Competence Cafes – a tool for having conversations that count

Really love this video made by our German partner Perspektivwechsel. It documents the process of learning and sharing that has been used throughout the ISABEL project, called Competence Cafe. Based on the teachings of The World Café Community Foundation, it is a really simple but extremely effective way of helping people to share and learn, knowledge, skills, experiences…and more.

We used the Competence Cafe in Manchester to draw out views on dissemination and valorisation, with some interesting conversation on how to measure impact recorded here.

ISABEL_logo

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Congratulations! Ellesmere Port celebrates new Community Reporters

There was huge attendance today at a special Our Place event in the majestic Civic Hall in Ellesmere Port – and sat in the audience were seven of the latest recruits to the Community Reporter network waiting to receive their badges and certificates from the Institute of Community Reporters.

Elaine Dunn from EPNAVCO explained how the funding for the training had come through an Our Place initiative in Ellesmere Port (see video of Elaine below). Twelve local residents were put through the training and they have produced a wide range of content about life in Ellesmere Port throughout the programme: check out communityreporter.co.uk for their written stories, audio and video content.

We’re so proud of all that the reporters have achieved so far and are looking forward to an on-going realtionship with EPNAVCO to support the reporters as they develop further.

Welcome to the Institue: Helen Davies, Gemma Dunn, Kevin Goldie, Paul Whittingham, Tom Ormiston,  Nancy Foster, Sarah Tarry

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Launch of the Institute of Community Reporters

People’s Voice Media will be launching the Institute of Community Reporters (ICR) today at the University of Salford premises at MediaCity in Salford. Gary Copitch Chief Executive of People’s Voice Media said:

“We now have over  1000 Community Reporters on the database from across the UK and a further 600 across Europe so it seems to make sense to develop the network and recognise the achievement  of the Community Reporters.”

Gary went on to explain how he feels that Communty Reporting is different to citizen journalism. “Community Reporting is a community development tool with individuals producing the content/stories they want to in order to encourage dialogue and discussion and establish online and offline networks. We feel this is different to citizen journalism where the emphasis is more often on individuals reporting on other people’s news.”

The Institute of Community Reporter (ICR) will be  the accrediting body for the Community Reporter programme. It will accredit courses, issues certificates and manage the Community Reporter badge scheme. The ICR will also:

  • Provide access to online training resources and support for running local meet ups
  • Host Community Reporter content on the communityreporter.co.uk web site
  • Curate content at a European, national, local and organisational level to feed into policy and consultation

There will be three types of membership, Bronze, Silver and Gold.  Platinum members will be for authorised trainers who have completed the ICR training programme. For more information on the Institute of Community Reporters see here or contact gary@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk .

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Launch of the European Network of Community Reporters

People’s Voice Media will be launching the European Network of Community Reporters today at the University of Salford premises at Media City. Partners from across the UK along with partners from Italy, Hungary, Spain, Turkey and Germany will be there to support the launch.  The network’s aim  is to develop a European-wide network of Community Reporters based on the principle of developing local voices and distributing local views.

Its  goals are  to:

  • Develop dialogue and discussion between communities and  agencies in order to ensure that communities have a voice across Europe
  • Support the creation of content that is relevant and locally produced which is then distributed through online and offline channels
  • Distribute good new stories about the community in order that communities can learn from each other, support each other and better understand each other
  • Share knowledge about Community Reporting, its content and good practice

Gary Copitch, Chief Executive of People’s Voice Media said, ” Community Reporters are  prodcuing content from  across Europe. Not only do we have reporters in the countries represented today but we also have interest  from Sweden and France. So it seems the right time to launch the Network.”

If you are interested in joining then please contact Gary by email gary@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk

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Good News Stories from Communities

Its not often that we hear about “good news” stories  from communities.  The community reporter programme goal is to give voice to communities in order to challenge perspectives and so that people can describe their own reality. They have produced some great  “good news” stories about communities . Here are just a few examples:

One of the reporters in 3VTV  South Wales Jesscia Jones has produced a great film on looking at the positive side of  Blaenau Gwent.  Its great to here the “good news” stories from communities and not just the negatives.

Also take a look at this great film from Frank about a community reborn

and another one showing the positive perception  of Salford

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