Lakes and Dales Community Connect Terms and Conditions

Lakes and Dales Co-op: Community Connect Terms and Conditions

Community Connect gives Society members living in the Lakes and Dales area the opportunity to make a difference in their communities by providing funding to selected good causes.

How Does Community Connect Work?

Funding applications are invited from good causes.
Following the closing date, eligible funding applications are taken forward to a selection panel.
The selection panel rank the applications/projects to create a long-list.
Long-listed applicants are invited to meet the selection panel.
The selection panel vote to shortlist three projects.
Three shortlisted good causes and their projects are presented to members.
Members of the Society decide how £9,000 will be split between the three shortlisted projects – one project will receive £5,000 and two projects will each receive £2,000.
Members have a Community Connect card.
Every time a member makes a purchase in-store and swipes their Community Connect card, they receive a Community Connect vote.
Members then cast their votes in their local Society store for their preferred group.
After voting closes, the group with the most member votes is awarded £5,000.

All community groups, projects, and initiatives across our trading areas can apply, whether the applicant or applying body is directly associated with us or not.

Applicant Eligibility

Your cause/project/initiative should be in keeping with Society values and principles and benefit communities within the geographic boundaries of a Lakes and Dales store.

Projects should fall broadly into one of the following categories:

Children & Youth
65+ Group
Community Group
Social Inclusion
Health & Wellbeing
Environment
Arts & Culture
Active Lifestyles
Fairtrade and Ethical Issues
Co-operative

Only one application per organisation, project and applicant per award cycle will be considered. 

If you were previously unsuccessful, we ask that you wait 12 months before applying again, even if it is a different project/organisation.

We will not consider any applications which involve:

Promoting political activities or causes.
Promoting any religious beliefs (but we will consider projects led by religious organisations if they are for the benefit of the whole community).
Paying salaries or other running costs (rent, energy etc.) using the whole award amount.
Making grants to third parties.
Where the Applicant is not directly involved / employed by the applying organisation.
Projects that have already happened or will be finished before we make any award.
Projects that public authorities (for example, local authorities or NHS) are responsible for (this includes council leisure services or libraries).
The same Applicant has applied for more than one organisation/project.

The organisation does not have a bank account.  We will not pay funds into an individual’s personal account.
Sponsored events.
Individual or team sponsorship / bursaries.
Overseas projects.
Applications from charities that are currently or have previously been the Society’s Charity of the Year (covering a three-year period).
A group which has received Society funding (actual or in-kind) of more than £3000 in the last three years.
Projects which could harm the reputation of Scotmid, Lakes and Dales Co-op or the Community Connect programme.

Application Shortlisting

By filling in the application, you are applying for a Lakes and Dales Community Connect award and accept that you will not be awarded any money if your group is not one of the shortlisted applications. The decision of the selection panel is final.

After we have reviewed all the applications, a selection panel, consisting of elected members and employees, will invite long-listed good cause groups to come along to a meeting to discuss the application in more detail. The meetings are likely to be held via a video call, but you may be asked to attend the meeting in person.

By completing the Community Connect application form you are agreeing to send a representative from your group to the relevant meeting. If a representative cannot attend this meeting (either in person or via a video call) we may be able to make alternative arrangements to conduct and record a telephone discussion, however this is at the discretion of the selection panel.

Following this meeting, three groups will be shortlisted to receive a share of the £9,000. If we need any more information from you, we will email you at the email addresses in your application.

All shortlisted groups must agree to:

Provide us with any other material / imagery to help us promote your group as one of the shortlisted good cause groups in the relevant region.
Acknowledge fully Lakes and Dales Co-op wherever possible in all subsequent publicity relating to the funds you receive.
Co-operate with us in any future publicity.
Co-operate with us on monitoring and reporting progress of your project.

Unfortunately, due to the quantity of applications we anticipate, we are unable to give individual feedback on individual applications.

Community Connect Voting

Society members living in the Lakes and Dales area who have a Community Connect card can allocate their votes at any time up until the closing date.  To do this, they simply hand over their card at a staffed till and advise the team member who they would like to vote for. All their accumulated votes will be allocated to that group.

Members can change their mind at any time during the cycle to change their votes, however the votes will be awarded to the most recent project selected before the closing date.

Timescales

Award Cycle / Year	There are two cycles each year. Cycle 1: Award May Cycle 2: Award October
Applications Open	Cycle 1: January Cycle 2: June/July
Applications Close	Cycle 1: March Cycle 2: August/September Check application form for date
Financial Awards Made	Cycle 1: May Cycle 2: October

  Shortly after the funding announcement, the Society will transfer funds. Bank accounts must be in the name of the applying group.

Community Connect Awards and the Awards Process

If your group is selected as one of the three shortlisted good cause groups, any award you get from us is subject to the following terms and conditions.

