Community Projects in Action

Following the main Sense of Place Conference was the Community Green Spaces day which showcased some current initiatives and brought together the people working on them.

Clay Futures Project – Blackpool Dryers Eco Town Site, 700Ha

Presented by Heidi of Sensory Trust and Juliet of Eden

This project was heralded throughout the conference as an example of best practice. The project has created a space for conversation, has been a very inclusive process and has been very successful at engaging the community. The inclusive process involved creating a wide range of activities including cutting and sticking, looking at aerial maps, creating films about their place… the whole process was designed to help people feel confident in presenting their thoughts.

To help establish a new sense of community people were asked to design a new celebration for their community. This brought up ideas of what people thought was worth celebrating and also what they saw a sense of community as. It also brought up a positive connection to place.

People were then asked what they would like to change. The aerial maps really helped and may people focused on the green space around their community. It was interesting too that it brought out some very different ideas and feelings, for example some people thought that the green space should be used as a buffer between the community and the new eco town, where as others saw it being developed as a shared meeting/linking space.

When asked what types of homes they wanted, access to green spaces was a priority, as was energy efficiency, safe walking to amenities and affordability. They also wanted the homes to be low density and reflect local character. Teenagers wanted clubs and social spaces and open and green spaces were the second on their list.

Most people wanted their celebrations to be held outside.

When asked what new places they would like to see, they were all outdoors; places to ride bikes, natural play areas, allotments, skate parks and community gardens.

When asked what green spaces they value they said; public parks and play spaces, walking, cycling, natural/wild areas and places to grow things.

When asked what would make them use these spaces more the answers were; accessibility, growing space, better maintenance

When children were asked the most common things they wanted was more flowers in their environment, in lots of different colours.

Gardening in Later Life

Presented by Angie Hart of CUPP

The Community Gardens in Later Life and Edible Campus projects are CUPP initiatives, created in response to the fact that people are retiring in better health and are more active. They are also living longer, but with ailments.

People in old age are not kept active. They move into retirement homes or sheltered housing and do little. This has negative physical and psychological implications.

Sheltered housing centre already had a gardener so had to be approached with care. Lots of different attitudes to this from residents. Some worried that they were stepping on his toes or he would lose his job, whilst others questioned why they should be gardening when he gets paid for it! After lots of debate and discussion, the residents decided that he could do the grass and the driveway and carparks, and they would do the fun bits; flower beds, bulbs and shrubs.

Then there was the question of how to work. Some people wanted to work together, an others wanted their own little bit of garden.

The ideas for what to do next include writing a newsletter to tell other residents what is happening and how they can get involved (another member of the community might want to be newsletter editor).

Although there is often lots of expertise among old people with regard to gardening, in this case there wasn’t so much so an expert was brought in.

Bugle Greenspace

Presented by Kevin

Bugle Greenspace is a volunteer led group working at the community level to influence their local surroundings. They run regular activities so that people can start to get involved in the local community and effect change for a sustainable future.

The group started in April 2008 in response to the eco town announcement. The plan was to build houses on an old industrial and on open spaces in the current community. The plan was for 500 houses, a 33% increase on what is currently there.

The green spaces in and around Bugle are very old and well established and so are really rich in wildlife. Residents were outraged that this was going to be lost. Also when they looked at the plans, they found that the developers were going to build on the current green spaces and then turn the old industrial places into green spaces!

Questionnaire sent to community revealed that 91% of people wanted to keep the green spaces. 75% wanted allotments. They also had interests in farmers markets.

The community concerns and ideas were put to Imerys who revised their plans to take into account community ideas and conserve more green spaces. The new plans looks to fit into the environment much more naturally. There are also plans to use fruit trees for the avenues .

Although it was around the issue of the eco town that they were motivated to get together, members of the Bugle community have also been doing other projects in their green spaces. An unloved area that was full of rubbish has been cleaned up. They did this with no funding, just volunteers and borrowed resources. 45 people of all ages got involved in the clean up.

