Have you got a story to tell?

Posted on 12th March 2008 at 7.27pm by Julian Dobson

If you’re going to Wigan Extreme, I’m looking forward to meeting you – and don’t be surprised if I get out my reporter’s notebook and start asking you what you think of it!

One of the great things about working for New Start magazine has been the opportunity to discover the human stories behind the regeneration projects of the last ten years. But you don’t often get the opportunity to stay in a place for long.

This time it will be different, because I’ll be there for the whole week, producing updates on this blog every day. This will form a lasting written record of the event, told through interviews with people as they experience it. It will help people taking part, funding organisations and the wider regeneration world understand what happens when you focus resources intensively on a new network of social enterprises and individuals who want to make a difference.

If you’re expecting to be there and have a story to tell, come and find me. Or you can email me - editorial at newstartmag dot co dot uk - and I’ll get back to you.

Julian Dobson

Your starter for ten…

Posted on 27th February 2008 at 11.11am by Julian Dobson

Wigan Extreme is a radical approach to community empowerment. Stephen Kearney kicks off this blog by explaining what it is and why you should be there.

When we decided to work with Wigan Council we took a deep breath.

The work of our charity, RE:generate, had always been about transformation and challenge from a grassroots perspective. We were only ever in a community because local people had invited us in to support them.

The RE:generate process helped us find local leaders, activists and social entrepreneurs and train and support them to develop their work. The listening at the heart of the work built trust, respect and relationships between people – including councillors and local authority officers who really cared about the people. But it had always started at the grassroots.

The partnership with Wigan began at a conference more than a year ago, where I challenged the efficacy of economic development models. I suggested they were top down and failed to reach the target beneficiaries.

I presented an alternative approach that actually builds markets and finds leaders. A process that would meet many targets if networking and relationship building was trusted and not interfered with. Officers and activists from Wigan Economic Partnership were intrigued and a working relationship began.

For many months we listened and presented to groups in the community, council officers, people in the PCT, and voluntary and community sector organisations. We trained small groups in the process and we met many people who had enterprising ideas. We noticed that the meetings sowed seeds and opened healthy debate, but the talking was not leading to engagement and action!

The deep breath turned into a pant: we had to find a different way of developing the work. We took a gamble, put the cart before the horse and invented Wigan Extreme - a 21 day summer school designed to support local activists and social entrepreneurs.

We invited 60 activists and social entrepreneurs to develop their enterprises and projects. Fifty-five turned up and the real work of transformation began. Some 35 project ideas were explored and business plans started and developed, and the network grew.

A team of 17 of the most active created an organisation called PULSE with the aim of becoming a collective social enterprise that will explore the whole RE:generate process and develop the listening and networking approach in the North West.

So the pant and the deep breath became a sigh of relief - we had promoted the development of community enterprise and successfully engaged local people. We had also facilitated the creation of an organisation that is now learning how to develop and deliver the RE:generate process properly in the North West.

Part of this work has been to launch Wigan Extreme 2. This event is designed to give more local people more focused time to develop their vision and project ideas. Facilitators will be available from 8.30am to 10pm for the seven day period.

Local agencies and local authority departments are invited to explore a strategy for engagement that builds a responsible local working economy and a strong and cohesive sustainable community. They will be encouraged to think about their incredible range of skills and resources and how they might be strategically applied to achieve their objectives without disempowering the community they serve.

Our experience in the last 18 months demonstrates that transformational development happens in a dynamic process and not just in programmed activity. It proves to us that we have to take some risks if we are going to break patterns that trap and stifle individuals, communities, teams, agencies and authorities.

If you are interested in or intrigued, come along - to find out more see the full programme on the home page of this site or ring me on 07970 830644.