Here’s a copy of our most recent newsletter:
We thought it was about time that you heard from Bearwood Community Hub. Our project leader Sally Taylor has been concentrating on looking after her young children in the absence of school and nursery, but she has begun to reflect on what the current situation means for the community hub. Here's an update from her.
Hi! The Bearwood spirit has been awesome during lockdown. There's the Covid-19 Mutual Aid group, groups of residents working together to organise weekly Foodbank collections on their street, neighbours that hadn't spoken previously suddenly doing each other's shopping. So much for us to build on as a community when life starts to return to normal (whatever the new normal is).
We also know that more people than ever are struggling. You might be one of them. Or perhaps it's your neighbour who doesn't have access to Facebook or the street WhatsApp groups.
Read about some of the ideas to strengthen and support our community straight away on our blog. Below we outline some of the detail of what we think we need to do next.
Where we've come from
We've long seen a hub on the high street as vital to equalise access to the great stuff that goes on locally - especially for those not on wifi, Facebook or with a smartphone. And now, with the pressures Covid-19 has brought, we're imagining lots more: how to encourage new business start-ups; provide support for writing a CV for the first time in 20 years; linking up newly arrived families with people who've been here a while; or residents helping each other navigate the benefits system for the first time.
Having a place to drop-in and collaborate on these things, or to debate how the new economy should look in our community, or to just share a cuppa and a moan or an uplifting chat, will be more important than ever.
Where we'll get to - in time!
In time, we will make sure that the Bearwood Community Hub provides that physical space alongside and in collaboaration with other vital spaces and organisations around us that do so much - Dorothy Parkes Centre, Warley Baptist Church, Thimblemill Library, Bearwood Action for Refugees and others.
But that is now in our more distant future. What about now?
We need to refocus for the moment
Pre-lockdown, we were just about to enter our last two months of funding to knuckle-down to business planning and writing funding applications. Those two things are out the window for the moment - we can't plan enough income generation through co-working space and venue hire just now, and funders have quite-rightly shifted their focus for 12 months or so to frontline crisis management.
But that doesn't mean we give up. It means we try to do it differently. We were going to be focusing our efforts on working with you and the architects to really solidify 1) what the hub could be physically and 2) what community magic happens in it. So let's just concentrate on the latter, the magic, and not worry about the building for the moment. In our blog we list a few initiatives we'd like to continue or start, all based on ideas to have come out of community meetings, conversations with different groups, or observations about what's been happening here since lockdown that we could help strengthen.
How?
Realistically, we can only do this if we can get funding to have employees (I think we need a couple, but that is to be worked out). We are in touch with our funders the Community Fund to see if we can get some support from them and we'll keep you updated. There are other funders out there but competition will be even higher than normal, and we don't have endless resources to submit applications! We promise we'll do what we can.
How you can help - your thoughts
For now, tell us what you think of these ideas. They have all come from our community discussions over recent months, and to be frank, they leave out so much. But we think they will help us prioritise how to ensure people are connected with each other and stay connected, how we support each other as a community during this difficult time, and how we think critically and creatively about our local community's social and economic recovery, together.
If you would like to contribute ideas specifically about recovery, comment on the ideas we've outlined, or have new ideas beyond those you've already shared at our events, please do so here: https://airtable.com/shruPUDd9O2EQn3B9
And in time, as we grow our work and our impact, we'll know for sure what kind of space we need. In the meantime, when the lockdown starts to ease, there's a wonderful partnership with St Mary's Church that can be re-established as we experiment with using the space as it is.
Thanks for reading, stay safe,
Sally Taylor