A second day was then organised which involved 2 options – some people worked inside on projects such as bug home and bird box building (boxes have been used by birds this year) and others went back to the clean up site. Having contacted the Parish they had permission to do something with it, they were given fruit trees by Eden, cut the grass etc. They managed to get bins given to them for free but have had to raise a little money for some things. When it was all complete they had a Picnic in the Park day which they held on the National Big Lunch Day. This included sack races and games, with prizes scrounged from local business and a raffle. Imerys provided a Marquee.

The next steps for the community are to keep the momentum going and prevent the return of apathy. They are currently looking at the development of a bike track and some allotments and the continue discussion with Imerys regarding the eco town.

Kevin’s final words

it is important to tell others what you are doing – then you get support

if you get off your bum you get results

don’t let the apathy get you down!!

Diggin it – Plymouth Community Garden

Presented by Jeannie Robinson and Dave Sharp

Diggin it is a community project by Routeways designed to connect lots of groups within the community through gardening.

Funding was obtained through the Big Lottery to fund 3 positions and a site, then covered in brambles, close to the city centre was found. The project was about growing food and teaching people to grow food. People brought in together not in groups of similar types (had seen examples of where drug abusers all together, or blind people all together etc. becomes dysfunctional at break times as all talk about their problems/biggest fix etc instead of moving on). The biggest change was seen in people with mental health problems.

Unfortunately, as with many projects there is difficulty in securing ongoing funding. People want to fund new projects instead. Have had to change project to get more funding.

The gardening is organic but they are not certified as the cost of certification is too high. Sell their produce and have recently acquired a shed to use as a shop on the premises.

St Neot Doorstep Green

Presented by Derek

St Neot Doorstep Green is an inspiring green space developed on land donated by a villager with the help of a £60,000 grant.

It includes sweeping paths an amphitheatre and has direct access for the school.

The project came about when the land was donated but was unable to be used for its intended purpose (a bowling green and tennis court) due to the slope down to the river. It was also landlocked with buildings on 3 sides and a river on the fourth so a bridge had to be built.

At the start of the development some ideas were put down on a paper and a 2 day long community consultation was held. The ideas of the community were then used to revise the plans and another  day consultation was held. After a few more amendments they started looking for grants.

The plans changed along the way but Derek stressed the importance of befriending your funder when this is happening. Invite them down lots – let your project be part of their personal achievement and they will support you all the way.

Over 2000 voluntary hours went into the project and this included people from all aspects of the community.

Sveva Gallman on Linking Generations Through Narrative

These are my notes from the presentation by Sveva Gallman of the Gallman Foundation and the Sense of Place Conference.

Sveva was working on a different project when a conversation with an old man set her thinking. He told her that

…last week the creative rain fell, but it has been chased away. The young people think it will be ok, they are planting the crops and moving the livestock, tough we old people know they wont survive…

The reason for this was that

Once our father god and our mother nature were married and had a good relationship, but now god has married a step mum – science – sometimes she is kind and sometimes we don’t know what she is doing behind the scenes.

At the same time Sveva saw that the youth were disengaged, powerless, disillusioned and unemployed. Sveva was also saddened that this information from this old man was not getting passed on to the younger people.

Sveva set about creating the Four Generations Project which engaged youth to capture knowledge from the elders. It also captured identity, hopes, dreams and fears for the future.

The project was based on the philosophies of Jung and Campbell and ran through secondary schools. It gave young people questions rather than answers, who are we and where are we from? The students went to their communities to find the answers and the brought them back to school.

A drama was created.

Sveva was asked to run a similar project in Romania.

The following image is a photograph of the visual notes taken at the conference

Angie Hart on Resilience, Partnerships and Community

Professor Angie Hart is is the Academic Director of the Community University Partnership Program (CUPP) at the University of Brighton.

Resilience – doing better than you thought you might in the circumstances. Working relentlessly towards a positive outcome. The definitions of resilience has evolved in recent years from an internal individual thing, to include processes.

We need resilience to help us to deal with the ‘continual redisorganisation of bureaucracies’

The Lewes Road Community Garden was one example talked about.

