Play – The Real Work
This year we’ve a smashing community led play programme. And to think this has only been cooking up by community members for just over a year is amazing. We’ve travelled a good distance collective
This Area is Monitored
The other morning I happened to be at the shops in Norley Hall. I haven’t been there for a while. They were my local shops when my family lived there in my early years. And the area where I worked a
Grass Roots of Wigan
This week has been a glorious week in many ways and this morning capped it off when we officially agreed some kind of governing ideas for Grass Roots of Wigan, GRoW. This work has grown out of t
A Storm is a Brewin’
There’s something a brewing, I can smell it in the air. I can feel it in my bones too. There’s a change in the weather. I shared that I felt trouble was a brewing at a cultivating community gather
The Guest List
This week Gill and I participated in a stakeholder interview for the Wigan Deal refresh, a £90,000 six month contract won by Collaborate CIC and IPPR. I’d like say I feel hopeful about the process,
Community Led
Today we hosted the second of the community led afternoon teas, and it made me think about that term ‘community led’. I suppose we define it locally as centring those who are usually recipients, f
Care Full Communities
One of the dreams that we have here is developing care full community alternatives, particularly to the current social care system for children and families. When we say community alternati
Erosion of Trust
There are a few incidents over my career that have eroded my trust in the idea that if we just reform public services, move them closer to neighbourhoods, then all will be well. And whilst communities
Copyright © & the Commons
So it is true that Gill and I designed a plan for a neighbourhood vision that may take a generation or more to reach, if we ever do. We didn’t design that plan in a vacuum, we drew on the w
Purple Trees
When people are trapped within paternalistic systems they can find it difficult to see the difference between the work they are doing and liberatory practice. The latter often has to be experienced an