Tonight we’re at ChangeKitchen  for the launch (as opposed to the non launch) a of the Community Lovers Guide to Birmingham –   It’s an opportunity for us to get some of the contributors together and thank them for volunteering their time and their words towards the book., have a few nibbles and some drinks.

You can buy a copy of the book here -  for those who don’t want an object chapters will soon be online.

Nick started the proceedings thanking everyone and introducing Tessy Britton , as really she is the inspiration for the Community Lovers Guide series after she put together Hand Made.

Also here tonight receiving  their copies of the book are Tom Baker from Loaf in Stirchley, Karen Strunks of the 4amProject which started in Birmingham, and Birgit Kehler of ChangeKitchen.

Other contributors who unfortunately couldn’t be here with us are:

• Emma Woolf, Friends of Cotteridge Park
• Eleanor Hoad & Nigel Baker, Urban Harvest
• Jon Bounds, Big City Plan Talk
• Chris Unitt, Created in Birmingham
• Naseem Akhtar, Saheli Women’s Group

Books are available to order now from Blurb, and every chapter will soon be available to read online. 

At the moment we are in the middle of a project working with the South Birmingham Safety Partnership. This involves running social media surgeries across communities in South Birmingham to improve civic conversations in those areas, get the communities and local partners talking to each other talking to each and getting their news online and hopefully by doing so positively changing their perceptions of safety.

Yesterday we had our second session in the Kings Norton. Jo Burrows, senior youth worker at the Three Estates Youth Project came along. Jo, by her own admission was a complete novice when it came to social media – she didn’t trust it – and this came through her lack of understanding of the tools that were available. After just one Social Media Surgery with us we managed to change some of those misgivings and set her up with her own blog for the Project.  Here’s what she had to say :

Yesterday a sad thing happened; 2 children went missing. It was presumed at the time that they’d gone of their own volition and they were later found well and safe, but none the less it was an awful thing to happen.

This all happened in Darlaston, 5 miles from my house, in Wednesfield and as such when the press release went out appealing for witnesses we posted it to the WV11 site and Facebook page. We were aware that while the children weren’t strictly from the WV11 area our readership expands beyond our borders, and friends,and friends of friends,  would most definitely cross over into Darlaston and the surrounding areas.

We posted the photo from the appeal along with the copied the police release verbatim,  all we added to the post was two words at the end “please share”

And share people did.

Within an hour 565 people had re-posted the news direct from our facebook page and less than 2 hours later that number had jumped to 1984!

It seems to me 2 things had happened to make the numbers jump like that  - every parent that uses our site could empathise with the  situation these parents were in, no one can imagine, or would want to imagine, what it feels like to find your child missing like that, and going on the old adage that “it takes a village to raise a child” everyone wanted to help raise awareness to bring these children home safely.

The other thing that happened was we were there, we were local and we we part of the community and we appealed to them directly with the “please share”!

Darlaston falls under Walsall Council  but it is fairly close to the border with Wolverhampton. Both Councils picked up the police release and shared to their facebook pages, Walsall’s post was shared 20 times, Wolverhampton’s 136.

The local radio station, Free Radio also picked up on it and shared to their page too, Their story was shared 550 times.

Looking at those figures it seems clear that being community based and very local really had an impact on the way the community interacted with the appeal.

The important thing here of course is that the children were found and returned home safe and well, l but as an observation it is interesting how much being part of a community can make a difference

This morning we were at Blakenhall Community and Haelthy Living Centre in Wolverhampton hosting another social media surgery. Attending were volunteers from Wolverhampton Voluntary Sector Council, workers from the cities Citizens Advice Bureau and Wolverhampton’s Local Involvement Network (LINk).

After the session we spoke to Pav from the LINk to ask her why she’d come along – She said she’d attended to find out more about Social Media, how to use facebook and twitter and connect it to their website.

She left having set up her own twitter account and as you can see in the video she is REALLY excited to get back to work and tell her colleagues about it!

For the last six months we have been involved in a project in Wolverhampton bringing Social Media Surgeries to different neighbourhoods across the city.   At the surgeries all the help we and the other surgeons give has been recorded on our Social Media Surgery + website, but what is been really interesting having attended every surgery in the city so far is watching  the things that have happened, and the connections made that weren’t recorded on the website – The things that aren’t just to do with social media.

