There are times when the attitude of the New Zealand Rugby Union when it comes to preparing their women's team for the World Cup could be summed up as "Our team can beat you all with one arm tied behind our backs!" Not content with hiding their team away from rest of the world for most of the time between tournaments, the NZRU have excelled themselves by cancelling not only their most important domestic tournament and now also the only international fixtures they had planned this year - a two test tour by Canada - which was called off over the weekend.The excuse is that a major financial crisis in New Zealand has resulted in cuts to all teams - other than the All Blacks - though even given that slashing back their most successful international team (well, how many World Cups...

I put a request on twitter the other week, and did not get much response so I emailed some Welsh sheddies and did not get much response either but the ones who did were great. Sheddies Ian from Ian’s Shed Well, St. Davids Day being a Monday I will be pottering in my work shed at the Aberystwyth University. Thanks to grants from various august bodies, I have been able to evolve a nicely equipped shed and to hide in it between coffee and beer breaks. Probably Saturday will be spent trying to find the fault on the central locking on my 1952 Fordson Major. Sunday morning will be The St. Davids Day Service at Chapel of course, followed by Cawl and cheese and a nice relaxing afternoon sorting my collection of 7/16 Whitworth bolts before watching Antiques Roadshow. Lee from The Red...

Slow roll-out of electric vehicles means pricey Tesla Roadster and Mitsubishi i-Miev will be only two cars eligible for new £5,000 grantSubsidising expensive sports cars is not the most obvious way to fight global warming. But soon, anyone with £87,000 will be able to claim a UK taxpayer-funded £5,000 grant to help them buy Tesla's supercharged electric car, the Roadster, in the name of cutting carbon emissions.The Guardian has learned the Tesla Roadster is one of just two cars that will be available from the start of a new government grants scheme announced today to encourage the take-up of greener cars. Existing electric cars, such as the G-Wiz – the most popular consumer electric car on UK streets – and the MEGA e-City will not be eligible because they do not go fast enough.The...

Dawlish Garden Trust is the latest community project to benefit from funding from the Teignbridge Strategic Partnership Making It Happen grant. The trust got £1,000 to help buy a new Mule 4×4 vehicle for its work providing horticultural work experience, along with life skills training, for those with learning difficulties. It is one of 14 organisations to benefit from the fund so far. Established in July 2009, the fund is designed to support community groups in Teignbridge, helping them get new projects off the ground, continue existing schemes or undertake one-off improvements for the local community. It also aims to encourage more more people to be involved in their activities and assist them in creating a real sense of belonging within their communities. Recipients of funding so...

The Taxpayers’ Alliance has calculated that the three Labour MPs charged with theft from the taxpayers, Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Elliot Morley, will share between them a pay-off totalling £151,552 come election day.  They will also get generous gold-plated pensions.  This is an outrageous piss-take. Given that they are unlikely to be in Court before election day, the House should pass a resolution that any member facing criminal charges of financial impropriety should have payment of resettlement grants and pensions suspended until the result of the charges are known.  If found guilty they should lose all their pension rights.  They will still be drawing their parliamentary pay every month in any event. This is what would happen to a servicemen or police officer who was...

I seem to be falling out of love with the Britblog Roundup, so let's try a new feature to showcase interesting links I come across when browsing.How often Six of the Best will appear, I don't know - presumably whenever I have accumulated six links worth posting - but a couple of times a week feels about right.And the title? Well, this is Liberal England, and what could be more English than corporal punishment?Anyway, here is the first selection:Let's start with one for the Lib Dem loyalists. Liberal Democrat Voice has copious quotations from Nick Clegg's with Mary Riddell in today's Daily Telegraph and a link to the whole thing.Stumbling and Mumbling asks if we baby boomers are really the luckiest generation (grammar schools, student grants, cheap houses) and why the young are so...

Funding council announces first cuts in a decade despite unprecedented demand for university placesEnglish universities' teaching budgets were slashed today for the first time in a decade as part of savage government cuts to higher education.The cuts come amid unprecedented demand for places, with an expected seven applications for every place at a top university.Some £215m will be shaved off universities' teaching budgets in the academic year 2010-11, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce), which funds universities on behalf of the government, said in a letter to vice-chancellors.The £4.7bn that institutions will receive for teaching is 1.6% less in real terms than the amount they received the year before. Vice-chancellors and student leaders said the cuts were "an...