CUPP have produce both a DVD and a Book

The image below is a photograph of the visual notes taken at the conference

Saffron Woodcraft on Building Neighbourliness and Belonging in New Communities

These are my notes from the presentation by Saffron Woodcraft of The Young Foundation at the Sense of Place Conference.

The Young Foundation takes it’s name from Michael Young a social entrepreneur that worked in London.

The foundation carries out action research in communities and turns ideas into reality. A new program, Future Communities, looks at the social elements of planned new builds.

Saffrons questions: Neighbourliness and belonging – what are they and why are they important?

A sense of belonging can be experienced on 3 levels.

• Individual – family, friends and people close around us (strongest sense of belonging)
• Collective – wider networks, familiar strangers, professional networks
• National – shared values, governance (weakest sense of belonging)

Belonging becomes a bigger issue in more uncertain times. Feedback circuits of shared values and ideas have a connection to and an influence on belonging.

Some ways in which we get  a sense of belonging include

• religion
• voluntary organisations
• home neighbourhood and the physical environment
• power and politics
• economy
• family and friends

There is a common assumption that we all used to be more neighbourly, but now we travel out of our neighbourhood for more and more things such a s work and shopping, and spend less time interacting in our neighbourhoods. there are more cars and less opem spaces for interaction.

But despite this people still have a strong idea that neighbourliness is a good thing.

Defining Neighbourliness:

Manifest – social interaction

– mutual help and exchange

Latent – feelings or inclinations toward neighbourliness when needed

The Manchester neighbourliness review defined neighbourliness as

1. Awareness of the situation of other residents
2. Respect their privacy
3. Support when needed

There are many challenges and obstacles for new communities as communities and neighbourliness are established over time. Can help with

• social infrastructure and amenities
• culture and social life
• voice and influence
• space to grow

Things that help people to belong to a community include

• Greeters (people that specifically welcome new people to the community and help them with practical aspects – happens with migrants to Adelaide)
• Micro grants for neighbourhood projects to get started
• Places to meet
• Lots of information sources

A low cost example of bringing community together is from Haringey in London. Very divers and transient community. Project “Under One Sun” invites people from across the community to come together and cook for each other – over the sharing of food they talk about where they are from, their fears and anxieties and what they are looking for from their community.

The following image is a photograph of the visual minutes taken at the conference

Kate Braithwaite on Positive Outlooks for Rural Communities

There are my notes from the session with Kate Braithwaite of the Carnegie Trust at the Sense of Place Conference.

What are the important sources of life satisfaction and well being for community?

We need to value:

• natural
• human
• social
• cultural
• built and
• financial capital

Only that last 2 on this list are currently valued.

A strange thing is going on in this country – we currently need to prove how deprived we are to get funding. If we improve, we need to look for new statistics to prove that we are failing. Parts of England can appear more deprived than Romania using these indices.

There are three enabling conditions for community wellbeing

• skills
• community led planning
• assets (not just land and building but people, culture, political, natural, social, ideas etc – these are harder to measure!)

First encourage people to list the assets of a place. This opens people up to the idea that their place does have potential. The best community led planning involves everyone and is not about setting the community up for a ‘project’ but for life.

Facilitating community led planning is a skill area that we are short of but which is in growing demand.

Community Land Trusts are a mechanism for the democratic ownership of land by the local community

The Carnegie UK Trust has launched a ‘Fiery Spirits‘ Community of Practice to connect people.

There are big challenges ahead. Instead of focusing on what the problems might be, we need to think about how we can best deal with things whatever.

Cargnegie has, or is planning collaborations with the following organisations;

Highlands and Islands Enterprise

Centre for Alternative Technology

Eden

Tipperary Institute

Falkland Centre for Stewardship

The image below is a photograph of the visual notes taken at the conference.

Susan Humphries on School as the Heart of a Community

My notes from a presentation by Susan Humphries at the Sense of Place Conference. Susan is a retired head teacher, formerly of The Coombes Infant and Nursery School. She was awarded an MBE in 1995 and an honorary Masters degree from the Open University in 1999, each for her services to education.

