Client handover

Steve and the design team

Gris and Sarah giving the presentation to the worshipping community

Before the new studio project began i went and visited the ARCH exhibition in All Hallows which was tremendously interesting to see the church take on this transformation and the coming together of the work by Trish and Simon. During the event I spoke to Steve, stating that we should keep in contact with the church to understand the impact of the work undertaken, whether or not it proves useful, which bits were more interesting for the church and also to understand to see what, if anything will be taken forward. We had said that a sensible time for this discussion would be the churches AGM (Annual General Meeting) meeting in April, as here they will discuss all aspects of church life, its ethos and direction for the upcoming year.

Before the new studio project began i went and visited the ARCH exhibition in All Hallows which was tremendously interesting to see the church take on this transformation and the coming together of the work by Trish and Simon.

Photo's of the ARCH exhibition (looks familiar Peter)

So student involvement has now finished on All Hallows and we have all gone our separate ways. I know we would like to thank all the workers and members of All Hallows for their hospitality and generosity throughout the design process. The experience gained by the entire design team through client and community interaction will prove invaluable to our individual architectural and social development and we can only hope that the work undertaken on behalf of the church and community centre act as a tool to guide the future of a valuable social resource.

University presentation

Badges were required for that performance

Congratulations to Gris and Sarah for their superb presentation, it was very clear, professional, concise and well received by all who attended. As a collective we would like to thank you for your hard work and hope you have a peaceful and stress free night tonight.

Thanks and well done.

Group meeting

...don't do it, being an artist would have been a much better idea

So...3 days of work left before the presentation, by then we should have finished;

• the powerpoint presentation and the narrative
• the document for client hand-over
• the design of the boards for the ARCH exhibition, and
• time to eat and sleep

As a group we went through a draft document, noting points of concern as we went along whilst providing a more precise structure to the document. Issues that were raised during todays discussion were,

1. Li would attend the lecture tomorrow instead of Gris
2. Gris and Sarah would head the university presentation with all group members responding to questions baed on their input in the questions topic
3. All work would be given to Tim for Carolyn's review by Tuesday morning (at the very latest)
4. All revised work from Carolyn's meeting would be sent to Tim on Wednesday, by 1pm to allows the group to discuss the presentation and its narrative along with the production of the boards
5. We would print and bind the final booklet on Friday
6. We would print the boards and mount them on Friday

Unresolved issues;

1. Who attends Sundays presentation at All Hallows
2. Who are the speakers at this presentation

Document revision

A revision of the document will be sent out for review before tomorrows meeting. If all could look through it and send through their draft information before the meeting that would beneficial to the discussion.

Promotion of ARCH event

Promotion of the ARCH event in community centres

Today I went to Leeds to tie up a few loose ends, speak to some community centre representatives and promote the ARCH event to local enterprises. Whilst doing this, I was speaking to a representative of the Woodhouse Community Centre who was enthusiastic about the work we are doing and that evening was meeting representatives of the LUU to discuss volunteer dispersion throughout the ward, she then offered to out discuss the work we are doing with the university activity groups in relation to possible voluntary activity within All Hallows. During this discussion we talked about some of All Hallows members joining the 'community transformers' scheme which she stated would be the most sensible step for All Hallows in relation to the implementation and progression of the live project.

Group meeting

The meeting today with Carolyn today and subsequent group meeting provided some further confirmation of specific roles for the university presentation and handover criteria along with the a series of future dates for these events. We have confirmed that the handover to the client will be a table meeting with the PCC, talking about the processes involved in attaining the information and the reasoning for the design choices that have been made, this meeting will last for approximately 1hour and the size of group that will attend has not yet been discussed.

Consensus has been achieved on the document style, it formatting and that it will be a singular document, conceived as a narrative of the progression of the design process.

ROLES CONFIRMED

Gris - Uploading of information to the universities website (attendance of lecture on Monday)

Tim - Production, printing and binding of document for hand-over

Question time

It would be great if everyone could email questions they wish to be asked or points they require clarification on to their relevant group representatives (Sarah, Qi and Vas). This is obviously the last chance that we will get to speak to Steve and any members of the PCC before the final handover and accordingly is of importance.

Along with this it would be good if, at the group meeting on Thursday that people could come along with ideas for the university presentation, its format, the areas of focus that were considered in relation to the amount of time we have to present, what should be presented and who / how this will be done. Everybody should be thinking of this!