I feelor thinkthat i may be able to write a novel about this time of my lifea good college novelI don't think there any good ones I likeNone that have things likeThe student sits in the classroom, he knows this professor rambles and is suffering from mental illness but they have tenure and won't get fired. The student is a junior and has become an expert at knowing when a professor is actually going to say something that will be on the test,and only listens then. The professor is currently talking about their dogs Pookie and Striker.The student can't find a parking place and ends up parking in the parking lot of a bar. An old black man walks by him and says, "Cold outside" and keeps on walking.One student opens the door and screams, "There's a deal on Sparks at Circle K" A five page...

(Source: BNSC) The International Astronautical Federation, the organisation promoting international co-operation in space activities, is looking for 10 young people to attend the International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2010 ) in Prague, from 27 September to 1 October 2010 as part of its Youth Grants Programme. The Programme provides funding and support to enable students or young professionals aged between 21 to 33 to attend the event and participate in Congress technical sessions, plenary events and other activities. Grant recipients also get the chance to present at least one paper (orally or in interactive/poster format) to the congress and have lunch with the IAF President and other IAF officials. The IAF provides return air fare, local transport costs, lodging and meals as well as...

This email from the IPN came as somewhat of a shock today. Turns out I'm a fully paid up member of the TUC and so are all of you...In a report in 2009, International Policy Network disclosed that between 2003 and 2006 the Trades Union Congress received over £1.2 in taxpayers' money ostensibly intended for promoting development in poor countries. A significant amount of this money - which came from the UK Department for International Development (an entity created by the Labour Party in 1997) - was spent in the UK on activities that do not seem to have yielded any practical benefit to the poor either inside or outside of Britain.Subsequently, IPN discovered that the TUC was recently granted a further £2.4 million by DfID for the period 2009 - 2011. The new support to the TUC comes from...

The following was left in the comments by a reader: Call for Proposals - Town Twinning Citizens MeetingsThe European Commission has announced the first call for proposals under its Town Twinning Initiative, which is part of the new Active Citizens for Europe Programme (2007 -2013). This call for proposals is under Action 1 - Measure 1.1 Town Twinning citizens meetings. Under this Measure grants of between €2,000 and €20,000 are available to support Town Twinning citizens meetings. Town twinning citizens' meetings consist in bringing together a wide range of citizens and citizens' groups from towns already twinned to; further develop strong, informal and personal relations between their citizens, to reinforce the participants' commitment to European integration; and to contribute to...

"All anybody wants from technology", wrote Douglas Adams, "is for it to work," and I did rather feel that way at tonight's full council meeting which was scheduled for an inaugural pilot webcast.Councillors Campbell, Wells and Jarvis were wearing unusually bright and colourful ties, which could have been a contributory factor and even Cllr Nottingham wore a tie, a gesture worth noting in its own right. I was wearing my best suit, clearly displaying the logo of the local business acting as sponsor and several councillors were sporting new hair styles, including one who is normally quite bald. Better still, everyone was on their best behaviour to welcome Labour's councillor Sandra Hart to the chamber and there was a palpable sense of Christmas goodwill, reminiscent of that famous temporary...

Lewisham Council has signed up to the Capital Growth scheme, which aims to get 2,012 new community food growing spaces for London by 2012. For Lewisham that equates to 60 community gardens across the borough. There is total funding of £75,000 available and small grants of between £200-£1,500 will be made available. The deadline for entries is: 11 January 2010.Anyone can apply to create one and you can download the how-to guide here - pleasingly, Brockley's community orchard project and the St Saviour's church project are both namechecked. The catch is, however, that you have to have found a suitable piece of land in the first place. And there's no guide to where those patches may be - in that respect, you're on your own. As the guide says:So, if you know of a piece of...

Looking for funds for you community project? Here’s a few funding projects that have come across our desk. Check ‘em out! Village CORE Programme: The Village Retail Services Association in partnership with Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Co-operative and Community Finance have funding available to support the start up  of new community-owned shops in rural areas of England or  to save an existing shop by transfer to community ownership. The funding, which will be available over the next three years, will provide up to £40,000 per shop. Applied research funding programme: The Carbon Trust has doubled the size of grants available from £250k to £500k, to enable the development of more ambitious projects with potential for even greater carbon savings. Community Connections:...

