The Committee Members are:
Katie Coppock, Mark Darley, Sheila Llewellyn, Zoe Staines and Wayne Young.
To contact the Thorner Community Fund Committee, please send an email to:
thornercommunityfund@gmail.com
The Thorner Community Fund (TCF) was established in 2003 through consultation and joint working between Rachel and Nick Lane Fox, Festival Republic and the Thorner community. The TCF committee is made up of a small group of volunteers from the village. Over the years around 20 different volunteers have served on the committee.
Our purpose and focus falls into two main areas:
Firstly, each year Melvin Benn and Festival Republic generously allocate a number of Leeds Festival resident guest tickets to the village. The distribution of these tickets to Thorner residents is administered by the TCF team in partnership with Festival Republic and the donations made against these tickets are held in the Thorner Community Fund.
The ticketing eligibility and application rules have been improved over time, often based on residents’ feedback and are designed to be fair, transparent and to allow as many Thorner residents as possible to benefit from the opportunity to apply for tickets.
We rely on an extended team of volunteers to complete the ticket distribution process with the team temporarily swelling to over 20 on the day of ticket registration. Not only does this help us get an important job done in a short space of time but it also allows a cross section of the community to see our system from the inside and to assist us with year-on-year improvements.
Our other main duty is distributing the significant funds gathered from ticket donations to invest in and to add value to Thorner village. Traditionally, all village groups, societies, facilities and community event organisers were invited to submit requests against the Thorner Community Fund for improvement and investment in the village.
Since the Festival first came to Bramham Park, around 35 Thorner groups and facilities have benefitted from over £510,000 investment into the Thorner Village and community. Grant awards are subject to additional scrutiny by independent community representation, plus Melvin Benn and Rachel Lane Fox. Since 2020 we have for now, in consultation with our benefactor Melvin Benn/Festival Republic, changed the focus of grant funding towards projects within the village that will contribute towards the climate change emergency.