{"id":1136,"date":"2011-08-04T18:30:14","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T17:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1136"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:37:21","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T13:37:21","slug":"talking-to-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/08\/04\/talking-to-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking to each other…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"This<\/a><\/p>\n

What is community engagement?<\/h3>\n

For me it’s about communication with\u00c2\u00a0the people who\u00c2\u00a0both\u00c2\u00a0live and work where I live. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about conversation, Saying hello asking questions and listening – and that comes from the community and any partners working in the community, local government, police,\u00c2\u00a0LNP’s\u00c2\u00a0etc. \u00c2\u00a0But, how do you encourage engagement? The people that want to will find ways to become part of what is\u00c2\u00a0happening\u00c2\u00a0locally, they will attend the PACT (Police and Community Together) meetings, they will become members of the residents association – they will give themselves a voice. But what about the people who live in the community but quite often don’t have the confidence to communicate with\u00c2\u00a0each other – let alone people in so called positions of authority – How do you encourage them to engage?<\/p>\n

You encourage them to talk to each other – that’s how!<\/h3>\n

We set up the WV11 website<\/a> 2 years ago this week and we’ve watched it grow from a site that we stuck articles on in hope someone would read, to a community who actively seek information from each other. \u00c2\u00a0If the lights go out in our area within a short while we\u00c2\u00a0receive\u00c2\u00a0a post on our\u00c2\u00a0facebook\u00c2\u00a0wall<\/a> “Is anyone\u00c2\u00a0else’s\u00c2\u00a0power out?” – When one of the water mains burst it was quickly established through conversation how far spread the outage was and how long it was likely to last as individuals shared information with\u00c2\u00a0each other, no longer just looking to us for the answers.<\/p>\n

But how do you move that conversation away from talking to each other – to talking to the partners that can make a difference in their area?<\/h3>\n

Recently there has been a spate of anti social\u00c2\u00a0activities taking place in the local park – from\u00c2\u00a0graffiti\u00c2\u00a0and vandalism to bullying and loutish\u00c2\u00a0behaviour. \u00c2\u00a0One of the targets for the local\u00c2\u00a0vandals\u00c2\u00a0are a set of newly installed\u00c2\u00a0exercise\u00c2\u00a0equipment which had been there barely a\u00c2\u00a0month\u00c2\u00a0before it had been set on fire and destroyed and the locals are getting fed up! They came onto our\u00c2\u00a0facebook\u00c2\u00a0page to express their displeasure at the situation so we asked them straight out – Do you think patrols of the park to combat anti social behaviour should be made a PACT priority at the next meeting? – They answered a resounding YES!\u00c2\u00a0As \u00c2\u00a0a result of us asking this\u00c2\u00a0simple\u00c2\u00a0question which basically\u00c2\u00a0amounted\u00c2\u00a0to “What do you want to happen in your area?” that is asked all the time by various bodies, but in a much more\u00c2\u00a0focussed\u00c2\u00a0way, many residents who have never before attended a PACT meeting have expressed an interest in attending the next scheduled meeting on 16th\u00c2\u00a0August to set this in\u00c2\u00a0motion, and one resident who is unable to attend herself has found her voice and penned a letter she forwarded to us at Wv11 to pass over on her behalf.<\/p>\n

Some of these people are the same ones who 18 months ago when we first started listing the PACT meetings on our website were telling us “there is no point going as we never get listened to anyway” – maybe it’s because finally they’ve found a cause which they really want to see a fix for that has made them engage – maybe it’s after 24 months of \u00c2\u00a0listening to each other online that they feel empowered to take action, or maybe it’s just because we asked a direct question and with over 60 responses they feel they have a united voice to get something done – who knows – all I know is I’m looking forward to the next PACT meeting and seeing what it brings.<\/p>\n

Hopefully we can get the patrols a priority and prove that an engaged community does have a voice and that they can make things happen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is community engagement? For me it’s about communication with\u00c2\u00a0the people who\u00c2\u00a0both\u00c2\u00a0live and work where I live. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about conversation, Saying hello asking questions and listening – and that comes from the community and any partners working in the community, local government, police,\u00c2\u00a0LNP’s\u00c2\u00a0etc. \u00c2\u00a0But, how do you encourage engagement? The people that want to will … Continue reading Talking to each other…<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[140,1,56],"tags":[389,60,284,392,390,391,208,286,285],"class_list":["post-1136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-wbiagw","category-work","tag-community-engagement","tag-conversation","tag-hyperlocal","tag-local","tag-pact","tag-police","tag-social-media","tag-wednesfield","tag-wv11"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6WGy-ik","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":848,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/08\/04\/wv11-one-year-on\/","url_meta":{"origin":1136,"position":0},"title":"WV11 – One Year On!","date":"August 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Last year I helped set up a hyperlocal website to cover the area I live in\u00c2\u00a0 and we've just passed the first year anniversary - To celebrate we had a stall at Wednesfield Community Fayre trying to make more people aware of the site and invite community input -What do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2006\/08\/24\/some-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":1136,"position":1},"title":"Some people!!","date":"August 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"What in gods name is the world coming to when at 10:30am a psychotic 40 something woman is running amock WITH A KNIFE outside my local corner shop!??!I dont live in a city centre or in a run down over populated block of flats in the suburbs, I live in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1720,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2014\/10\/14\/working-for-podnosh-but-what-is-it-you-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":1136,"position":2},"title":"Working For Podnosh. But, What is it you do?","date":"October 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The other day I was asked where I worked \u2013\u00a0Podnosh\u00a0I replied\u2026.which resulted in a \u00a0quizzical look and the follow up, \u201cHuh \u2013 What do you do?\u201d This isn\u2019t a unique response \u2013 I get it often when I respond to the \u201cWhere do you work?\u201d question. \u00a0Podnosh \u2013 it just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Work"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2005\/12\/06\/dear-santa\/","url_meta":{"origin":1136,"position":3},"title":"Dear Santa…","date":"December 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"...all i want for christmas is a complete makeover possibly a few \u00c2\u00a31000 in the bank and a holiday somewhere that seems a million miles away!! BUT if thats too much to ask, a place to go christmas day would be nice!!Its 2 1\/2 weeks till christmas and I still\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":823,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/06\/13\/helping-out-behind-the-scenes\/","url_meta":{"origin":1136,"position":4},"title":"Helping out behind the scenes.","date":"June 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"As an \"active\" member of Flickr (I say active this peaks and wanes depending on how busy I am in the real world) I try to get involved with the local groups - some groups are more active than others (and some are more welcoming too) but the one I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2005\/10\/24\/silly-silly-shoes\/","url_meta":{"origin":1136,"position":5},"title":"Silly SILLY shoes…","date":"October 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Anyone who knows me well will be aware that I virtually live in my converse trainers, They are so comfortable and they go with ANYTHING, The only place I cant really get away with wearing them is in work where I have a lovley pair of FLAT black shoes with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1136"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1138,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136\/revisions\/1138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}