What You Agree

Only you can spend your award. You can only use it to carry out your initiative, which must be for non-profit purposes and for the good of the community.
The amount we provide is final and will not be increased.
You agree to act in good faith. For example, you agree not to give us false, inaccurate, or misleading information about your group and initiative or use your award for anything other than the information you have detailed in your application.
If you do not spend all the award provided on the project as specified in your application, you must inform us – we reserve the right to request any unspent money to be returned to us.
Lakes and Dales Co-op will not be responsible for any expenditure you incur during the award cycle in relation to accumulating votes or attending photo calls, events or meetings.
If any of the Society’s assets (such as marketing materials) have been provided to you, you must return them to a mutually agreeable and convenient location.
The decision of the regional selection panel and member vote is final. There is no right of appeal.
To keep clear and accurate records, showing exactly how you have spent the award – and share them with us if we ask you to.
To acquire, comply with, and maintain whatever permissions consents or approvals are necessary to deliver your project.

Progress Reports

We will ask you to report who benefits from your project and how it is making a difference to their lives. You agree to give these reports to us promptly, in the form we ask for. We may use your reports for reporting purposes or publicity.

If we ask to meet with your officers or agents, they must agree to our request within a reasonable time. You must be able to provide reasonable documentary evidence to prove that you have used your award in line with these terms and conditions. Once the initiative is complete, you must submit a post project report, in the form we have asked for and provide updates where requested.

Publicity and Marketing

We will publicise the shortlisted projects online, in print and in store. You agree that we can use any of the information and images you have given us in any of our publicity and/or marketing materials. You agree that we can edit or change the wording of any written content you give us, to fit with our branding and tone of voice.

You agree to follow our brand guidelines whenever you mention Community Connect in your own publicity or marketing. If you give us any photographs, logos, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual licence to use, publish and reproduce them – in any media, anywhere in the world.

For any photos, logos, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights you give us, you warrant and represent that:

You – and only you – own them.
You have the right to give us the licence to use them.
You have the expressed permission of photographed individuals for both you and us to use their image.
If any person in a photo is under 18, you have the expressed permission of their legal parent or guardian for you and us to use their image.
There is no breach of intellectual property rights or copyrights of any other entity.

Ending Our Contract

Our contract with you will continue until you have spent all the money we have given you on the project, and we have finished doing any marketing around it. We may choose not to pay you any or all your award or recover the award and/or end our contract with you immediately if:

You break or do not abide by any of these terms and conditions.
You stop trading and cannot pay your debts or fall into administration or liquidation.
You do something we think could damage our brand, our reputation or goodwill (whether it is connected to the project or not).

Taking Your Award Back

We have the right to ask you to pay back all or any part of your award, if we think:

You have spent all or part of it on anything other than the information that was detailed in your application.
You have used it in a way that goes against the aims of the Society.
The project is not completed within the known and agreed timescales.
We believe that the project breaches or breaks any of the criteria laid out in these terms and conditions.

Your Data

All the information and data you give us (including personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998) about the Initiative will still belong to you (or your licensors), but you agree that we and our agents have the right to use it however we choose (for example: statistical analysis, market research, marketing and publicity, or auditing). Any data passed to us must have the expressed consent of who the person or organisation which it concerns for its usage by you and us.

Other Things You Should Know

Whenever we are doing any marketing, we will:

Act responsibly, in line with the relevant laws, regulations and guidelines.
Make sure all our members have access to full and unbiased information.
Make sure the way we do our publicity does not (within reason) intrude on anyone’s privacy.

You understand that:

We can only guarantee to pay you an award if there are enough funds in the Community Connect award fund, and if we are continuing the programme.
The application form must be completed by the organisation who will benefit from the funding. We will not accept applications from third party companies, agencies, or consultancies.
You cannot transfer any part of the award out of the United Kingdom or any of your rights under it to any other organisation or person – without our expressed permission, in writing, to work with them to carry out the initiative.
We will not accept any changes to these terms and conditions unless we have agreed them in writing.
Wherever we have mentioned giving notice or giving you information in these terms and conditions, we will always do this in writing. We prefer to do this by email to the addresses provided in your application. If we do it by email, we will assume you have got it at the start of the next working day, unless the email registers as undelivered.
These terms and conditions and the documents we have mentioned in them, contain everything we have agreed with you about the Community Connect award.
If a court decides that part of these terms and conditions are not enforceable in law, then the remaining terms and conditions shall remain in full force and effect.
We can change or vary these terms and conditions at any time.

Words With Particular Meanings

In these terms and conditions:

‘Society’ means Scotmid, Lakes & Dales Co-op and all its subsidiaries or brands.

‘Applicant’ means the organisation and person applying as the official representative in application the process.
‘Application’ means the form you filled in and submitted to us, asking us for funding.
‘Award cycle’ means the period between applications opening and the awards being given.
‘Award’ means the money we give you.
‘Initiative’ ‘project’ or ‘programme’ means the idea, project, or programme you have described in your application.
‘We,’ ‘us,’ or ‘our’ means Scotmid, Lakes and Dales Co-op and our affiliates, including our employees and family of businesses.
‘You’ and ‘your’ means the UK registered charity, community group or other organisation you have named in your application.