6 BIG Ideas into Action
The Ideas Shop Collaborators have created 6 brilliant ideas which are turning into ‘power sharing’ action
Middleton 1
Winter Friendships – Winter Wonderland Walk event to be held in Langley, connecting people with community projects (Allotment and Bowlee Community Centre) and inspiring friendship through community activity. The walk will be connected to National Winter Walks week which offers additional publicity support. The group are drawing on their strengths which include local knowledge as residents, creative skills and an understanding of who would benefit from friendship in the area. The group requested decorations for the winter walk and has been offered a large number of fairy lights from another collaborator.
Middleton 2
Creating connection to place. This initiative will support a new extra care facility that is being built in the area to be connected to the community. Residents will find out about the new build through the Middleton 1, Winter Friendships event and through a series of pop up ‘Living Rooms’ connected and supported by national social movement ‘Camerados’. The group will instigate a creative project which may include the community naming the facility or creating artwork to display inside the facility. The group has engaged a new collaborator who is involved with the new build development to garner support and has used some extra resource (a £100 voucher, won at another event) to support buying equipment for the Middleton 1 group.
Rochdale 1
Workplace Wellbeing Cafes, the group will hold a series of pop up cafes, in their workplaces for staff to connect, be brave and support each other. The group will also create a logo and pack (inspired by Macmillan Coffee Mornings) to encourage and provide resources for other organisations to hold cafes. The funding for the branding design will be provided via one of the collaborators commissioned providers through their Corporate Social Responsibility commitment. The collaborators are committed to promoting this work through their strong communication and engagement connections.
Rochdale 2
‘Don’t be Blue, Be You’ is an event on blue Monday, taking over a retail unit in the Wheatsheaf Shopping Centre. Focused on the whole person, this event will bring together supportive organisations to welcome the public into a positive space and create Rochdale’s biggest mindfulness session, a wall of support and access to lots of wellbeing support available across the borough. One of the collaborators has secured the space and the group has crowdsourced content for the day through other collaborators and their own contacts. The event will commission a local organisation to provide a creative engagement activity (possibly an artist or musician)
Heywood
‘Heywood with a Heart’ group will create the Compassion Cards initiative, a creative project underpinned by ‘pass it on’ principals. Working with businesses in Heywood and linking with Together4Angels, a baby loss support grassroots group to spread compassion amongst neighbours. The group has a motto of ‘why have a meeting when you can have a party!’. The initiative promises to be playful and connected as other collaborators in the group are already involved in local wellbeing work. The group are drawing on the skills of the collaborators, one of whom is a community artist to make the cards with others, which will provide the tool for compassionate engagement.
Pennines
This group is focused on creating connection across the Pennines area and will link with local VCFSE organisations, uniformed children’s groups and across generations to involve people in making a huge paper chain of connection. An event will see a mass connection of these links aiming to create a huge paper chain around Hollingworth Lake. The group members include people already active in communities including with uniformed groups (guides/scouts) musicians and clog dancers they will draw on these connections to achieve the ambition of their project.
In addition:
Each group has an agreed and active communication method
Each group has signed up to the Storytelling (Community Reporter) sessions, which will include film and editing training which will help tell the story of the work
Each collaborator group has arranged another meet up to progress the ideas.