Exhibition Boards

District Assemblies

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Heritage Consultation Group

• An engagement sounding board for all heritage issues and developments
• Oversees conservation and built heritage of the borough
• Project Head for Culture and Tourism acts as Chair
• Used as a consultation group for:
  • Museum development and planning
  • Public sculpture commissioning
  • Heritage networking across the communities

Community Focused Exhibitions

• 'Access for the Community' adopted as a key objective for the museum service
• Community involvement and development is central to the planning and production of our exhibitions which have included:
  • Passion for Fashion - a fashion exhibition by young people in Tameside
  • Knitting Tameside - a community exhibition with Sure Start mothers, Young Carers and Tameside Asian Elders
  • Dedicated to the One I Love - Stories, videos and photographs of Young Carers
  • Telling Lives - An exhibition mapping and researching BME communities (Polish, Indian and Bangladeshi)

Tameside Sport and Physical Activity Alliance (SPAA)

"To make Tameside a physically active community where all people are able to come together to participate in sport and physical activity to realise their potential and improve their health and well being."

• Developed to provide a forum for community and professional representatives to work collectively
• Coordinates plans and delivers improvements in the delivery of sport and physical activity in Tameside
• Ensures community engagement and a co-ordinated approach

Projects

• 3 main projects to encourage target groups to participate in sport and physical activity
• Supported by Sport England, projects will be launched in March 2008

The projects are:

• Active Teens – targeting young people aged 14-19 and specifically girls aged 14-16
• Active Families – reducing the barriers preventing families from participating
• Back to Activity and Sport – supporting clubs and community groups to attract people back to sport and active recreation

Tameside Libraries: engaging with the engaging with the Bangladeshi community

Evidence of need

• Growing Bangladeshi heritage population (circa 4,000 families)
• Library membership figures were low
• Issues with library material
• Evidence suggested that there was low participation by this group in family activities

What we did

• 2 female bilingual Library Link Workers employed to encourage the Bangladeshi community to use Hyde Library
• Customer user survey with 50 Bangladeshi people
• 7 focus groups in external venues
• Met with other agencies - Surestart, Asian Healthy Living project and the Bangladeshi Welfare Association

The result

• Book issues to this group increased by 124% compared to the previous year’s issues and membership more than doubled
• Events organised, including a launch event, Eid card making and poetry and craft sessions - attracted more than 500 participants
• Service leaflet in Bangla
• Members of the community have selected the Bangla books this year
• Bangladeshi community membership continues to rise

Tameside Libraries:engaging with the public

Why do we consult and engage?

• To ensure the services we deliver are meeting the needs of our customers
• To give customers the opportunity to give us feedback on our services
• To ensure that our services are inclusive
• To comply with national standards of customer consultation
• To get the views of non-users

How do we consult?

• Nationally organised Adult and Children’s PLUS survey every 3 years
• In house questionnaires across all service areas
• Mystery shoppers - including disabled people and young people
• Focus groups - young people, Bangladeshi community, readers groups and male library staff
• Contact with lapsed users
• Tameside Citizens' Panel
• Comment cards
• Residents’ Opinion Survey

Actions

• Results analysed and discussed
• “You said…Our response” boards
• Feedback to members of the focus groups
• Results entered onto Tameside’s consultation database

Outcomes

• Book stocks improved, opening hours have been changed, easier opening doors and ramps installed and much more!

Customer First in Tameside Libraries

Keeping our customers “In Touch”

Transformation of service - we wanted to:

• Ensure customers can access council services from as many points as possible
• Ensure customers receive a quality service when they contact the council
• Gives our customers more choice
• Remove the need for a paper trail and back office tasks

What we did

• “New Opportunities Fund” initiative put PCs in all libraries - staff gaining ECDL qualification
• Feedback to enable the system to be constantly refined
• All library staff had their job evaluated to ensure equality of pay

Benefits

• Council services available from a friendly, familiar environment
• Extended opening hours (evenings and Saturdays)
• Introduces more council services to customers
• High satisfaction rates among customers
• For all stakeholders i.e. the customer, staff and the organisation

Customers can now choose a book, surf the Internet and order a wheelie bin instantly and all at one place!!

Tameside Libraries: engaging with young people

Evidence of need

• Use of libraries by teenagers is poor compared to use by younger children
• Mystery shopping exercise showed that teen users felt that staff were not as welcoming to them as they were to younger children

Actions

• Developed a staff training package, which includes a “perfect library worker”, a “problem solver” and a DVD created by the students

What’s next?

• Mystery shopping exercise to be carried out
• Frontline staff developing action plans for engaging young people at a local level
• Working in partnership with the Youth Service
• Local level action plans include involving young people in setting behavioural guidelines and developing and running activities for young people

Tameside Local Studies and Archives: engaging with BME communities

Evidence of Need

• Archives collection did not adequately reflect the multi cultural make-up of Tameside
• Use by and deposits from the BME community were low

What we did

• Successful bid to Heritage Lottery Fund
• Employed 4 workers to record, translate and transcribe oral history interviews and collect materials – 160 volunteers contributed
• Published a book, “Here to Stay” describing the experiences of minority communities
• Produced a 20 minute programme about the communities
• 140 photographs were added to the Tameside Image Archive
• “Sources for Black and Asian History in Tameside” leaflet revised
• Events held to publicise the service

What next?

• Exhibition, book and website used to promote the service to teachers and to BME communities
• Expect more young people to use the collection in the future as they become curious about their background

Central Estate, Dukinfield and Tameside In Bloom

Issue

• Traditional deck access housing
• Residents told us about anti-social behaviour and crime issues

Solution

• New Charter Housing Trust, the residents and Tameside in Bloom working together
• Installed 232 floral troughs
• Planted and maintained by residents from all age-ranges

Result

• Became part of the judging tours for North West in Bloom and Britain in Bloom
• Entered North West in Bloom Neighbourhood category in their own right
• Awarded a Certificate of Commendation in 2006
• Awarded a Certificate of Merit in 2007

“It is absolutely fantastic, the whole atmosphere of the estate is brilliant, it has brought real community spirit to the estate”. Jean Botha

“At one time no one knew each other only to say good morning, but now we really get together and have become great friends and it is all because of In Bloom”. Bernise Dunn

“It is absolutely fantastic. This time last year this type of event would not have happened. We all kept behind closed doors only to say hello in passing. Now we are all out meeting people on the estate who we knew lived here but we never spoke; now we are making really good friends”. Belinda Jeffery

Haughton Green Playing Fields, Denton

Issue

• Vandalised and underused playing fields in the centre of an East Manchester housing estate
• Letters received from Year 6 (9-10 years) Primary School children regarding the lack of play facilities and the vandalism on play equipment
• 40% of residents said they never or rarely used the local playing fields

Solution

• Widespread consultation with local community groups, schools, residents, local Members and environmental groups
• Project formed to rejuvenate little used and run down playing fields
• Attracted funding of over £360,000

Result

• Multi-sports area, renovated bowling green, wildlife centre and a landscaped perimeter path for use by over 8000 residents
• Adopted by the Haughton Green Friends Group as a village green
• More than 100 children helped to plant more than 5000 bulbs and 200 trees
• Received green pennant award (2006, 2007)

District Assemblies - bringing democracy closer to local people

• Meetings are held locally every 7 weeks to discuss local issues
• Local people can attend for the popular 'Question Time' session where they can get answers to their questions

Communities' views on District Assemblies

• 95% thought the meetings were useful
• 96% thought that the venue was easy to get to
• 95% thought that the meeting was well run
• 98% thought that the meeting was interesting

(Source - 2007 District Assembly attendance surveys)