Blog

ChangeMakers Blog – 12 July 2011

St John’s church and community centre where most of our Old Trafford Steering Group meetings have been held. The colourful banner on the church tower marks the building out and says something about the vibrancy of the Old Trafford community.

The most encouraging activity recently has been around preparations for the Old Trafford voting event which takes place this coming Saturday 16 July. We were inundated with funding bids for our participatory event – 55 in total. This would have been an impossible number to have dealt with at one event. Also it was clear that there was considerable variation in the quality of bids and how they fitted the criteria we set. So the Steering Group had to do an initial shortlisting process. The result is short/long list of 32 bids for a wide variety of projects that local people would like to make happen in their community. The bidders are also very different – from public agencies working with groups of local people, to small, informal groups which have been organised as a result of this opportunity for funding. You can see a complete list of the bids we received at the end of this blog.

Here are all the bids ready for shortlisting

One of the most important things that has happened recently has been visiting those whose bids have been shortlisted. The one-to-one process used by community organising is a powerful tool. The project staff – Andrea and Mark – split the 32 projects in half and visited everyone last week. We found it invaluable in terms of getting to know people; understanding their bids and where their ideas have come from; and getting a sense of some of the wider issues that people are concerned about in the community. It is also clear from everyone’s comments that they valued this more personal approach to applying for funding. We also used the opportunity to tell people more about the process of the voting event, and their part in it, as well as sharing something of the longer-term aims of our Neighbourhood Challenge.

So as a result of these meetings we have already begun to identify some possible issues for later public action – although there is a long way to go before that! Traffic issues around schools is a big concern (but probably relevant to almost every school in the country!); there is also a real concern around drug dealing near to a local church and church school. But by far the most widespread issue concerns women in Old Trafford. There is real concern that considerable numbers of women in Old Trafford have poor language skills, are often isolated, suffer disproportionate levels of mental illness, and are the victims of domestic violence. This feels like Old Trafford’s ‘the elephant in the room’ – something which is not talked about publicly. It is also something which is very difficult to know how to impact.

One of the challenges we have experienced in Old Trafford is a strong sense of ‘consultation fatigue’. There was considerable resistance in our Steering Group about the idea of asking people about issues at the participatory budgeting event. ‘This is not something that people will want to do we were told. They’ve had enough of people asking that.’ So this is one reason for Andrea and Mark doing all the visiting. It has given us a lot to follow up on, and some ideas about issues which we can propose at the PB event. It has also connected us to a lot of people in the area in a deeper way and paved the way for a longer term relationship around local issues. We also got quite a lot of interest about our community organising training which we will be running in Old Trafford in early August.