Susan opened her presentation by talking about how nice it was to be at the conference in the company of other idealists, and how this environment contrasted with that of schools. Schools, she said, are very political places; they put huge pressure on people to conform, to stream, to stratify and to toe a government line which is suffocating. The practices that she promotes are in conflict with that, and have an emphasis on non-conformity and invention.

Case study of the Clay Workshop

Working in the area of their school, with people from the community, the children explored the layers of dirt in the ground around their school and, with the help of a local man and his machine, extracted some clay. This gave the children a real understanding of where the clay came from and helped them to realise the importance of the ground. They then put this clay on a plastic sheet fitted with ropes and worked together as a team to drag the clay across the field and back to their school, thus experiencing the weight of the clay and working together as a team.  The students then experiences the joy of getting messy and working their own clay. Students just experienced the clay at first, with no set goal. This type of exploration elicits ideas that may seem unremarkable, but turn out to be quite wise.

After a period of play, the students were asked to create a sheep. All of the students in the school did this and the sheep were exhibited together in the garden and parents and other community members were invited in to see them. The exhibit was inspired by the work of Antony Gormley where a single figure becomes more important as more are added, again building on the sense of community.

There was no academic focus for this project – no going and writing about it afterward to justify the experience – just constant experiment and connection to earth and place, and seeing a process from collection, through working, to creating and presenting. When the exhibition was open students presented their sheep how they wanted to. Many were placed together on rocks and the students collected moss to represent grass. During their exhibition, which was well attended by the community, students had the chance to observe, to watch, to think, to create and wander around.

After the exhibit the animals were reconstituted. That is, that each child’s sculpture was broken down and remoulded to create something else. This was felt to be important to create an understanding of the cycling of resources. In compensation for the reconstitution of their models, each child was given 500g of clay to take home and work to create something for their own garden. The actual clay that had once been individual student’s sheep was brought together once again to create a large clay oven in the school grounds. Each child played a part in the construction of this one clay oven. Everybody had to bring in 2 or 3 bricks from their own garden. This helped to develop the idea that collectively we can do things together. Once the oven was complete the students made some bread which was cooked in the oven and shared.

Creation of Labyrinths

Labyrinths are different to mazes in that there are no barriers, you can’t go the wrong way. To walk the entire length of the labyrinth that Susan created with the students takes about 18 minutes. The labyrinth was first marked out with rope and then painted. The paths need to be about 1m wide so that people can pass. Students and the community (about 100 people in total) walked together through the labyrinth. Walking in the labyrinth takes you into a contemplative state and connects you with place. Children generally walk in silence without eve being asked. Labyrinths can be created with lose paving so that children can reset them. In the school yard at Coombes, all things are impermanent and created by kids. This is considered much better than huge permanent plastic  school playground stuff. You can find directions for creating a labyrinth here.

The two day museum

Susan has used the two day museum concept for several projects. The idea is that everybody brings something in for an exhibition around a particular theme. Bringing the items together as a collection gives them importance and significance. Creates an understanding of the commonwealth of ownership as the things have meaning when brought together for sharing, and mean less when away in the cupboard at home. At the end of the 2 days the items return to their homes. Precious items may go into an ‘eyes only’ section of the exhibition, but some may be in a section you can touch.

The following image is a photograph of the visual notes taken at the conference.

Tony Kendle on Rebuilding Connections between People and Place

My notes from Tony Kendle’s Presentation at the Sense of Place Conference. Tony is Foundation Director of the Eden Project.

We live in an increasingly ‘placeless’ society. Things that rooted us together in the past, within a community that has knowledge of its place, have fallen apart. Our communities have become fragmented and disconnected.

Some of the things which have contributed to this are transport and moving around – most people work in a different place to where they live, and the centralisation of the education education system has taken away the opportunity to learn about your own place in school. All of these things serve to divorce us from the place we live in. We are an ignorant generation in that we know so little about ourselves and what is around us. We are also ignorant of memories and meanings and simple things such as why places have the names that they do. We are ignorant about who we are and what people in our community do.

