At the beginning of May we had a very well attended meeting at the Shire Hall to kick off Howden Action Group.
Howden Action Group has been set up to help the development of local community projects, starting with the development of a Youth Hub, giving our young people a safe space to meet friends and participate in activities, and the establishment of a Community Shed, a space for people of all ages and genders to connect, converse and create.
Over thirty people came along to hear our plans to make our town ‘an even better place to live’, and a lively discussion session followed, particularly focussing on the Youth Hub and Community Shed initiatives that are the cornerstones of the project.
Here is a little of the feedback we received on the night ...
Building hope and pride!
Great initiative. Looking forward to contributing. Lets get on with it!
Just start, Just start, Just start – did I mention ‘just start’!
Great ideas. Howden needs this. We need to raise the bar of our community life.
Exciting
Don’t wait, Do it. Be brave!
There was a busy white board session at the end of the main presentation and many questions were asked and comments were made - here is a taste of the issues that were raised and our responses to those issues…
‘This needs project managing.’
Agreed - we believe that a project management skillset will be invaluable to this project and are actively looking for a PM on our management board
‘Aim to mingle all the generations – shake pre-conceptions both ways ie. Value the old, the young and the different’
Our ‘perfect’ solution is the establishment of a Community Hub with the intention to create as much crossover as possible between the two initiatives, as this will benefit everyone.
We love ‘value the old, the young and the different’, this feels like it has the makings of a mission statrment!
‘Don’t spread your wings too early -take small steps, get started, then evolve.’
Absolutely agree - these are ambitious initiatives and we will ensure we have the right skillsets involved to help with prioritising, planning and so on.
We feel that the Community Shed is one initiative that will benefit from starting in a small way quite soon and, as our experience of other similar initiatives has shown, it will naturally evolve and expand.
The Youth Hub is a more complicated and expensive project with many organisational and structural responsibilities to fulfil before it can become operational - we will take a measured approach to this by starting with the Youth Engagement Project to prove demand and sculpt the offering and ensuring policies such as staff qualifications, safeguarding, health & safety, complaint handling and so on are embedded in the organisation before the doors are opened.
‘Could we create a volunteer bank – gathering a list of available skills & knowledge within the town?’
This is a great idea. Something similar was done during lockdown by Howden Helpers to create a database of volunteers and it was really successful.
We will create an initial bank/database of volunteers from the people that have already offered support & provided details this project and widen out the invitation to join to all would be volunteers and voluntary groups in the town.
We have contacted HEY! Volunteering www.Heyvolunteering.co.uk to learn from how they created their bank of volunteers in Hull.
‘We should contact the Howden Allotments Association’
This is exactly the kind of cooperative relationship we are thinking of, we can see benefits to involving the target market for both initiatives.
Young people learning whilst helping.
People who would benefit from company and/or being a bit more active
People who don’t have a garden or don’t want to commit to an allotment full time
People benefiting from being outdoors and working alongside the allotment owner.
The Youth Hub
‘Do we know that young people want a physical hub?’
From the outset we have been very mindful that we are not the intended users of the youth initiative!
The initiative will be informed and will take shape in response to comprehensive research, starting with our Youth Engagement Programme that we intend to start in the next few weeks and over the summer school holiday.
Our intended users will be front and centre of this, but we need to start somewhere and initially there will be some assumptions one of which is the need to deliver something concrete - a safe space that young people can feel ownership of and be responsible for.
‘As part of youth engagement programme can we consult/engage with parents?’
Great idea. Input and buy-in from parents will be vital from the start of the project though to the everyday management.
Input from parents of children with specific needs will be equally important – we would want them to help us design and deliver the spaces and the programmes to ensure that our offerings and activities are inclusive and accessible.
We will look at running a parent engagement initiative (probably online) alongside the Youth Engagement programme and liaise the school PTA’s to get the word out and the data in.
‘Seek out crossovers with other youth clubs and groups and establish common skillsets, goals & aims.’
As part of our research we will be reaching out to all existing groups for their input and hope to collaborate and co-ordinate our activities.
‘Could we use some of the school facilities – art, music, sport?’
We want to make use of as many existing facilities & resources as we can.
We have engaged the local schools and will continue to keep them engaged, not only on the basis of having access to some of our target market, but also to identify where the existing school facilities, etc. could potentially be utilised.
As well as the schools we need to engage other organisations and venues to see what is available and how we can make our offering as wide, both geographically and in content, as we can.
‘Include Arts & Music for education so it doesn’t become an upper class skill.’
Agree, we are foresee a whole range of activities including art & craft projects, music and performance - depending upon the wants and needs of our young people.
The Community Shed
‘The Community Shed sounds very ‘practical’ and activity based. What would there be offered for people with no interest or skills in these activities, but need the company?’
The essence of the Men’s Shed movement (on which our Community Shed is based) is about establishing a place to form social connections and build friendships, share skills and knowledge, pursue practical interests at leisure, enjoy making and mending and of course, a lot of laughter.
Whatever the activity, the essence of a Shed is not a building, but the connections and relationships between its members.
Although they are very different things, we would compare it to the excellent ‘Howden Ladies’ project.
This started as a single group, but then encouraged sub-groups to form to accommodate specific interests.
So whilst all members belong to ‘Howden Ladies’ some are also members of sub-groups that formed for those that wanted to go out for walks, those that wanted to walk with other dog owners and their dogs, those that wanted to walk with other parents and their children.
The Community Shed will become whatever its members want it to be - an inclusive and varied, friendly, safe space in which to create, to talk, to think or simply just ‘be’.
Directors & Members
‘Can you define the criteria for Directors & Members:
The number required.
The roles & responsibilities, inc. specialist knowledge.
The commitment needed in terms of input and time’
We are looking for both ‘individual directors’ and ‘corporate directors’
Individual directors are pretty much self explanatory, individuals who are interested in the project and committed to its success.
Corporate directors have same motivation bit also represent a organisation or group in Howden - for instance we already have directors who represent Howden Council Howden Rotary, Shake and The Shire Hall.
We would like to widen the net to include such groups as the WI, The Ashes Trust, U3A, the school PTA’s and any other organisation or group that want to get involved in our mission to ‘Make Howden an even better place to live,
We would like a large pool of directors, each bringing their own experience and passion.
We would like an even wider cadre of members (in effect shareholders) to promote the group, hold directors to task and represent the users of the services as they develop.
In the case of the Youth Hub we would like to form a parallel Youth Management Board allowing our young people to have a voice at group board meetings.
In terms of commitment, Directors are asked to attend a quarterly board meeting (which could potentially be held on-line) but the door is open to spend as much time as you can on the project - at least in first couple of years of growth.
For us the most important outcome was the massive confidence boost we got from getting such a positive reaction to the ideas we put forward.
We need to engage the whole town to make this work - individuals, organisations, groups and businesses - if you'd like to know more about our plans and structure you can download the presentation from the meeting below:
Now is the time to start putting those ideas into action.
If you are interested in learning more, or joining us as a member or director please email us at howdenactiongroup@gmail.com or give us a call on 07774 729096
Thanks!
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