Local cake decorators at St John’s Centre

Complet list of bids for Our Cash Our Call

No	Organisation /Individuals	Amount	Brief Outline of application
1	Old Trafford Multicultural Women’s Group	£2500	To employ a project worker for women’s group to increase skills, esteem, counteract language barriers – via training, events, visits
2	Old Trafford Library, Trafford Council	£1000	Annual pantomime – will enable financially disadvantaged to attend
3	Seymour Park Community Primary School	£2500	Create, design and develop a sensory garden for 4-5 year olds – access to a ‘green space’ for children to grow, plant and play leading to knowledge of how plants grow etc
4	Trafford Basketball Camp	£2500	Coaching courses for members, funding for training sessions new kits. Discipline in a safe environment.
5	Hope Manchester	£2304	Community advice, guidance and information hub – qualified session worker, with volunteers from local communities – for 48 weeks.
6	Trafford United Credit Union	£400	New Hi-speed printer to print members’ statements efficiently
7	Henshaws Society for Blind People	£1500	Multicultural Family Fun Day to bring together members of different ethnic groups to share experience of sight loss. Started as a way of integrating South Asian families who were reluctant to access support.
8	Tracie Daly /Cathy Shiel	£2500	They will run weekly workshops in Old Trafford looking at the various needs of families – in particular promotion of constructive use of recreational time. Will end with celebratory event open to all. Positive parenting, empowering families.
9	Pulling Together – Asian Women’s Group	£1800	Weekly arts/cultural activities for Asian women and children 11-18. Will provide sense of belonging and opportunity to look at their rights through law and their faith → avoidance of forced marriages and honour killings.
10	Trafford Afro-Caribbean Over 50s Club	£1350	To pay trained tutor to teach exercise suitable to age group – to help combat the health problems associated with the age group.
11	Parents’ Group Seymour Park school	£600	School picnic – play equipment. ‘Picnic pack’ which can be used weekly throughout the summer holidays
12	The Harmony Singers	£1870	To fund singing workshops Sept-Dec to teach unaccompanied singing to as inclusive a group as possible. Final session with refreshments and invitation to family and friends to join in. Simple pleasure of singing.
13	Scielight Arts	£2100	‘Paint your wellbeing’ : Arts and crafts workshops to promote wellbeing and good mental health. Work with carers and then people recovering from mental health problems. Exhibition of artwork followed by a tour with artwork displayed around Old Trafford.
14	Trafford Asian Women’s Network	£1000	Encouraging women and children to get out of their house to meet other women and explore what is in their local community, and to visit places of interests in Manchester etc.
15	Centenary Garden Committee Group	£2500	‘Gardener in Residence’ for Centenary Garden to cover maintenance and to act as mentor/trainer for existing volunteers. Garden already widely used and is a valuable resource – this post would help to maintain it and keep standards high.
16	See More Writers, Bluesci Centre	£2500	To encourage and enable OT residents to express themselves in writing and to publish an anthology of writing about residents’ experiences of life in Trafford. We have a publisher.
17	Glenmay Court Residents’ Association Derbyshire Lane, Stretford M32	Taxi fares to schools	Elderly residents of Adactus Housing Association to talk to children to give them firsthand knowledge of wartime experiences, ‘The Troubles’ in NI etc. Better than just reading books about recent history.
18	No More Lies Positive Minds	£2200	Give my own self help book to help others manifest their own dreams on the internet as well as in the real world. Giving people more hope in their lives and tools and skills they need make a better life for themselves.
19	Trafford Week of Peace	£1500 Breakdown provided	Celebrate World Peace Day with peace festival – various events, some of which need funding, e.g. lantern parade, talent show. Aim to engage residents who would not normally participate, to build bridges between groups and build a sense of identity and belonging in the area.
20	Community Development Initiative	£2500	To recruit a bilingual Counsellor/Trainer to offer diagnostic assessment and individual support for New Settlers in Old Trafford: ESOL courses show that most of their graduates need help to find further learning and engagement in community activities. We work with people from 34 different countries of origin. Project will benefit 60.
21	Seed Studios	£2500	Funds to pay for project support worker to help OT residents use a new live performance space and support people who are struggling and for equipment. Legacy of events which whole community can access.
22	Old Trafford Amateur Gardeners	£600	To improve safety and security of Seymour Grove Allotment plot holders against theft and vandalism by the installation of CCTV in two locations. Community benefits from Community Plot and orchard, Open Days etc
23	St Brides Church	£1500	To fund Wednesday night drop in sessions which provide a variety of activities for young people in OT with a chance to build relationships which will encourage positive life choices. 20-40 young people attend each week.
24	Kings Road Primary School	£1000	Planting trees on school field – to improve environment, provide shade for children, and encourage wild life.
25	Litter Free Old Trafford	£2500	Funding to plant 8-10 trees in Henrietta Street and Isabella Close. Will improve neighbourhood for all, including children, and help to reduce fly-tipping and litter dropping.
26	St John’s Centre Creche	£2380	Holiday play scheme – chance for children to benefit from educational/fun environment with qualified staff and volunteers.
27	G-Camp	£2500	To help families who have difficulty paying for their children to attend Thai Kickboxing classes. This helps all young people from 6 years upward, particularly those with anger issues or drug abuse. They will learn respect and self control.
28	Seymour Park Parents in Partnership	£2500	To instal a weatherproof shelter in the school playground for parents waiting to pick up their children – will encourage people to meet and talk together.