We can live divorced from our place if we wish! Does it actually matter?

The 21st Century is bringing many challenging and potentially world changing issues such as peak oil, climate change, population rises, displaced communities, climate change, recession… Would being better connected to our place be of benefit as we face these challenges?

Lets explore one example that we have all heard about: Climate Change. The Climate Change Act was passed in 2008 with very little public consultation. It requires an 80% reduction in CO2 over the next 40 years. This is dramatic. Do we mitigate or adapt? Local action could have a big impact on reducing emissions. Lots of change coming, but lots of opportunity too.

When we debate about what it is important to learn at school one thing we need to consider is that things you need to know in unstable times are very different from what you need to know in easy times. Sustainability is teaching people to be able to know about the things we don’t know about yet. The future will be a time rich in surprise.

There is a problem with trying to solve problems with the attitudes which created them in the first place.

Individual contributions aren’t enough. What is important is what we do collectively as a society.

One of the things that we could do to help climate change for example is to get together with our neighbours and share some food. Sharing the preparation of food saves emissions. You also meet new people and have new conversations. The Big Lunch explores this idea

“Let’s all express our talents, get over our embarrassment, shake hands and work with our neighbours and realise that the neighbourhood where we live is the biggest untapped source of happiness we possess. The way to tackle this recession and global warming is through Human Warming.” Paul Twivy.

The answers for dealing with our future rich in surprise remain unknown, but what we do know about are the skills and values that will be needed. These include creativity and innovation. Ideas come from talking to others, seeing different things and different places. It is important to mix with people that don’t have the same ideas as you – that’s where innovative ideas emerge.

Change asks us to let go of some stuff and also to decide what to try and hold on to. Some challenges in history came from when people didn’t let go of old ideas. Sometimes we need to unlearn big conceptions and change our habits of thought.

For example: How to peel a banana – We have habits regarding the way we do things, but there could be a simpler better way.

Some things are so deeply woven into our culture that we don’t even see them as assumptions.

Another value required for the future is generosity. Human relationships are generally transactional. The origin of the word ‘community’ comes from two words meaning ‘together’ and ‘gifts’. At the heart of that gift – one day I might need you, so your survival matters to me.

There are always crack in the inevitable and the obvious.

Light a fire and people gather and start talking.

The Eco town proposals have lit a fire. It provides a chance to practice what the world could look like. What is the land used for now? So much of the community has been erased by mining. Eden was also an erased place. What does good look like? An eco town requires much more thought than a New Town. Some of the lessons from the clay lands will be experienced across the country in the next 100 years.

Tony ended his talk with a quote from Arthur Whitehead

“Without venture civilisation will be in decay”

Tony’s summary of the whole conference:

The more you focus on a local story, the more you find truths that are transferrable

The image below is a photograph of the visual minutes taken during the conference

Sam Harrison on Placed Based Practice – Learning in the Landscape

Sam Harrison runs a business called Open Ground, a place based educational service and consultancy, based in Argyll, Scotland. Sam provides education for school students, training for teachers and does his own research. Sam’s work was of particular interest to me as it is along very similar lines to ideas I have had – although my place is a different one of course.

How to structure an experience around place

• Begin with using senses, but move on to ecology, history, geology, economy, place names… and how all of this fits together.

• Work with the community and the estate, giving them input into what students should learn – provides a richer experience and different perspectives
• Make as much of it place based as possible – an example Sam used here was the need to provide a shelter, so after careful research a teepee style tent was chosen – a similar style was depicted in that by a painter in the 17th century – this too becomes part of the story.

Sam showed several examples of the students work, including a short film which the students created and starred in.

Some points for consideration

• Different levels of ‘space’ ( my house, street, community, county, country…)
• Is a sense of place personal or a co creation of people and places?
• Sam referred to Peter Reason‘s multifaceted experiences and ways of knowing
• Who’s place? Can someone not from that place lead an learning inquiry into it?
• Where do you do it? Many outdoor ed programs put kids in a bus and take them to another place rather than learning in their own place…

I really enjoyed Sam’s presentation – not only because it was some good work well presented but also because it provoked as many questions as it gave answers. I hope to stay in touch with Sam and see where his research leads.

