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.

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.

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.

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.

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"

Design Workshop Day 2

After an eventful and productive first day we began setting up the tasks for further user participation through re-configring the car park. To do this we temporarily placed some of the cafes furniture upon the expansive asphalt drive way. The purpose of this task was to determine the reaction of the worshipping community to the alteration of traditional procedures.

We then participated as a group in the church service, assimilating ourselves into the rituals of the worshipping community. After this, we all had some tea and coffee on the car park and had some interesting conversations with old and young members of All Hallows Church.

Site participation tool, extending the cafe to the car park and engaging the worshipping community

Conclusion = Exhaustion

Some tired campers...bless their wee cotton socks

Design Workshop Day 1

Today saw the commencement of a two day intensive design workshop within All Hallows Church. The was design to focus our understanding of where the project was going and also to imbed us into the cultural and religious positioning of the church through active engagement of the building users and having a presence within the community / site / building

Community participation tool, posting flyers at specific locations

The day started with the community group descending upon three agreed areas of the ward to informally understand the communities knowledge of the whereabouts of All Hallows. This exercise proved interesting through its verbal application, although less successful (over two days) in its informal documentation as the results gathered were sparse and unhelpful, in saying this, it was insightful as it demonstrates that public members are aware of the urban environment although passive about interacting with it, therefore the exercise was beneficial in providing a better community understanding

Design development, focusing the design approach to specific areas for progression

Whilst the community exercise was undertaken the remainder of the group began recording the initial stage of the matrix (all of the current issues of the design). We then discussed this a collective and began distilling the information into areas of potential focus through voicing the clients interest along with our individual interests. This was assembled through asking four key questions :

1. What is of most important to the client?
2. What is of most importance to us?
3. What will be most beneficial for All Hallows?
4. What is the most achievable?

By doing this we then consolidated the information of the matrix into areas of importance based on the question posed, these being :

Question 1 - What is of most important to the client?

• Building users
• Funding
• Ethos
• Storage and the practical use of the space
• Visibility of activity

Question 2 - What is of most importance to us?

• Organisational networking
• Internal / external connectivity
• Signage

Question 3 - What will be most beneficial for All Hallows?

• Visual appearance
• Funding
• A sustainable business model (increasing the buildings activity)
• Internal / external connectivity

Question 4 - What is the most achievable?

• Increasing the buildings activity
• Signage (communication of the activity and visibility of activity)
• Alteration of the cafe area
• Sustainable food sourcing

This was then consolidated into THREE KEY THEMES :

1. New users of the building through social connectivity and networking
2. Communication of the buildings activity (signage, ethos, presence etc.)
3. Connectivity of spaces internally / externally and the practicality of building uses

After this, we assessed strategies for analysing developing these three themes looking at specific design tasks.

The physical team then interacted with the activity groups within All Hallows through asking a series of poignant questions which were to be answered in a jovial way, through writing upon the back of each team member. This proved very successful as the users responded to the participation tool with a sense of conviviality

Physical participation tool, getting the building users opinion

"...and they hopefully gazed upon what made...and it was good..."

Some more collages

productive wall / picnic wall

open air cinema / theatre space

wall as noticeboard / venturi theory of size of sign to visibility of information

productive wall / picnic wall

visual transplant

I'm pretty sure I could keep providing ways of softening the walls oppression for the rest of the night...but I'm going to stop there although it may be useful to suggest these forms of artistic interventions within the landscape to gauge the PCC's reaction to (some) creative and less economical solutions.

Collage of possibilities

planted wall

sports wall (chalk football net / basketball net?)

painted games wall (where's wally)

activity wall / alternative ways of scaling the wall - slides / mountaineering

community mural / inspirational message (active involvement)

Some quick collages for the possibilities of the rear wall of the church. A really quick and dirty graphic style but I think its rather appealing because it portrays a suggestive emotion over a reality and recognises that the ideas are only redolent.

Networking Diagrams

Some updated business and social networking diagrams as an elaboration to the previous stakeholder diagrams. The purpose of these diagrams is to provide an understanding of the business and social context of All Hallow's Church. It should be understandable but through the overlaying of information although the information does become dense.

All Hallow's Church business and social networking

Current community centre business and social co-operation

Local community centres business and social networking

The Generator Project

Creating an "object" that stimulates debate about culture and creativity, the Wakefield Metropolitan District Council along with the city's 6 key Arts clients sponsored the Generator Project in order to collect communities responses on themes of movement, migration and home. The initail idea included a quirky "shed" with an internal "hive" for ideas and messages to be generated by the public over the summer and recorded on the project's website. (www.dla-media.co.uk/generator)

Culture team: BEAM, Faceless, The Art House, Theatre Royal Wakefield, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Hepworth Gallery.

Contributors: Wakefield Council, DLA Design Group, Marshall Building Contractors, Kirklees College.

Community interaction / participation

Candy Chang could prove very interesting for study as she continuously attempts to alter the urban citizens impression of a spaces, looking for ways of encouraging social and community interaction through non verbal means. She also documents her interpretations of signage throughout cities and making the city more navigable for its inhabitants through unconventional mapping technique. I would recommend 'Hello Neighbours' for ideas of social information that resulted from on the ground involvement and engagement with the community.