And so it was with the social licence. We knew that we had a programme that worked. We knew we wanted other people to deliver the programme, to increase the reach of the Community Reporter network and offer a more fruitful experience to all of our reporters. We knew that we could support other organisations to find income generating opportunities on the back of the programme. But one of the ideas that ‘thought itself’ was the evolution of a ‘wikinomics’ model of trade and exchange between partners.

We have the pleasure of working with some wonderful partners, really passionate and creative and committed individuals and organisations who are doing great work on the ground. So, using the social licensee network as a way of bridging and linking partners together is really exciting for us. Most of us are under resourced and over stretched so being able to access tools that mean you don’t have to constantly reinvent the wheel each time is a real asset for anyone. So we are thrilled that MRS in York have begun the knowledge exchange by sharing some simple page design tools that were developed for a European Leonardo programme. The PageDesigner programme is free, available in a range of different languages and aimed to be simple enough for the absolute beginner – a perfect complement to the resources currently available within the Community Reporter programme.

As the network of licensee holders grows we look forward to being able to help organisations share and trade across the partnership – an idea that we hope to explore further in our first trans-national Editorial Board meeting which will take place in April …but more about that another time!

We ran the three day Train the Trainer course in the run up to Christmas and had attendance from a diverse and interesting group of people representing a range of mental health organisations across Leeds. Feedback was extremely positive and the general feeling from participants was that they couldn’t wait to get started in the New Year. John Baron, who will be co-ordinating the Well-being Web, said, “We had a terrific three days Community Reporter training with People’s Voice. Looking forward to getting hold of the course early in the New Year and starting the training!”

The site is really interesting with lots of comment and analysis on all things social media so it’s worth having a look at their work.

I’d like to thank Antonia for her interest and wish her luck with her future studies.

Phil is a Salford resident who is heavily involved in his local community and does a lot for the good of the groups he’s involved with. He recently started to post content to the Community Reporter site and already we can see a real diversity of interests and motivations.

Take his piece on the Manchester club, Band on the Wall that was hosting an over 50′s disco. This piece is really personal, anecdotal and shows someone interested in having a good time.

Then there’s a piece on the group Start in Salford – a mental health charity that does excellent work supporting people to well-being through arts and crafts. Phil visited the stall they had at the Christmas markets selling high quality pieces that group members have made over the year. This piece demonstrates someone with a passion and committment to the important work done by charities in communities.

And finally, another post by Phil, this time exploring the campaign started by a NHS consultant Dr Kalash Chad who is worried about the cuts to the NHS. Here is a considered, balanced and heartfelt piece about the campaign and their call to action for people to get involved.

These three posts clearly demonstrate to me what we tell new Community Reporters all the time – the tools are the least interesting part of what it means to be a reporter. Learning to blog or edit or create podcasts is just a means to an end. The exciting part is the stories that people have to tell – about their lives and the lives of their communities. Phil’s posts show me someone who is really alive and engaged and thoughtful – and inspired by social, civic and political stimulus. And maybe this, if anything, is what we might call the most ‘typical’ of Community Reporters.

Visit the Community Reporter site and subscribe to Phil’s channel (salfordhart) to receive more posts as they’re uploaded.

Julie thanked the communityreporter.co.uk  web  site for bringing this to Shelley Harris’ attention. Have a look at the photograph and see other’s that Julie has posted.

It’s much more focussed on finding solutions for your problems and we hope you like it.

How did we do it?

As with many organisations, our work has been extremely varied over the years and grown organically so the web content had become a bit disorganised.

We went about restructuring the website by asking ourselves the question, “If I worked in a housing association (or school, or charity or health authority) and had an idea about engaging more creatively with people, would I find this website and would I find an answer?”

Part of that process was examining our website analytics.

By looking at how people arrived at the website we could tell that if they already knew us as an organisation, or by person or by product then they were finding the site quite easily. What they weren’t doing was finding us if they had an idea about community engagement, participation, consultation or voice that they wanted to explore. That was a real issue for us if we were going to find new organisations to work with.

We’ve now structured what’s on the site to be much more outcomes focussed with clear links to our products.

What’s new?

The three main sections of the site help you to develop your ideas about community voice and engagement.

Finding your voice gives an overview of what can be achieved when communities have the confidence and skills to make their voice heard and organisations have the mechanisms in place to listen.

Strengthening communities looks in more detail at possible methods for dialogue, consultation and co-production.

Working with you goes into the nitty gritty of how we work with organisations, including details about the Community Reporter Programme, running consultations and social reporting at conferences.

As you’d expect there are also case studies, with lots more examples of content over at www.communityreporter.co.uk.

We’d love to know what you think about the new site, please leave us a comment below.

http://networkedneighbourhoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2011-Online-Nhood-Networks-final.pdf

One of the key findings from the report is that awareness of local sites has increased over the last year (from 63% to 84% amongst members and 55% to 92% amongst officers) and the proportion of members that perceived local sites as negative dropped from 17% to 12%.

There’s clearly some way to go as fewer members felt the relationship with local sites was “co-operative” but they can obviously see the benefits, such as ‘quickly identifying issues of concern for residents’, acting ‘as a link to council online services’ and ‘sharing council news and information on council services and events’.

The most interesting further development for me was that 63% of officers claim that their authority already has, or will be developing, a policy for engagement with neighbourhood websites. A great development for community reporters.

“Efforts to transform our neighbourhoods must be rooted in the experiences of the people who live there”

“The provision of housing must be about more than just bricks and mortar – social housing providers are at their most successful when they value and engage with their communities and actively seek to identify and meet the needs of those at the margins.”

Learning from the project almost exactly mirrors our experience at People’s Voice Media in delivering Community Reporter Programmes and running consultations and engagement exercises within housing associations.

It was interesting to read that the research found partnerships created between housing providers and community based groups were:

• Sustainable – Even in the current economic difficulties, housing associations, with both assets and a secure revenue stream are amongst the most robust and sustainable organisations in the social enterprise, voluntary and community sectors.
• Replicable – Housing associations and community anchors exist in pretty well every corner of the UK.
• Accountable – Housing associations have systems in place to ensure transparency – adequate consultation, tenant empowerment and effective governance which can benefit wider partnerships; community groups often have close and direct links to the communities they serve.
• Complementary – Most housing associations are not primarily involved in community development. Community anchors are not primarily housing organisations. But together each can benefit financially and organisationally.
• Innovative – Inter trading between partners can be important – the energy and imagination shown by the community anchors and the social entrepreneurs at their heart is impressive; many housing associations are also led by individuals whose entrepreneurial skills offer significant opportunities for joint working.

It’s always good to read findings like these in black and white as it’s something we’ve also found from working in partnership with housing associations and community organisations, jointly developing solutions that best fit their needs.

The full report can be found at http://hact.org.uk/hact-launches-the-final-report-from-the-together-for-communities-project.

There’s an example of some of our work with housing associations in this video:

Enjoy!