Jack Shelton on Rural Education and Community Development

Jack Shelton, Executive Director of PACERS talked toady at the Sense of Place Conference, about a number of initiatives he has worked on with rural communities in Alabama. The projects are purposeful and make the most of the local community and resources. Students run businesses, produce newspapers and publish books (among other things). Instead of studying history they work as historians to research their book, and instead of studying science, they work as fish biologists on their own aquaculture enterprise, or design, build and install their own solar passive technologies.

My notes from Jack’s talk are rather scattered and unorganised – but I am going to publish them anyway as they contain so many salient points. Have a look at the website or contact Jack for a more comprehensive account of his work.

Some things Jack said:

• Everybody has to be someplace
• Formal education does not seem to be aware that people are in places
• Test Scores are it – and nothing else matters
• The community no longer has a voice in schools – schools may be tax supported but they are no longer public. Communities are no longer the owners of schools but consumers of them
• Schools are regurgitative institutions – they are NOT in the business of creating knowledge
• When you DO something relevant, people SEE the relevance
• A goal for PACERS is to study science through the means of money generating units
• It is entrepreneurial – business plans are a requirement
• No funding is given to schools unless it goes through a supporting community body (there is actually no need to do the projects in schools and communities can do them outside of school)

Project Examples

• researching and publishing oral histories
• fish farming
• solar hot water heaters for elders
• food production in solar passive greenhouses
• community newspapers

Principles

• Learning by doing
• Interacting with community
• Connecting with the place you live
• Connecting with elders
• Exercising maximum political influence
• All are programs which allow leadership to emerge rather than depending on it to get started

Will Coleman on a Sense of Place

The Sense of Place Conference got off to a great start for me this morning when Will Coleman, Ambassador for Place Based Learning, stood up to introduce the day. Will is an excellent speaker and story teller who made me both laugh and cry during his short time on stage. He also said a lot of things which resonated deeply within me, on both a personal and professional level. Will has promised to post his power point on the website, and when he does I’ll add a link. Meantime here are a few notes I made.

For much of his teaching career, Will was teaching in what is described as a ‘deprived area’ in Cornwall. An area in which the general message from teachers to students is to get out. He spoke of his advisor in his first week of teaching telling him the best thing he could for his kids was teach them how to read and write so they could apply for jobs outside of the area and leave. There is a well communicated message that if you don’t get out you have failed.

The above could so easily be describing Fenland, where I was born and have worked as a teacher, and Central Australia – two places very close to my heart. What if, instead of striving as individuals to get out, collectively, we worked to improve the place we live in?

When asked “what is education for?” the answers from educators can generally be placed on a continuum from

to give individuals the means for upward mobility

to

to empower the next generation to take collective responsibility for the world they inhabit

Will, like myself, has a preference for the second, and believes that our education system has too great a focus on hyperindividualism and is standards driven to the point where little else matters. He also spoke of corporate capitalism and the impact of media advertising on students. The results of these and other influences have led to individualisation, uprooting, lack of participation, economic dependency, environmental degradation and community breakdown. People no longer ‘live’ in their community, they just reside there.

He quoted Paul Theobald in Teaching the Commons (1997)

“Placelessness erodes the ability to commit to much of anything other than our own self interest…”

When people talk of a Curriculum for the Future they usually mention IT and then get stuck. What about the impact of financial turmoil, climate chaos, peak oil, and population displacement? Possible solutions for the future of our curriculum being explored though Placed Based Learning take teaching and learning, citizenship and sustainabilty and synthesise them through the notion of place.

Will also made a reference to The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place by David A Gruenewald

He also talked quickly about some great projects he had worked with local schools, including one looking at where food comes from – hopefully there will be more details of this on his power point.

Thanks Will for creating a great day, and apologies if my interpretation of your talk doesn’t fully represent what you were trying to communicate.