29	Old Trafford News	£2280	To run tutorial workshops to train 12 residents in web development, design and social media, building an integrated website and social media network for OT. Will benefit all on line residents and increase community engagement.
30	Elizabeth Murphy, 128 Stanley Street	£500-2000	A group of neighbours want to improve a back alleyway to make it safe for children to play, encourage wildlife by sowing plants, discourage flytipping etc. Will involve 30 households in immediate vicinity.
31	Europia	£1900	To run an event and follow on sessions for 150 people in OT, including EU migrants, focussing around education/citizenship, families and children, community links, homelessness, health outcomes. Open Access sessions for local residents and agencies – will focus on engaging those at risk or currently excluded from mainstream services.
32	African Ink	£2500	To produce a ‘reminiscence quilt’ which reflects the diverse community in OT. Would research key history points, and those of participants, and integrate these into the quilt making process. Would provide social and learning opps for over 60’s – team building, negotiation, supervisory roles.
33	St Bride’s Church	£1300	Free mid-week after school club for 7-11 year olds, one day per week during term time, run by volunteers – safe place to play and relax for up to 40 children.
34	DJ Young Blood Promotions	£2225	Workshops to provide a taster session from either DJing or Media skills. These would be on the same day as a dance/disco which will provide opportunity for open mic or dance performance. Young (11-15) people would learn new skills, work as a team and benefit from skill sharing from older community members.
35	Haley Ali, Stamford Street, OT	NK	Wants to provide breakfast and after school club care for OT Community School, plus homework club, Arabic revision, shopping crèche etc. Will not need a lot of money, just to buy extra items of equipment/play things – she is registered childminder. Play Worker at school encouraged her.
36	St Bride’s Church	£600	‘Showstoppers’ – a holiday club for 7-11 year olds from 15-18 August – space for 50. Will invite families to community church on the Sunday.
37	Stephen Williams, Kings Road, OT	£2500	Get Better project is for OT youth to gain qualifications through music performance, and then teach younger generation. 10 youths already want to be part of the project – opportunity for them to set up their own constitution.
38	OT Partnership – Community Engagement	NK	Compile a directory of various opportunities for skills training to give to those who need it. Realise existing training is not being taken up.
39	OT Partnership – Health Group	£400	To run healthy eating classes, with chef to show how to make smoothies etc. Want to work with Abundance Trafford who collect excess fruit from community. Inclusive of all age groups, possible links with local shops. Funding for publicity and equipment.
40	Angela Williamson, Wood Road North, OT	£2500	To provide group and 1 to 1 counselling service to black and Asian women – two groups per week. Grant to pay for premises and weekly fees for facilitator.
41	Union Street Media Arts	£2500	To work with local young people to train and support them to develop local campaigns on issues affecting them. Need for young people to have a voice, and the need for innovative projects for young people.
42	Old Trafford Strong Heart Group	£1000	Support group for people with heart problems – exercise session every week, with some social events. Money to help with room hire and instructor fee – each member pays £2 but this is not adequate to cover all costs.
43	Urban Peace	£1950	To share and develop peace activities and build interfaith links. Groups to make peace malas, and to discuss unifying elements in different faiths, and work towards clear communication in streets and neighbourhoods.
44	Old Trafford Cricket Club	£2500	Two teams of young people – some under 15 years – and wants to set up another one. Scheme has run for 35 years. Coaches available. Good for them to become involved in sport.
45	Stamp Sync	£2000	Provision of physical activities for young people – boxing, martial arts, street dance. 90% of attenders come from OT area. Had referrals from Trafford MBC Youth Offending Team.
46	Old Trafford Community School	£2500	To develop a wildlife area at OT Community Centre. Education and awareness of looking after green space and grow food.
47	Cheryl Marney, Hamilton Grove, OT	£450	Relaxation classes. To promote a more relaxed Old Trafford.
48	St John’s Church and Centre	£2500	Workshops leading to an exhibition for interfaith week (Nov 2011), and a People’s Petition signed sculpture in the grounds of the church. Approaches the need for inter-community dialogue through art and non-threatening workshops.
49	Trafford CVS and Volunteer Centre	£1709	‘The Extra Mile’ – supporting people to try and obtain paid work through volunteering. Preparation for interviews – skills, appearance, gain in confidence etc. Idea supported by Job Centres and Phoenix Futures.
50	St John’s Church	£1500	In Black History month (Oct 2011) would like to host a celebration of identity displaying the musical and performance skills of young people in our diverse community. Part of our ‘Imagine the Church’ programme.
51	Big Tree Tops	£2000	To provide different events over the year that will increase opportunities for local people to come together as families under the project title Family Times:Back Together. Restore links between families and community.
52	St Hilda’s Church	£2500	Creation of secure outdoor play area to go with a major extension, working with the Children’s Centre. Will be a community resource. Already spent £350,000.
53	Ali Mullan, 30 Auburn Road	£2500	Summer sports club for 6-11 year olds – sports linked to 2012 Olympics. Healthy lifestyles, community cohesion.
54	Bilkis Chothia, 48 Morland Road	£2500	To store sports equipment for children in the community which can be accessed by outside agencies.
55	PCSO, Stretford Police Station GM Police	NK	To organise a walking bus scheme to three local primary schools, i.e. children will walk to school under close supervision of school staff. Reduce traffic, healthier lifestyles, lower greenhouse gases. About 100 children will benefit.

