Growing connections to support and resource local initiatives in Battersea, Glasgow, and Merthyr
Calling local residents, community groups, local businesses, third sector organisations and public bodies.
- Do you have views on what’s happening and what’s missing in your neighbourhood?
- Do you have any ideas for local projects, activities, services or events that could help improve your local place and the life of people who reside, work and play in it?
- Are you already working on a local initiative and need help (skills, connections or funding) to move it forward?
Share, Connect, Create is an online workshop aiming to support people from Battersea, Glasgow and Merthyr to share their ideas and aspirations for their place, and connect their collective experiences, skills and resources in order to develop and deliver local initiatives. Participants will take part in focused group discussions about their own areas, as well as share ideas across the different places.
The workshop is organised as part of a knowledge exchange project called Cross-pollination, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project has a budget to support the development and delivery of local initiatives in Battersea, Glasgow and Merthyr, through building on existing projects and resources and through collaborative work.
Following this event, in late April, everyone who wants to take ideas that emerge from this session forward will be invited to participate in a day-long in-person workshop in each place (Battesea, Glasgow and Merthyr) to develop an action plan and make collective decisions about the use of the funds available (£10,000 for each place). Bursaries will be available to help individual community members and those representing volunteer-led initiatives to take part.
The dates for the in-person action planning workshops are:
- Glasgow, Scotland: Tuesday 26th April
- Battersea, London: Thursday 5th May
- Merthyr, Wales: Wednesday 27th April or Thursday 28th April (TBC)
Details of the venues will be confirmed closer to the time.
This activity is organised through the knowledge exchange project Cross-pollination: Growing cross-sector design collaboration in placemaking, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project is a collaboration between The Open University and national charity The Glass-House Community Led Design, working in partnership with the Glasgow Urban Lab and locally-based partners in Merthyr Tydfil and Clapham Junction in London.
Joining online
This workshop will be hosted through Zoom, and will use the online whiteboarding tool Miro. If you are not familiar with these tools, you can find a guide to both on The Glass-House website here. You do not need to have any knowledge or previous experience of Miro to take part. The session is most easily joined on either a laptop or other personal device, and we do not recommend that you share a device with another participant.
Gathering information
During the event we will be recording audio and video and will take screen-shots to help capture and record the activities for further learning, reflection and dissemination. We will provide detailed information about how data will be used and you will be asked to provide informed consent before joining the workshop. We uphold ethical research standards. We will respect expectations of privacy and we will keep all personal information confidential to the extent provided by law.
Please feel free to email us at katerina.alexiou@open.ac.uk or info@theglasshouse.org.uk if you have any queries.