IMPROVING STANDARDS OF CONSULTATION AND ENGAGEMENT: 2

To Leicester Town Hall at lunchtime for the second meeting of a Task and Finish Group on Improving Standards of Consultation and Engagement across Leicester Strategic Partnership. Among those attending on behalf of bodies involved with the Local Strategic Partnership, there are representatives of the City Council, Leicester City NHS, University Hospitals Leicester (UHL), Leicestershire and Rutland Probation Trust, Leicestershire Constabulary, Voluntary Action Leicester, I'm there on behalf of the Equality and Diversity Partnership (EDP) as well as flying the flag for Council of Faiths of course.

This piece of work is intended to improve the level (and kind) of consultation processes entered into by all the member organisations that comprise the Local Strategic Partnership - well, the public sector organisations at least, since those from the private sector have unanimously declined to take part. In terms of the Voluntary and Community Sector, we're making input as participants in the consultation and engagement processes as well as beneficiaries of the outcomes. Our boards (where we have them) are being invited to sign up to these documents too.

Something different from the first meeting: we started discussing the use of social media for this project, how to apply Facebook, Twitter, blogging ("Hel-lo-oh!") to making it a success. Leicester City Council has a twitter account, but we were told that the most recent tweet was a month ago. The City Council has 30 followers; Council of Faiths has 32! In this context, we discussed future involvement of Citizens' Eye Community News Agency and Leicester on the Map, possibly from the beginning of the public consultation stage.

Café Creatif

Around noon, I attend Café Creatif at the LCB (Leicester Creative Business) Depot, Rutland Street. Smaller and less formal than CreativeCoffee Club (and much more so than Amplified Leicester) which both meet at Phoenix Square, just round the corner in the city's Cultural Quarter.

I speak with Ben Ravilious about the "Leicester on the Map" project he's coordinating, specifically regarding mapping places of worship around the city. This has never been done before, in even a paper format, never mind electronically. I think it would be an exciting, interesting and useful project.

Find out more about LCB Depot:
http://www.lcbdepot.co.uk/

CreativeCoffee Club (3)

To Phoenix Square Digital Film and Media Centre this morning, for the regular fortnightly meeting of CreativeCoffee Club. Almost entirely new faces today; it's great to see how this is growing with every meeting. The dominant theme of this meeting is preparation for the Amplified Leicester showcase, which is taking place here tomorrow.

The Leicester on the Map website goes live today, in advance of tomorrow's showcase. Leicester On The Map is an independent online PR network to promote the City of Leicester. It aims to make Leicester the first city to promote itself using crowd-sourcing and social media. It's looking for citizens from all backgrounds to act as advocates, lobbyists and ambassadors for the city.

Find out more about Leicester on the Map:
http://www.leicesteronthemap.org.uk/

Find out about Leicester on the World Map and help show how globally connected our cosmopolitan city is:
http://www.leicesteronthemap.org.uk/world.asp

CreativeCoffee Club (2)

Return to CreativeCoffee club at Phoenix Square this morning. I've not been able to make it to the last three or so fortnightly meetings, so it's good to get back, to meet some new people (of which there are some three or four this morning) and find out how some of the projects (such as Leicester on the Map) are being developed.

In the photo above: Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media at De Montfort University (founder and guiding spirit behind CreativeCoffee Club in Leicester as well as having established the Amplified Leicester project here) is in the centre. Jayne Childs (who coordinates the regular meetings of CreativeCoffee Club at Phoenix Square) is on the right. On the left is Dorothy Warner, Head of Development at Phoenix Square.

We've been featured in the online magazine, Midlands Business News, with a decent artcile and photo. You can see this by following the link below (and I'm not just recommending this because I'm in the photo!)

http://www.midlandsbusinessnews.co.uk/2010-03/creativecoffee-sparks-conversation-and-inspiration-at-phoenix-square-in-leicester.aspx

Leicester on the map

To a lunchtime meeting convened by Ben Ravilious, whom I've got to know through our attendance at CreativeCoffee Club. The topic is the establishment of "Leicester on the Map", a project to promote the good name of Leicester - but with a few novel twists. I'm a few minutes late in arrving and the discussion has already started by the time I take my place at the table. Around the table there are a dozen or so people, including a few I know and would expect (or rather, would hope) to see at a meeting of this kind: Sarah Harrison, City Centre Director; John Coster from Citizens' Eye among them.

From a certain point of view, this is a legacy arising from Amplified Leicester. In keeping with that project, Leicester on the Map would make extensive use of social media - a Facebook page, use of a hash tag on twitter etc. Many of us who are present today bring an extensive address book of contacts and our own networks. I get to speak a little about the Council of Faiths venturing into the realm of social media for the first time and how our positive experience might bode well for this new enterprise.

This is not be another "One Leicester" or another "Big It Up", not a campaign sponsored by any official agency. The idea is that it should be more of a popular movement, a groundswell from the bottom up - and not something led by any individual or identifiable collection of individuals.