A lot of people have been asking me for an update on the Nunhead Renewal Area. I must apologise for not posting more on this, but it had become difficult to know what exactly is happening. I was in the midsts of making formal complaints and most of the information I'd been given was on a confidential or off the record basis, so it had become difficult for me to blog anything meaningful. Things are now becoming clearer and into the public domain.The £14.5m Nunhead & East Peckham Renewal regeneration scheme was initiated in July 2005 and was due to be complete by July 2010. The money was supposed to be split between home improvement grants for low income owner occupiers, street renewals (new garden walls, brick cleans etc as seen in Bellenden area) and shopping area improvements (eg...

Following Lord Mandelson's announcements on universities today, I have written this for the Public Finance blog:The parties are pushing any decision on increased university tuition fees until after a 2010 election. All the predictions suggest that the review will propose that fees increase from their current maximum of £3225 a year to anything between £5000 and £7000. But neither the Conservatives – who have dropped their previous opposition to fees – nor Labour are keen to advertise this before an election. Hence the cross-party agreement on a fees review – details probably next week, but heralded by today’s publication of a new higher education framework by Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, echoing a similar deal between the Tories and Labour in the Dearing review that...

Local decisions for local peopleAs we all understand by now, the UK has just about the most centralised system of government of any developed country. Our once proudly independent local councils have become little more than an arm of the state, with all kinds of dire consequences local services, local accountability, and the stewardship of taxpayers' money.Now the Tories have pledged to reverse this. They pledged it again at last week's Conference.To which we say hurrah!Except of course, rhetoric is one thing - action is something else entirely. This morning, Steve Richards highlighted a key point: "The problem with localism is that governments like to keep hold of the levers even if in theory they want to let go. As an added twist quite often the case for holding on to a lever or two is...

Universities being forced to make 'emergency payouts' to studentsUp to 175,00 studentsare still waiting for their loans and grants a week after university courses started, it emerged today.First year undergraduates have been worst hit – 28% of their applications for grants and loans have yet to be dealt with, data released under the Freedom of Information Act for the BBC revealed.Universities said they were being forced to make "emergency payouts" to students unable to make ends meet and to stop some dropping out of courses.Just over one in six of the record one million students who applied for funding this year have yet to receive their grants and loans.This year is the first time that freshers have applied directly to the Student Loans Company (SLC), which is responsible for...

John Denham is not very happy that students are living in enclaves. DK has much to say on this.Ministers are to act against student enclaves by pushing through new laws making it harder for neighbourhoods in university towns to be colonised by large student populations.Such enclaves often lead to resentment between students and local people, with whole boroughs left underpopulated in the summer months while renting students go on holiday. Some residents also argue that students upset the character of an area by ignoring the community in which they live.John is saying that he and his government are to dictate what people can do with their own property, dictate who they can let property to and shows labours contempt for the rights of home owners to do what they will with their own...

The BBC offer a solution to an age-old mystery by reporting research published in the New Scientist, that suggests that women have a genetic aversion to dangerous animals, such as spiders.The research says women are born with character traits that were ingrained in our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Researchers say that as child protectors, they have to shun animals that threaten them or their young off-spring. Previous research suggested women were actually up to four times more likely to be afraid of creatures like spiders:The new research was headed up by developmental psychologist, Dr David Rakison, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, 10 baby girls, and 10 baby boys were subjected to a number of pictures of spiders to gauge their reactions.First the babies were shown a picture...

10 days in Dhaka and the CHT, as co-chair of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission. Between us we visited all three districts - Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrachuri -where we called on the Brigade Commanders, met civil society, and talked to people in the villages, both Adivasi and Bengali.Then in Dhaka we were received by the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, chairman of the Land Commission etc, and met MPs, NGOs, the diplomatic community and many others.Some progress is being made with the creation of institutions that are necessary if the Peace Accord is to be fully implemented. The Land Commission is critical because it has the task of acting in a judicial capacity to determine the rightful occupiers of land, and there are literally thousands of cases to unscramble. The Commission...

The Royal Historical Society. A name that doesn’t really roll off the tongue in these days of digital democracy. It sounds like a creation of extravagantly whiskered Victorian gentlemen; somewhere Finneas Fogg might have been a member of before he set off around the world at breakneck speed. And it did indeed originate in just such a fashion. Queen Victoria granted the Society’s Charter in 1868. For a long period of its existence it was the almost exclusive preserve of historians who were wealthy and male. Books were expensive, access to records and manuscripts (mostly in private collections) severely restricted, time to study, write and publish a fortunate circumstance available to only very few. Times have changed though, thankfully. Today those who read and write history are more...