KEY DATES

• Thursday 28th - at 4pm in the studio to discuss the document, its legibility and coherence
• Sunday 31st - at 10am at the IC building in a meeting room which has still to be confirmed
• Thursday 4th November - University presentation
• Sunday 7th November - PCC Handover date
• Saturday 12th November - ARCH exhibition

Voluntary Community and Faith Sector Learning in Leeds

I just stumbled across this document - and was wondering why All Hallows is not included? any ideas?

http://www.leedsvoice.org.uk/about/publications/leeds_learningdirectory.pdf

Also, what about Third Sector Leeds?

Third Sector Leeds is a partnership group of voluntary and community organisations, charities, faith groups and social enterprises working in Leeds. It aims to be the point of engagement with the third sector in Leeds, working together to: develop third sector policies; engage with and influence decision makers and co-ordinate representation of the third sector on statutory partnerships and boards.

They are having an open event on Monday 1st November 2010 9am -12pm Leeds Civic Hall, (in the wake of the Government’s comprehensive spending review) to discuss how the voluntary, community and faith sector responds to the coming budget cuts. 

Alan Gay and Sandie Keene from Leeds City Council’s corporate leadership team will be speaking. There will also be a question and answer session with Alan, Sandie and LCC’s Chief Executive Tom Riordan.

This will be your chance to quiz Leeds City Council on how the budget cuts will affect your organisation and to decide how to work together as a sector. You’ll also get to hear about the work Third Sector Leeds has been doing to represent the sector in its first year of operation. Please note the last hour of the meeting will be for Third Sector representatives only.

Places are free but booking is essential. You can book online here.

If you have any questions please email info@thirdsectorleeds.org.uk or call 0113 213 2592

Download the TSL Interim Terms of Reference

Voluntary Action Leeds

Doing some contact research for All Hallows I have come across an organisation called Voluntary Action Leeds who provide funding assistance for Voluntary Community Faiths Sector organisations (of which All Hallows is) along with paid training events such as fundraising, governance; management, skills development, volunteering, finance, employment along with providing help on finding volunteers within the area. They seem like an organisation we should make the PCC aware of as membership would be free to the community centre side of the church.

Materials libraries

Catherine Douglas - Fine art photographer

Some of the guys were asking earlier of the whereabouts of textures and materials so here are some free resources for people, trees and materials.

Trees and people:

http://www.vyonyx.com/index.php

http://www.kropped.com/groups.html

Materials:

http://www.accustudio.com/index.php?option=com_phocagallery&view=category&id=1&Itemid=77

Enjoy

Activity possibilities

There is are endless possibilities to what could happen internally to within and around All Hallows. From the previous research on the provision of surrounding community facilities it seems wise to approach the arts and crafts market although it should be dependant upon the available skill-set of the existing members of the church, along with suggesting a few schemes that do not necessarily require prior training, but solely involve sensitive social interaction. I formulated a quick list of possibilities for discussion tomorrow, some classics are in there.

Documentation of community centre activity

A list of the current provision of social activities within the area from the various centres. Some interesting thoughts can be had from this as all other community centres have significantly more staff than All Hallows (20 - 40 members generally), of which the majority are full or part time staff. It suggests one of three things to me (or quite possibly a combination of the three),

1. All Hallows is overstretching their limited resources by providing a plethora of activities or,
2. the activities provided are quite unique in the area and therefore are not advertised adequately or,
3. the community is unresponsive to this provision of these activities

There does seem to be a lack of creative resources in the area, a distinct lack of greenery in the urban realm (therefore no gardening skills or requirement thereof), no knitting circles, no public art, a lack of cultural facilities and as Li commented, no cooking or baking classes.

Business plan example?

From the heated discussion on Friday about, who pays for the resource? All or none, the Woodhouse Community Centre has an interesting business model which is worth a quick peek, where some pay for membership to certain classes, others use the facilities for free, some volunteer for work on a casual and long term basis whilst others, permanent staff are paid flat rate per hour.

