This is Us

Northern Heart and Soul CiC has just completed its second year of operations and last week we sat with the accountant and signed off our accounts. They are currently on their way to Companies House and I imagine will be online in a couple of weeks if anyone wants to take a look.

As part of the process we completed the CiC34 report, and in doing so were pretty blown away and chuffed by progress this year. Our year end by the way is the 30th August.

And the level of investment too. Thank you to all who have trusted in us. In the longer term we expect that we’ll grow something like a Community Land Trust or a Benefit Society or a Cooperative. At the moment though Northern Heart and Soul CiC consists of 3 Directors and a bit of an organising circle to grow the work. We’re also very active members, and in some respects stewards, of Springfield, Beech Hill and Gidlow CommUnity, the local mutual aid group. And much of our work is guided by the 3000+ members of the online community and the local people we spend time with in community.

So we thought we’d share what we’ve been up to here in the spirit of openness and transparency and accountability. At some point we intend to undertake a social benefit analysis to demonstrate the proportion of the investment that has remained and recirculated in the local economy and made a difference to the lives of people here.

Northern Heart and Soul CiC feels honoured to report a year of stewarding growth against the following missions.

One. To nurture a self-organising and self-renovating neighbourhood in the ward of Wigan West in order to create a more connected, healthier and wealthier community. (solidarity & liberation)

Two. To support other neighbourhoods in the borough of Wigan who are interested in relocating authority to citizens and community building from the grass roots out.

Three. To bring together like minded and socially trading organisations, that centre women, to create a more just and fairer future for all.

The Work

One: To nurture a self-organising and self-renovating neighbourhood in the ward of Wigan West in order to create a more connected, healthier and wealthier community.

In September 2022 we brought together a group of friends and allies to work on a theory of change, interview local people, host story sessions and produce a community report along with possible ways we might measure becoming a powerful community that comes together in solidarity on a journey towards liberation.

And, we used the learning and insights to steer the interconnected and entangled strands of the work:
Women and Beech Hill
SBHG and Community Building
NH&S and Dreaming and Weaving – Sparking growth, growing the commons, alternative economies and ways of living and being together

Women and Beech Hill

• Secured £5k from Necessity to cultivate and grow women as community leaders / connectors
• With Brighter Boroughs investment accompanied women and children who had been showing up and contributing to community life on a trip to Crocky trail to build relationships
• Accompanied women and children to Trafford Hall in October 2022 to deepen relationships and invest in community leaders / connectors
• Secured £4.8K Holiday Activity Fund investment to build on and grow community play during half terms in February, May and Summer. Widened partner and collaborator involvement in the local community led work and opened up spaces and venues for community use – Beech Hill Play Park and St Andrews School. An amazing number of children and families joined in, and returned. New connections were made, existing ones deepened.

• Nurtured the womens spaces – Food Share and Make it Mine with collaborations with ReMade Wigan CiC and Global Arts. Growing relationships with Health and community minded individuals within institutions.
• Cultivated community afternoon tea and hosted two teas
• Supported women to access training – First Aid and Food Hygiene

•Grew new, fun, alternative and community led ways of taking part in physical activity in women and family spaces

SBHG and Community Building
• Continued to grow the online community with 3049 members, of which 2730 are active members. Engagement, posts and activity continue to increase as the group grows.
• Production and delivery of Ey Up- It’s Wigan West Community News to every household in the neighbourhood in Spring 2023 and a successful application to Awards for All enabling a second edition in the Autumn.

• Formation of a Whatsapp Community
• Creation of a YouTube Channel
• Developed story feature on SBHG website
• Hosted 3rd Annual dog show – widened and deepened the number of people involved and the range of sponsors

• Hosted inaugural community awards event connecting community connectors and celebrating all that is strong and opened nominations for the second year awards.
• Grown the Thursday social space and moved into a space within Beech Hill Community Primary School – widening access to community buildings.
• Brought together groups of people interested in community benches, defibrillators, memorial space and suicide, grief and loss.
• Switched governance from committee to organising circle. Said goodbye to 5 people and welcomed 7 more people into the organising circle as a consequence of a community party style AGM

NH&S and Dreaming and Weaving

• Used Lankelly grant to invest in and resource the community work of three local women and gathered weekly to steward the work.
• Member of a Greater Manchester Basic Living Income Demonstration supported by New Economics Foundation
• Agreed the creation of a trainee community builder part time job and to become an employer.
• Invested £2190 in 8 community ideas and / or community business ideas through growing participatory budgeting and community decision making.

• Member of the Participatory Grant Making demonstration within Greater Manchester System Changers making collective decisions about how to redistribute £400,000 across Greater Manchester.
• Created NH&S website and Journals of the Journey, collecting insights and stories.
• Part of the Systemic Action Research training community within Greater Manchester System Changers and the Institute of Development Studies
• Contributed to the Lankelly funded Peoples Newsroom and Generative Journalism Nexus and community.
• Began to cultivate an open and transparent governance structure for NH&S and SBHG and consider future governance forms.
• With investment from Proper Good Wigan Borough entered into a coaching relationship with Jess Steele to begin exploring returning land, property and therefore wealth to the commons.
• Began to explore possibilities of owning housing, community buildings and growing roots through having a base.
• Used Lankelly resource to invest in a relationship with Media Cubs as part of a longer-term mission to centre children and young people in neighbourhood life and produced a film with Beech Hill Primary School children.

Made a film about the Playbox01 coming to Wigan

• With support from Holiday Activity Funding began to deepen relationships with young people with fishing and make and bake programmes.
• Invested in a relationship with True Level Media and redistributed grant into the solidarity economy.
• Visited People Focus Group in Doncaster to begin thinking about forming a partnership around peer support.
• Developed relationships with Playful Anywhere and Playbox communities
• Connected Beech Hill women and the L30 Community for mutual support opportunities
• Joined with other warrior women and formed The New Northern Weave
• Joined in with Seasons of the Soul community
• Contributed to the Neighbourhood Democracy Movement

Two. To support other neighbourhoods in the borough of Wigan who are interested in relocating authority to citizens and community building from the grass roots out.

• Stewarded the group who experimented in the use of Vocal Eyes and produced a learning report.
• Redistributed Power to Change monies of £4500 to two communities to grow and invest in community led ideas.
• Created together the foundations for GRoW – Grass Roots of Wigan – Routes to Community Growth through Solidarity.

Three. To bring together like minded and socially trading organisations, that centre women, to create a more just and fairer future for all.

• Secured investment from Necessity to grow a womens network.
• Women came together in the countryside in October 2022 and begin dreaming about what a women positive Wigan might look and feel like and named the network – Wigan, Leigh and Makerfield Womens Network.
• Came together for a Women Wintry Walk hosted by Idaraya Life.
• Worked together as a collective to launch the network on International Womens Day on Saturday 4th March 2023.
• Came together as women sharing skills and food on 5th August.
• Redistributed £11,000 of Lankelly Chase Grant to ReMade CiC for core costs using trust and relationship-based processes.

And that folks, if you made it to here, is a wrap! See you next year as the story unfolds.