Blog – 27 May

ChangeMakers Blog – 27 May 2011

What’s Going Well and Community Involvement

Our 3 decision-day events around participatory budgeting will be staggered between mid July and the first week in October. So each of our Steering Groups is at a different stage in working towards their events. But we are very pleased with progress and by how much people are committing to the process.

These children are from Seymour Park Primary School in Old Trafford. They are hoping that the community will vote to support their bid for funds for a ‘Secret Garden’ that they want to build in the school grounds.

Old Trafford

The Old Trafford Steering Group is working well and getting on with planning for our first participatory budgeting event which they have agreed will be on Saturday 16 July 2011. We are delighted that we have managed to negotiate use of the council run Old Trafford Community Centre at no cost for the day. It is by far the biggest venue in the area and will allow us to set up the main hall as we need, with people organised in tables of about 10 people with a facilitator. This is to ensure that people have a chance to dialogue and engage with each other, as well as vote for projects in their area.

The Old Trafford Group have come up with a name that we think is great – they are going to call the process and the event – Our Cash Our Call. It is interesting how different this feels to some of the other PB events which have been run around the country by public agencies which often talk about ‘you’ rather than ‘we’. This makes us hopeful that our Neighbourhood Challenge will have a real bottom-up feel to it.

We have had a 2-page spread about Our Cash Our Call in the Old Trafford News, and word already seems to be spreading. The Steering Group have designed a lively looking application form and posters to be widely distributed in the community with distinctive branding. Other issues being tackled by the group are: an online application form; looking at a Facebook page for the project; distribution of publicity material; procedures to ensure fairness on the decision day; a children’s choir to sing at the event; and agreement to a budget literacy part of the day which will be run as a quiz.

Moss Side

We have had our first Moss Side Steering Group meeting (and another planned for next week). We have got a good team, representing a wide range of the different communities in the area. Our first meeting was setting the scene, and answering questions from people – one of the first questions is always – ‘if I’m a Steering Group member can my group still pitch for some funding?’ We are able to reassure them about that! People are also asking important questions about sustainability, and ensuring that we don’t unrealistically raise peoples’ expectations around things that can’t be followed through.

The Group made some important decisions:

· They agreed that the Moss Side decision day would be on Saturday 24 September.

· They looked carefully at what should be the geographical boundary of the Neighbourhood Challenge project and agreed that the ward boundaries were the best

· Members agreed to commit to publicising the event by using the community radio and the directory of local groups, and also to use their own organisations and influence to let people know.

Collyhurst

We have not got people together yet, but have got some key players who have agreed to be part of the group.

The most exciting development around the Collyhurst part of the project is that the new Academy has agreed that we can have the decision day there, at no cost, and they are very keen to be involved in making the event a success. The Academy is extremely important as an institution in the area, an iconic landmark, and one of the few signs of hope for many living in Collyhurst. If other group members agree, we hope that the event in Collyhurst will be led by young people, and that we can use all of the resources that the academy have for community education.

The work in Collyhurst will in all likelihood have a very different feel to that in the other 2 areas.

Our biggest challenges

We have spent a lot of time and energy in engaging partners to work with us in our 3 areas of Greater Manchester, and in particular have met with a range of Registered Social Landlords. These housing providers have been very keen to work with us, and for us to help develop their staff through offering training, and to support our event in all sorts of ways. But they have yet to be very forthcoming in terms of match funding for our events. This is partly due to the current financial climate, but also to what feels like some bureaucratic resistance to change. Most of these landlords have small grants pots, which are ideal for participatory budgeting. And the landlords can see how different PB is, and how it offers some real advantages in terms of engaging people. But they all have systems in operation, and are currently reluctant to adapt plans to engage with something new. Maybe if we had had a longer run-in we would have had more chance of influencing their processes. We are still hopeful that some funds will become available.

Surprises

The biggest surprise so far has been the willingness of people to give time and energy to what we are doing – and this is clearly not simply because they are hoping for money for their own projects. People on our Steering Groups seem to have caught the vision of our Neighbourhood Challenge project and are really investing in it. We hope that this enthusiasm will be infectious when we get others from their communities together to talk about what they would like to see changed in their area.

