press releases:

"THE Mayor of Hartlepool has praised the generosity of local people after almost £1,000 was raised for charity in a single day.

The town's Mayor and Mayoress Councillor Paul Beck and Mrs Mary Beck held a teddy bear tombola recently at the town's main Tesco store and raised £930.70.

All of the money raised goes to the Mayor's two nominated charities – the Rifty Youth Project and Macmillan Cancer Support."

We are into the area of raising money under false pretences here.

https://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/news/article/929/mayor_s_thank_you_following_teddy_bear_tombola

[HarmonyPeace]

It would be interesting to know what percentage of the money raised actually goes to Macmillan (a very deserving charity and very close to my heart)?

[not4me]

If the Rifty Project isn't a charity then someone needs to be asking what it is exactly because it isn't registered as a company either, CIC or otherwise. This begs the question whether anyone is bothering to produce a set of accounts for it at all and if so - where are they?

It isn't a charity so what exactly is the Rifty Project?

[marky]

Well considering the involvement of Stephen 'I'm in this for the long haul' Akers-Belcher I'd say the room for giving all this the benefit of the doubt is very limited.

[steveL]

If you remember, under Cook's Mayoral stint, the tickets for the Mayoral Ball were all printed with a fake charity registration number which turned out to be the one for the Round Table. When this was pointed out to HBC they blamed an unnamed junior officer and brushed it under the carpet so that the junior officer didn't suffer any consequences. They used the same tactic over Carpetgate if you remember.

At a guess, I'd say the junior officer was entirely fictitious and that the 'registered charity number' was simply added to give the event and the fund raising extra kudos.