Today for instance at the Low Hill surgery, a semi regular attendee Jaswinder (or Handsome to his friends), came along to learn more about twitter, but  what was quite strange, even by our standards, was he hadn’t come for help from one of the volunteer surgeons already there . He’d bought his own surgeon with him, Ian!   –  Handsome had been to previous sessions and seen the value of the surgeries as a place to come, have a cup of tea, learn and to meet new people, so he’d bought Ian along so that they could work together in an environment he felt comfortable in, but also so that Ian could meet people from the area too.

Then there was Lorna who also came along today. Lorna is new to Low Hill, moving back to England from overseas a few months ago. She wanted to come and learn how to use social media as she’d heard that was a good way to find out what was going on and to meet new people. Which of course it is and we helped her look at her options to find things she could get involved with online, but also while there she was introduced to Tony and George (pictured above).

Tony is the chair and George the vice chair of the Low Hill Community Association and they are charged with running the community centre and as such know all of the activities and events that take place there. As I left this afternoon Lorna was in the process of becoming a fully paid up member so she could join some of the groups and take part in activities running there – but also during the session we’d introduced her to Keith. Keith is a board member of the Low Hill and Scotlands LNP, who alongside myself (as a member of the board for Wednesfield and Falling Park LNP) and some of the LNP Neighbourhood wardens who were in attendance, told her about the work of the Local Neighbourhood Partnerships, Keith took her details and now he’s going along to their next board meeting. – She’d come for some help just to find out what was going on locally, and left signed up to two very active groups!

Then there was a surgery early on in the project that the local police sergeant attended. Sgt Gary Passmore. Gary came along to learn how to use a twitter account for his role in the police, he already had an account, but just needed some guidance on some of the functions and terminology. Around the same period of time there were some quite serious rumours doing the rounds about an attempted abductions locally.  I’d heard them as Low Hill borders Wednesfield so they’d been posted onto the WV11 facebook page, and despite many people openly questioning the validity and the variations of the posts (different coloured car, different locations etc) they just weren’t going away. Obviously people were worried so when some attendees of the surgery saw a police office present they chose then to question him about it.  Gary was great, he allayed peoples fears and was able to speak to some key members of the Low Hill community who could help spread the accurate information for him through their networks, and also I took the opportunity to post an update to the  WV11 facebook page at the same time – Gary had come for some technically support but left having managed to connect to his community and help stop the spread of a pretty nasty rumour in the process.

There are many more examples I could give you just like there,  members of the WFTA meeting people from Tenants and residents groups and finding out about local issues, Tenants and Residents connecting with newly established local social enterprises, Neighbourhood wardens meeting their communities and on, and I’m sure this isn’t unique to this one surgery.

This for me is the unrecorded hidden value of surgeries, it may start with a simple “How can we help you online?” but they quickly develop into interactions that can help shape communities in the real world. All of these interactions have nothing to do with the internet, online tools, social media etc but have everything to do with the people. All the surgeries do is bring these people together in the same room, with a common purpose and give them the opportunity to talk.

Community Lovers Guide to Birmingham

Just over a year ago we announced we were approaching people and groups to contribute to The Community Lovers Guide to Birmingham - a simple  book of stories of the ways volunteers, community and social enterprise are changing relationships in the city.   We finally have the book ready for release.

It fits in with the work we did with the Grassroots Channel - capturing the stories of active citizens. In many ways (inspired by another book called Hand Made)  these are stories about militant optimism:  about people doing things because they care, sometimes against the odds and often with little formal support.

People like the Friends of Cotteridge park, a group who saved their local park from decommissioning and went on to make it bigger, better and who tell us that “having fun is what makes it work”.  “The feeling you get when you are part of a group who’ve achieved something you thought was impossible is a lovely feeling…the long term result is a better community and nicer place to live.”

People like, Birgit Kehler of Change Kitchen, Eleanor Hoad & Nigel Baker of Urban Harvest, Tom Baker of Loaf and more who all share their stories with us in this collaboration.

Most of the work pulling these stories together was done by our Steph Jennings and in the New Year we’ll be getting a few people together to launch it officially.  It will also be available online as a series of chapters soon. If you fancy a good honest book to hold  for yourself or your loved ones for Christmas it is already available to order from Blurb today.  If you order before 13th December using the “SANTA2012″ code you can get 20% off.

Also thank you to everyone who contributed towards the book. They were,  in no particular order;

• Emma Woolf, Friends of Cotteridge Park
• Birgit Kehrer, ChangeKitchen CIC
• Eleanor Hoad & Nigel Baker, Urban Harvest
• Tom Baker, Loaf
• Jon Bounds, Big City Plan Talk
• Chris Unitt, Created in Birmingham
• James Yarker,