Skills sharing

© John Ward : Woodhouse Community Centre Leeds _ Gardening Collective

I was just thinking that possibly we should be considering the skills sharing as a tool for engagement with other community and religious organisations? If a member or members of the All Hallows was capable and willing to participate in an event such as the "Community Transformers Scheme" (looking at how to undertake community research, consultation and organisational strategies) in the Woodhouse community centre they would have more empathy to this centre and also gain National accreditation in community development. From this All Hallows could then collaborate with Woodhouse Community Centre or form its own scheme for environmental, social and economical sustainability. Seems pretty sensible and would fit into a longer term vision for skills sharing and networking of the community centre.

Network simplification

Any views /objections to these simplified networking diagrams, layout, legibility of diagrams, amount of information etc.?

Itinerary for ARCH exhibition week

Where should we aim for to hand over the work to the PCC? Saturday the 13th, either before 1pm or somewhere between 3 - 6pm?

What do you all think?

Funding document skeleton proposal

Another thing to think about over the weekend is the structure of the document(s) we will produce. I previously suggested two documents for the hand-in:

1. a funding document - including a business plan, context of organisation strategy, a template for individual funding proposals and timeline of suggestive proposals (if possible)
2. a process document - including documentation of working techniques (participation, meetings, discussions with external parties, events, blog etc.), all of the options, their testing, possible avenues of funding for these options and how we produced their business plan

I have produced a skeleton contents list for the funding document and it would be great to get everyones opinion on additions and subtractions of it: (all text in this colour will be completed by the church in relation to what amount of funding they are looking for in relation to sets of proposals we provide)

1. Vision of the church - What funding / time is required to create this vision, why is the church applying for funding
2. Overview of the church - What is the churches ethos - What the church provides the community with, activities, solace, belonging - The relevance of the church within the community and why it is important to retain and expand upon the social uses of the spaces
3. Analysis of the church - The proposed organisational strategy / business plan of the church, their analysis of local community centres and religious institutions, SWOT (strengths weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, PEST (political, economic, social, technological) analysis of the area, the expertise of the church in relation to the prior analysis
4. Funding requirements - Financial breakdown of the company, past funding schemes / grants applied for / received, what the proposed funding / grant would be used for, the proposed outcomes from the funding and a timeline for of the proposal
5. Implementation - How this work would be carried out and how the work would be sustained
6. Conclusion - What outcomes wold be expected from this
7. People / Acknowledgements - An image of the PCC and small descriptions of them and their interests

Everyones opinions on the structure of the document is critical to getting this right, so comments should be made on the proposals please. I will look at the layout of the process document over the weekend if I have time.

Group meeting

Donations? Fixed fees?

Interesting meeting (...at times) in the studio today. A lot was covered, it is now time to generate the work for Mondays revision and amalgamation of the results. Discussion was had on the a series of issues relating to the interconnectivity of each groups work and the a critique session ensued.

Wall

From this, we decided that the storage wall will take a different form on the inside of the church hall to its face upon the corridor, it will provide a series of functions (to be determined from necessity and requirements from the research the community group is doing) and will have different profile throughout the building, encapsulating the entranceway so the occupant enters through the thickened wall. For this to be done it was discussed that an itinerary of existing furniture was required to move forward.

Chapel

Further investigation was required on the chapel with attempts to make the space more flexible, multi-functional, tactile, atmospheric etc. with an understanding of the intentions behind the proposals produced. This could be investigated through the making of a 1:20 model

Site proposals

Investigation in to the ways of ascending the topography (from the back of the church) was required.

A more fluid and less formal landscaping strategy for the back of the church was discussed along with alternative suggestions for the front landscaping (including making the space more temporal, less formal, having an intimate space within the memorial garden and extending the memorial garden)

A window strategy was unresolved for the rear of the church

If you feel something is missing, please edit the post.

Case study for our scheme?

Self perpetuating organisation in Leeds that previously was a church.

Very similar to what we perceive All Hallows to be, in that the church wished to retain its spirtual significance whilst opening its doors, freely to the public to use the building as an artistic and creative resource.

"This project is focused on producing a business plan, with four strands of activity, which can be developed. The business plan reflects the goal to operate without a reliance on grants, but there is an acceptance that grant funding will be required to undertake the necessary alterations to the building to turn it into a viable arts venue...The arts activities have helped to raise the profile of the church in the community and they demonstrate how open and accessible the church venue is for everybody"

Group meeting

Secret passageways

We went through our progress so far with Carolyn today, discussing the intentions behind our each groups proposals, leading to conversations around the longevity of the certain interventions and the possibilities of using the existing skills base of the church to direct viable and achievable interventions. Also suggesting that we become more ambitious in our long term proposals.

