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Designing a project for your community Community and the environment. Contents
Sustainable Community CentreAround Halesworth many local initiatives such as LETS, food co-op, permaculture group, box schemes, have been started up. Several people saw that for these to grow there needed to be a focus where all these projects could be supported, and the wider community made aware of what was happening in an easily accessible way. This suggested a need for a centre. Halesworth, like many small market towns, is loosing business and young people; over 50% of the population are retired. In order to sustain the community the centre needed to address these issues too. In order to see if there was a need in Halesworth for a centre, and what form it might take, we held a two-day public event titled "Heart of Halesworth". The idea was to see what could be done to keep a sense of community in the town. People were invited to put their ideas onto postit notes and put them on a board in the library, and at the school fair. School children were also asked to produce pictures of how they envisioned such a centre. The results of this, [1], helped Halesworth gain county council funding for a wide ranging regeneration study, of which the Halesworth and Blyth Valley Centre has formed a key part.
Blyth Valley Centre – core beliefsOne of the early documents we produced as a steering group was our mission statement and our aims an objectives. See Appendix A. This has enabled us to stay on course and focussed. The mission statement makes clear how we see sustainability in business, social, economic, and environmental terms, as a key objective for the centre. The process of producing the mission statement enabled us all to share from our personal experience of other projects. This also helped us to gain respect for the knowledge and skills of each other. A further part of getting a focus and identity was achieving a logo that has managed to incorporate many of the ideas expressed at the initial meetings as to what the centre was to achieve, eg a Hub; a Focus; Bringing people together; a Meeting point.
How the Blyth Valley Centre project is structuredThere is as yet no formal structure to our group. Generally I operate as the chairman at meetings, and as the contact for funding bodies and the architects. Other people will take on these duties if I am not available. There is also a nominated treasurer. We have a building society account for small societies, and a bank account in the name of the town council. This second account is required as funding bodies will only normally pay statutory bodies, ie those having a legal status. We are a group of 10-12 residents individually reflecting various interests in the community. Our members include Town Councillors, a Community Development Officer, Arts and Performing Arts representatives, Complementary Therapists, and others from the area with business, educational, social work, building, and environmental experience and expertise. Early in 1997, one of our members invited individuals from social, arts, local government and voluntary groups to a meeting at which the HBVC Group was born. We are working in conjunction with the Halesworth Partnership (for the Regeneration of Halesworth), with the Rural Development Agency, with Suffolk ACRE, with SUCCESS, and with the Halesworth Town Council. We are constantly open to interested individuals and representatives of organisations in Halesworth and the Blyth Valley.
Choosing an ArchitectAt first we were trying to come up with a business structure under which to operate, but we were getting a bit bogged down in this. So it was suggested to us that the first requirement was to get a qualified feasibility study carried out. This would then enable us to have something to present to the funding bodies. We produced a feasibility brief, see Appendix B, to make clear what we were looking for from the architect. Each architect was asked to give us a presentation on how they would approach this task. In order that we could treat all architects equally, and to ensure that our questions were answered in a structured way, we all used a common checklist; see appendix C. This enabled everyone to participate equally in the questioning and evaluation process, without getting stuck on any one person’s issues. We based this process on advice from the Suffolk Rural Development Agency [3], and on [2]. We unanimously choose Archytype based on their record of creating sustainable and environmentally conscious buildings. I was personally impressed that the architect came by train to give his presentation to us, but as chair of the discussion I felt I needed to ensure that we did consider all other options so that in the end the decision was fully informed open and accepted by all. This agreement was important as we all needed to work with the architects, and, as they were the most expensive, there was the risk that we would not be able to raise the required funding.
