By Jill Stocks
Horsforth’s Local Lottery is going from strength to strength and just this week presented donations from its good causes pot to two much-loved Horsforth organisations.
MHA Communities Horsforth and Horsforth Walk of Art are the two causes to benefit from money raised by the lottery, which also benefits Horsforth business through its prize pot.
Tickets, priced at a pound each, are available to purchase in a number of retailers, bars and restaurants across Horsforth, and now a new website, designed by local resident Stuart Cameron, makes it even easier to find out anything you need to know about the lottery and how you can take part.
Dave Brosnan is from Horsforth Town Team which runs the lottery. He told us how the lottery started: “The lottery has been going for 18 months now and it had a slow start.
“We tried to keep it small and manageable until we could get a grip of whether we could manage it ourselves as volunteers because that’s one of the things about it: everybody that works with us on this lottery are all volunteers and we’re all doing it in our spare time.
“And it is quite an undertaking. There’s a lot of time and work that goes into it.
“The lottery is registered with the lottery commission and Leeds City Council licensing. So we have to report every month.
“That’s part of the rules. We’re actually under the same guidelines as the National Lottery. We have to do a live draw. First Tuesday of every month.”
Currently 19 local businesses and retailers support the lottery by selling tickets or accepting Horsforth pounds and more are welcome to join.
“The amount of work that’s involved in it we wanted to be sure that we could manage it with our full time jobs. We’re comfortable with that now and we’re looking for more businesses.
“It’s generally about two hundred Horsforth pounds going into the community every month and we want to grow that to get better than that. But that’s Horsforth pounds that are getting spent on our high streets. We love that.”
Horsforth Fitness are the top ticket sellers and manager Tricia Jephcott told us how members have embraced it:
“My members all have very strong community focus and are always keen to support local initiatives and businesses.
“From the start they’ve been buying tickets and winning prizes. We feel we are a lucky place to buy your lottery tickets as we’ve had winners nearly every month.
“We are also happy to sell to non-members, so anyone passing can pop in to buy theirs.”
It was Tricia who set the ball rolling with the help of a couple of other local volunteers. Dave said: “We started off with a couple of people, Brian and Katy Witham, who helped us set it up. They used to work as volunteers at The Grove and they were on the committee there and they moved away from that and became available.
“Brian introduced me to his wife Katy and she was amazing. She set the whole thing up with the help of the Pudsey lottery. They were brilliant with us. They were absolutely fantastic with us to help us set it up.
“They came and gave us a chat and a discussion about what is the lottery and that was instigated by Tricia from Horsforth Fitness. She knew the Pudsey Lottery and thought it would be great for Horsforth. Trish Smith [from Pudsey Lottery] came across and she did an initial chat with the members of the Town Team. That was really good. It took a while to get our heads round it and how it would work.
“It became obvious that the traceability side of it and keeping a track of the numbers that each business sells was going to be a task and I don’t think we’d have been able to do it without Trish Smith’s help to set it up and then after that without the skill set that Katy had.
“She got us through our first year and literally on the anniversary of it which was September last year Katy handed the reins over to us then so at the moment it’s myself and Julio Tumalan and Susan my wife that run it really.”
At the moment there does however seem to be a significant gender split.
“The gentlemen need to up their game. It’s predominantly 70% females that are coming through. I can see that by the visits to the website and Facebook page. So come on guys. Up your game. Let’s get this gender balance right!”
Each month 80% of the total pot is awarded to five prizewinners as Horsforth Pounds to spend in participating local businesses. The remaining 20%, after printing costs, goes into a good causes pot which is then given annually to two nominated local organisations.
Dave told WLD: “Bearing in mind obviously we do this as volunteers so there’s nobody taking any money out for that but we do have costs.
“We do have to print the tickets but then there’s a balance left out of that 20% after printing costs. We annually donate whatever’s left to local good causes.”
And this week MHA Communities Horsforth, who arrange a number of social and physical activities in Horsforth for over 55’s, and the Horsforth Walk Of Art, which returns this July after a year’s break and encourages creativity in the community, both benefitted from a £250 donation.
“We’re delighted, Julio and myself from Horsforth Town Team, to actually give out our first round of good causes pots to the community.
“We’ve got a really good choice with the MHA guys. They have been embedded in the community and really look after the older people who need that sort of contact and we’ve just been inside and witnessed what happens. It’s absolutely fantastic to see.
“We’re delighted to give something back into the community from another side of the Horsforth lottery that not everybody sees but I think it’s vital that people do get to actually realise that it’s not just about local businesses, it’s about the community as a whole and we’re really pleased to support the guys at MHA.
“We are also delighted to support the Horsforth Walk of Art and it’s incredible volunteers who make it happen.
“The Walk Of Art brings people together, celebrates creativity and showcases the fantastic community spirit we have here in Horsforth.
“Supporting local good causes like this is exactly what the Horsforth Lottery is all about.”
Dean Steadman is the Local Manager at MHA and told us how pleased they were to receive the donation:
“It’s amazing to receive some money from the Horsforth Lottery. It’s nice that we’re recognised within the community. We’ve been in the community nearly 30 years this coming year.
“It means that we can continue our activities and help the people of Horsforth that are over the age of 55. It means that we are a valued part of the community.”
Kezia Roberts, from Horsforth Walk Of Art, explained what the money could help them do: “We’re really fortunate that the Walk of Art is funded not from external sources every year.
“We ensure that the Walk of Art is run by the people of Horsforth for the people of Horsforth and as such all our sponsorship and our grants are sourced within our community as well which is amazing.
“So this year we are very excited that we were given some money by the Horsforth Lottery.
“We’re really really grateful and appreciative of anybody who thinks of Horsforth Walk of Art when they know they’ve got a little bit of money that they can gift and that kind of money can go towards things like materials for artists so then artists can give their time freely but they’re not out of pocket because we’re in a very strange time at the moment.
“Then they can go into schools, they can work with our children in the schools or they can do work as part of the Walk of Art itself and activities as part of the Walk of Art.”
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