Yesterday i was sitting with a woman who is 62 years old.She said something like, "Noah, Barack Obama is going to bring social harmony, make the world a better place, random sentences from the sixties."I sat there and didn't say anything.It had never occurred to me that Barack Obama wanted to do such a thing.It had never occurred to me except maybe when I was 20 and still living in my parents house, didn't have any bills yet and previous to 9-11 and two wars and economic collapse I had yet some ideas resembling those.I think that is a major difference between the baby boomers and us, we don't seem to have any political philosophy except that, "The constitution works because it has no metaphysical basis, and because of that, the laws can flow with history. Fix problems as they arise. Keep...

Lord Mandelson's speech to Universities UK, in which he argues that any fees rise must be linked to access, is important for two reasons. The first is that he is clearly making a serious effort to engage with the parts of the education sector for which he is responsible. But the second and more significant is that he has effectively made clear that an increase in the maximum level of fees will come after a review due to start later in the year. In his speech, he says this: “I do not believe that we can separate the issues of fees, access and student support. Any institution that wants to use greater costs to the student to fund excellence must face an equal expectation to ensure that its services remain accessible to more than just those with the ability to pay. Whatever funding mix for...

The good news is though people who want to study betrayal won’t need to attend university to learn about it, all you need to know is manifested in New Labour’s every move- Bursaries for England’s poorest students will no longer have to cover the gap between grants and fees. The Office for Fair Access (Offa) has decided the minimum bursary universities must offer if they charge fees should be 10% of the fee level. Currently it has to make up the difference between the £3,290 annual fee and the maximum grant of £2,906. For next year grants are frozen but fees go up. The bursary will be £55 short of the £384 difference. Offa’s move follows revised guidance from the Higher Education Minister, David Lammy. NUS vice-president Aaron Porter said:...

Bursaries for England's poorest students will no longer have to cover the gap between grants and...

The Government has announced today the details of the proposed feed-in tariff for microgeneration from systems like small wind turbines and solar photovoltaics. The new tariff will pay for all energy generated by your system, irrespective of if you use it yourself or sell it back to the grid. The amounts paid are in addition to any saving you will make by purchasing less electricity from your supplier and any income you earn from selling your surplus power to your electricty supplier. The key points of the announcement are: - 36.5p/kWh for small solar photovoltaic systems up to 4kW and 28p/kWh for systems up to 10kW. - 23.0p/kWh for small wind turbines between 1.5kW and 15kW. Am I understanding this right? If I put up a windmill in my garden as well as any grants I get for doing so I...

Here’s the latest list of funding opportunities for arts and community groups. Take a gander and see what you can muster for your coffers. And remember, keep us up-to-date with any of your projects, email info@peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon.co.uk TalkTalk’s Innovation in the Community Awards enable charity and community groups throughout the UK to harness the power of the Internet. 30 cash prizes of £2000 are available. Five overall winners will receive an additional £250 of technology equipment. http://www.talktalk.co.uk/information/innovation-in-the-community BBC Children in Need have announced that they are launching a new £3 million grants programme ‘Fun and Friendship’, to address the lack of opportunity for independent socialising for disabled young people aged 12...

The Guardian reported yesterday that the expected publication of the Green Paper which would outline future funding plans for adult care has been put on hold, having been due for publication on Tuesday. The Case for Change – a presentation of the discussion document – was the precursor of the still embryonic Green Paper and those discussions and debates took up a good proportion of last year. I haven’t probably followed the progress of the Green Paper as much as I should have – apart from having a vague awareness that ‘it is coming’ but the article made some points that sprung out at me and that I’m sure I’d have caught earlier had I been paying more attention. The reason that is stated for the delay is some kind of wrangling between the Department of Health and the...

You know how it is when all the cupboards are bare, and you’ve got so many projects you want to pursue but for a little lolly (that’s money to you). We know that feeling only too well. Well, here’s some funding opportunities that have come across our desk Funding Stuff Global Music Company supporting music education and encouragement The aim of this foundation, set up by EMI records, is to support projects that encourage education, in particular for young people, in all aspects of music. Bursary (£5000) and general awards up to £2,500. www.musicsoundfoundation.com Heritage Lottery funds: Young Roots; Townscape Heritage initiative; Your Heritage. www.hlf.org.uk Arts Council – Grants for Arts. Activities that benefit people or that help artists and art...