Morning Breakout Period, July 15th, 11.45-12.45
1. Events and IT
Theresa Williamson (Catalytic Communities); Steven Flower (substance)
Catalytic Communities is a web based service for community groups ‘where community-generated solutions are just a mouse-click away’, providing inspiration and information for community solutions from peers worldwide. Substance offer a range of IT based solutions for evaluating and researching events. Theresa and Steven will present some of their ideas about how IT can help stage and deliver legacies for events as well as involving delegates in thinking about their IT needs and uses.
2. Staging Events with Excluded Young People
Clare Corran (North Liverpool Positive Futures)
Following Clare’s hugely successful session at last year’s conference, this session will help us learn about the top tips of delivering events for excluded young people - how to approach such events; what to avoid; how to generate longer lasting impacts from them? This will be a workshop format that brings in the practical experience of both NL Positive Futures and delegates.
Conference Report
The session was well attended and the audience consisted of a good mix of practitioners and strategic policy managers. Clare posed the group with three key questions, those being,
- What is an event?
- What is a successful event?
- What are the concerns or major considerations?
The delegates places their post it answers on the flip chart and it was interesting to note that not one person referred to the ‘content’ or activity of the event. As Clare noted, an event is ‘something that has an impact upon you but is not bound by a subject.’ The group considered the notion of ‘whose agenda’ you work towards when hosting an event. Clare stressed that some local authority organised events have a strong focus upon the need for site-visits, health and safety and so on and that this can be a very different starting point compared to a community led event. Clare added,
"We try not to see these things as boundaries, I want people to tell me the issues and we will work around them. But we are still a professional organisation and we have polices. The important thing is that we are role models."
This workshop was extremely interactive and Clare got everyone up on their feet to engage in an impromptu scenario decision making exercise. Clare read out a number of key facts associated with ‘events’ her team have hosted in the past, she then asked the audience to move from one end of the room, representing a ‘positive’ event to the other side of the room which represented a ‘high risk’ event. The workshop produced a lively debate and was extremely thought provoking. The interactive nature of the session worked well and ensured full participation and input from the audience.
3. Volunteering
vinvolved and Events Volunteering: Tiger De Souza (V)
Tiger will run a workshop around the work of the vinvolved team network and how that can support events volunteering. This session will outline the work of the vinvolved team network and its capacity building work, as well as involve the audience with practical guides to how vinvolved can support organisations interested in engaging young volunteers.
4. Cities and Major Events
Andrew Macgill (Leeds City Council); Eamonn O’Rourke (Manchester Leisure)
Where events once had been little more than a vanity exercise for cities in the last twenty years they have now become focal points for much wider regeneration and development. There is also a growing understanding of what cities should do to make the most of major events elsewhere in the country, such as 2012. In terms of developing culture and sport strategies around events, two of the UK’s leading examples are represented in this session, and presenters will outline their approaches and initiate discussion.
Conference Report
This session contrasted the approaches of two major regional cities – Manchester and Leeds – to planning and staging event. Eamonn O’Rourke explained how, following its Olympic bids and the success of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Manchester has established a reputation for staging large-scale international events, especially in the field of sport. He also explained that the core drivers for Manchester’s events strategies are economic and social regeneration. Andrew Macgill explained how Leeds has to date adopted a more modest approach to planning and staging events, concentrating largely on hosting free sports and cultural events for local people. However, in line with a new facilities and infrastructure building programme he explained that Leeds is now seeking to stage more high profile national and international events. In doing so, it will be considering the development a more thoroughgoing legacy and monitoring programme.
5. Sports Events and Community Conflict
Jessie Feinstein, Leap: Confronting Conflict
Sports events can be used to help overcome community conflict and tension. Leap will share their experience of work in this area, which includes a Sport Relief funded programme to overcome conflict. It will focus on factors to be considered when sports events are used to bring communities in conflict together and offer practical tools for planning these events.