Mark Waters and Andrea Jones

3 May, 2011 16:43

Activity	Outcome
Meeting with Imam from Stamford St Mosque in Old Trafford – Siddiq Diwan	He is keen to be involved in the Neighbourhood Challenge project. He leads a large, multi-racial mosque.
Training day for Trafford Housing Trust staff.	12 people. All pretty enthusiastic and keen to explore new models to help their work. Some keen to give time to the Old Trafford PB event on 16 July. Some would like to be involved in our 2-day training with residents
Meeting with Old Trafford News to talk through their involvement in publicising the Old Trafford event.	Ally was very helpful, and thoughtful about how the event should be publicised and about branding for the event. He agreed to chair the Steering Group coming up the next day.
First meeting of Steering group for Old Trafford event	A very positive and encouraging meeting. People enthusiastic and seem to get what it is about. People made commitments to further meetings and suggested some young people to be on the group. Good ideas for name for PB pilot – maybe ‘We Decide’
Our first meeting with Sarah Coombes from NCVO and Richard Sorton from Icarus	A good day. We agreed processes for reporting and enquiry which are clear and tailored to our particular Neighbourhood Challenge. We spent a bit of time in North Manchester looking at one of the areas in which we will be working.
Meeting with the Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council – Jim Battle	Jim is supportive of our NC project and was able to give us some good community based contacts. Unfortunately he couldn’t offer any money to add to our participatory budgeting (PB) pot.
Met with reps from Registered Social Landlords in Moss Side	A lot of interest in what we are doing. Keen on our offer of training for their staff. Willing to support us on the ground. Will explore possibility of matching some of our PB funds.
Collyhurst Steering Group	William Bones from St Malachy’s RC School met with us last week and has agreed to give time to our NC project and to be on the Collyhurst Steering Group. The local vicar – Revd Chris Fallone – has also agreed to work with us and sit on the group.
Meeting of Old Trafford Steering Group	Scheduled for tomorrow!
Meeting with Matthew Roberts from Moss Side Sure Start	He has agreed to be on our Moss Side Steering Group. He thinks that our Neighbourhood Challenge will help with the exit strategy for the Sure Start initiative in Moss Side. Sadly it is being privatised and many of the activities will finish. We might be able to provide a way of giving some continuity to groups which meet at Sure Start. Matthew is also an experienced events organiser – so his skills will be very welcome and useful as we plan our Moss Side event.

This is our Old Trafford Steering Group sitting down on the job!

And here they are hard at work………………….

31 March, 2011 15:52

Our Neighbourhood Challenge is to bring together Participatory Budgeting (PB) and Community Organising to innovate in three very different parts of Manchester – creating exciting and dynamic deliberative events at which local people vote on how a pot of money will be spent; and then building on the event to engage people in deeper and longer term work around issues in their community. The overall aim is to build the confidence and skills of hundreds of local people to enable them to tackle their issues themselves as part of our ChangeMakers city wide coalition.

As you would expect, the response to what we are hoping to do has been mixed. Some catch the vision immediately, and are excited about working together. Others, cynical about previous attempts at engagement, and wary of people coming in to their community with another project, are understandably wary. So the initial process is to win hearts and minds, and also to ensure that as far as possible we include all the different communities of interest in what we are doing.

So basic groundwork is what we are doing first. That means getting round to speak to lots of people in the three communities we are working with in Greater Manchester – Moss Side, Collyhurst, and Old Trafford. We are visiting community groups, churches, mosques, schools, Sure Start projects and many others. Many of these are not the ‘usual suspects’. We have already got volunteers for the steering group for our first event which will be in Old Trafford, and are looking forward to enabling them to run that event.

We have had great support promised from Old Trafford Housing Trust, and from the conservative led Trafford council. This will help in terms of spreading the word about what we are doing, and also in terms of practical support at the events. On April 11th we are running a day’s training for community engagement staff at the housing trust so that they are up to speed with the processes we will be using.

We had initially thought that running the three PB events very early on would be the right thing to do, but having talked to others about this, and reflected on it, we have changed our minds. One of the difficulties of running PB events in some areas of the country has been that they have not had enough lead-in time to make them as powerful as they could be. So rather than repeat bad practice, we are aiming to stagger the events over the next few months. Old Trafford will be first with a PB event in early July, followed by Collyhurst in September and Moss Side in October. We reckon that this will ensure high quality events with enough time left to engage people in the community organising part of the project.

Mark Waters and Andrea Jones

At NESTA for the announcement!

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!