Our Northern Network project team came together once again on a very cold day in December, for a full-day meeting and workshop at Trafford Ecology Park in Manchester.
First of all, braving the hard frost and sub-zero conditions, we took the opportunity to visit nearby West Gorton Community Park, our pilot hub for Groundwork Greater Manchester. Guided by Project Facilitators Amy Wright and Suzanne Walton, we toured the amazing park and were utterly inspired by its game-changing approach to the impacts of climate change. You can find out more about it below…
Back at Trafford Ecology Park and in the warmth of the Meeting Place, we began a session with our evaluation partner Wavehill, scoping out the surveys for our pilot hubs. We then spent the afternoon doing some evaluation ourselves, by reviewing the results of our recent community engagement workshops with the intention of establishing our network’s values.
Looking back at what people had told us they wanted from the network provided us with a wealth of insight, as well as quite a few new ideas! And, there were some particularly interesting responses to the idea of what being radical means.
The workshops also provided us with a helpful overview of the potential expertise within a network, and where that could be shared beneficially with those who had matching knowledge gaps.
Our session ended as we finally decided on a vision statement inspired by the feedback we’d received.
“Bringing people together,
To build healthy and happy communities,
That have the power to make positive change.”
We’ll be sharing this with our partners and communities in the new year before formally adopting it.