Along with this we thought of producing an open ended business plan for the church which would based on the NCVO's Sustainable Sun Needs Analysis Tool. Thus providing the church with a tool to comprehend their sustainability status and also providing them with possible paths of progression and a possible educational resource.

Networking diagram

Just to keep everyone informed, i am making some adjustments to the networking diagrams and including the religious networks onto some of these, initially understanding their individual organisational networks and then overlaying them upon a abstract geographical base. This will then be extended to include those centres who are willing to engage with us on a broad community level. It seems to be going well so far.

Religious and community organisations positioning

Religious and community organisations willingness to engage with the project (so far)

All Hallows Church religious interaction

All Hallows Church community interaction

The intention is to compile these onto a few pages for knowledge of who to engage in the process and also for a future networking proposal.

Walk of friendship

Interfaith and community group solidarity event in Leeds, in which All Hallows participates.

"Saturday 01st May 2010, members of the community from various cultural and religious backgrounds joined together as 'one' for the Walk Of Friendship, to walk through some of the streets of Leeds, with paying visits to spiritual sites and places of worship."

Friendface

Christmas has come early guys...All Hallows are on Friendface. It seems relatively inactive though (one post every month or two) and is used to publicise specific religious and social events, almost separately as there is another friendface group for the live acoustic nights.

It seems like a tool for ex-congregation members to remain in contact with the worshipping community.

Great quote from the group wall :

"Happy memories with my children there we used to cycle to church like a family of ducks in a row"

Group meeting

10 DAYS TO DRAFT DOCUMENT SUBMISSION

28th October

The general outcome of the meeting today was that, all of the work done so far has been useful, but requires categorisation and its importance considered in relation to its position within the final funding document. Therefore, for Thursday each group should have a comprehensive contents list for their specific section and a general understanding of a graphical layout.

For the finding document we need to consider a standard requirement criteria, which seems to encompass recording statistical evidence of engagement; examples of this would be documenting :

• how many people took part in the activity
• the age group of the participants
• the ethnicity of the participants
• the people who passively saw the activity occur
• the people who actively engaged with the activity

The next group meeting with Carolyn will be on Thursday at 2pm where we will present some preliminary images (to confirm a graphical style) and a comprehensive contents list to confirm the necessity of all the information in creating a coherent document for client hand-over.

Funding document graphical style

Binding style

Open bind / string bind - Allowing for adjustments to page layouts of each section. Making the document extendable after the hand over

Document size

I have a personal preference for an A4 Portrait Document. More manageable for the client, business like and friendly to pick up and read than and A4, I feel that the portrait page format is more elegant than landscape page format.

Chapter division / Specialism division

Colourful inlays (rainbow coloured if possible) - These will divide the document into community, site and building interventions

Page layout

Jan Tschichold (just a suggestion, if anyone prefers a different grid system, please mention it) - Simplicity and proportion should enhance the reading of the drawing, there should be a consistency to page layouts with a simple grid layout forming the basis of the design, this grid can be broken to highlight important images / diagrams. The design below is only an indication of how it could be done, I probably would alter the position of the grid slightly, although its a classic document grid

Graphics

Line-drawings - Clean black and white diagrams for the most simple drawings (if applicable, may better to use polychromatic diagrams instead of monochromatic depictions)

Swatch palette

A swatch palette has not been defined yet...although I would suggest that we a colourful and friendly palette based loosely on a rainbow spectrum. I don't think they should be overly saturated or desaturated colours. Tentatively I would suggest the following 7 colours (that should be enough for all the diagrams we will produce) These colours would be combined with a clean line drawing (such as those above)

Example of the palette in a drawing

Hand-over extendability

CD / DVD of document and the programme files

Fonts

Minion Pro (Body text) and Gentium Book (Chapter titles) - Just a suggestion because I think we need to be considering this now. my preference for this document is a serifed font, giving historical connotations to what is produced and also a sense of progressive knowledge (and they're really nice fonts and i have the font families for each)

Minion pro

Gentium book

I'm quite happy to talk to all about their suggestions for the document style as this is quite early and i'm sure everyone wants to create something that is coherent and essentially professional and pretty