Conflict resolutionAs chairman for the group I feel one of my main duties is to ensure everyone is heard and stronger personalities do not override the quieter people. One way is by ensuing that we all value each other. Also it happens that people are involve with each other apart from the centre project. It has happened that two people have brought their disagreement with each other to the meeting, I as chair involved each in turn by asking them to help with a specific action, in so doing helping point out each others strengths. This helped them see how we need to value all members of the team. This turned out successfully and they were able to share a lift home. Generally we are fortunate that there is a strong local culture of co-operation and support, rather than conflict. This was evidenced at a LETS meeting when a key person from the UK LETS movement came along to present some of his new ideas. His background was from city organisations, and his initial approach to us was to try and produce conflict by asking what we did if someone wanted to trade something we disagreed with. The group’s response was "so what?" As individuals we don’t need to trade with them the only "rule" is it must be legal. This co-operative approach may become harder to achieve when the centre is really being built and some of the local people who have not yet paid any notice realise how it may affect them. For example the centre will need a café, there are already 4 cafes in Halesworth. Our approach has been that we will offer the franchise first to the existing cafes, and second, the centre will advertise the other cafes too, eg provide copies of their daily menus. We hope that the centre will increase business for all traders in the town, but it will not be possible to prove this. To avoid problems with people suddenly discovering this is happening, and being instinctively hostile to anything they are not involved in, we have tried from the outset to encourage public debate. There have been many public meetings, radio broadcasts, an A4 flyer in every copy of the local free newspaper "Community News"; but it is only a small proportion of people, probably less than 1%, that have yet come to see what is happening and contribute their views. One of the objectives of the centre is to help increase peoples awareness of, and their involvement with, what is happening in the community. One group that has not been very active in Halesworth regeneration schemes generally, is the business community. This is a marked contrast to the United States where local business involvement in local issues, or politics, is considered important for the business to succeed. Some conflicts cannot be resolved within the group. Two representatives from the Halesworth day centre came along to one of our meetings (we used to use the day centre for our meetings, as it is the only meeting space in Halesworth with wheelchair access). They had been told that their current centre was to be knocked down to provide our new centre. Where idea this had come from we can only speculate. However, they would not hear our reassurances that we had no such intentions and that we were in no way connected with the district council that owns their current building. I attempted to let them vent their feelings and then steer the meeting back on course. However, they persisted in raising the same issues all evening, and prevented any useful progress being made. They also refused to let us use their room again for our meetings. Outside the meeting one of the steering group did a lot of talking with them and managed to resolve their hostility. The architects doing the feasibility study also made a special point of meeting with them and getting their requirements for a new day centre as part of our scheme. However there are still unresolved issues as they are unwilling to share "their" space in the new centre with anyone else.
Planning, legal and organisational issuesWe spent some time considering what organisational structure we needed for the Centre Steering Group. We decided that for the feasibility study stage there was no need to officially form ourselves in any way. The only requirement was that funding bodies could only give money to a statutory organisation. We agreed with the town council that they would open an extra account for the centre project to use. Now that the feasibility study is complete we need to address this issue again. From our previous discussions we have agreed on some sort of co-operative. We have asked SUCCESS [4] for help in deciding on the exact form and how to progress. The architects have addressed the planning requirements of the centre as a part of the feasibility centre; such as restricting vehicle access; awareness of 100 year flood levels. FundingMuch of the funding for the feasibility study came from European Union sources as Halesworth is within a 5B area, or rural deprived area. A lot of help in getting this funding came from the Suffolk Rural Development Agency (RDA)[3]. Different members of the steering group approached different funding bodies. Now we need to raise funds for the actual building. There are several possible difficulties:
Skills AuditWe conducted skills audit amongst those of us on the Centre steering group, but we have not used this information in any direct way as yet within our team. The treasurer was able to use it as evidence to get funding for her go on a financial course at the University of East Anglia. Several members of the steering group, including myself, have attended a short workshop called a "Management Overview Test" organised by the Suffolk Association of Voluntary Organisations (SAVO)[8]. This was useful for me in considering how our group needs to evolve to become a formal organisation. Such issues as a complaint or grievance procedure for volunteers or users; having sub-committees and splitting up budgets. SAVO will soon be running 12 sessions to look at different aspects of how an organisation can operate better.
Green MapA new project I am just embarking on is to produce a "green map" for the local community. So far I have put forward the idea at a local permaculture group meeting, and put an item in the newsletter [7]. The members of the permaculture group are involved with, or are aware of, a lot of local activities concerned with sustainability. A map would show where to find support for sustainable lifestyles. This would show such things as:
and beside the map could be a list of contacts. Depending on the support and interest from other people, what time and skills they are able to contribute, eg cartography, contacting the people and organisations we’d like to include, illustrations, we will decide if this project progresses. It may form a separate group independent of the permaculture group. A recent example of this is the Community forest project, which started within, and is supported by the, permacuture group, but structures itself separately.
ConclusionAs a small focussed group the Halesworth and Blyth Valley Centre Steering Group has managed to deliver a feasibility study very quickly. There has been a lot of learning on the way, but the objective has been kept clearly in view. There has been a lot of consultation with the public and with local organisations so that the final feasibility study report is a clear statement of the needs of the community and how they can be met in a sustainable manner. The challenge now is to turn our small team into a legal co-operative capable of fundraising £3 million; and constructing the centre. The East Suffolk permaculture group forms an informal support and contact network where ideas for local sustainable project can be gathered and shared.
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