Two friends in Bootle shared a passion for people and their community. Janet Hughes – with her green thumb and background in horticulture – and Ali Horton with experience in youth work and operations, came together to bring about a purposeful social enterprise for their community. Their combined skill and passion founded the Gateway Collective, based in North Park Community Garden.
The Gateway Collective uses community gardening to promote wellbeing and social connections, driven by the principle of ‘love your neighbour’, a part of Janet and Ali’s Christian faith. The garden is open to volunteers and gardeners of all and no faiths, and harvest shares are distributed to attendees as part of the community’s lasting connection. It’s also one of Kindred’s second round of investee STOs.
Janet and Ali’s vision is to see people and communities in Bootle thrive, with a mission to cultivate belonging and community around fresh local produce and personal wellbeing.
The Gateway Collective’s vibrant and diverse community activity range includes, but isn’t limited to, plant and craft sales, creative workshops, beekeeping, voluntary leadership opportunities and chances for the community to cook and eat together, sharing food and recipes inspired by the produce grown in the garden. Activities are designed to increase individuals’ wellbeing and build community.
The Gateway Collective used the Social Audit Network process to measure their impact on their community. They collected data from interviews, case studies, and focus groups to provide narrative and economic measures, consider materiality and ensure credibility in a competitive marketplace. And those impacts are huge:
• Social value totalling £434,520, creating £7.34 for every £1 spent
• 1040 visits to the garden in 2021-22
• 4,100 volunteer hours, with the garden’s 79 community gardeners
• 540kg of food was grown…
• … saving 430kg CO2e, in comparison to buying from a supermarket
• The Gateway Collective also won the Green Flag Community Award
This was achieved through gatherings at North Park Community Garden, where the Gateway Collective is open Mondays and Wednesdays between 10am-2pm, all year round. During the Summer, an extra Thursday session is added each week.
The garden is central to Gateway Collective's work and these weekly gatherings for gardeners and volunteers provide a sanctuary, laughter and good food. The benefits to their physical and mental wellbeing are impactful and attendees shared in the 2021-22 social impact report that they feel welcome and supported. For many, social isolation and loneliness were heavy after the pandemic, and so the garden serves as a lifeline for many attendees. The garden serves as a place of learning, support, and connection, making it a vital part of Gateway Collective’s community.
Ali says: “The investment from Kindred has been transformational. It has enabled us to complete our community kitchen which has become a space to teach people how to cook with what we grow but more importantly a space to gather. Kindred has also enabled us to change our thinking around social investment – to see it as an opportunity for growth and not something to be scared of.”
The impact report also shares personal stories from community members like Joe, who returned to the UK after a long time abroad. He joined the community garden after discovering its residents working there. This experience led to a newfound interest in gardening, a sense of belonging to nature, and new opportunities – including a job. By learning about proper soil preparation, planting techniques and plant care, Joe started work in the council’s Green Sefton department.
Another testimony is from Paul, who left mainstream schooling due to anxiety and began attending the garden weekly in 2015, as part of his homeschooling. He found lots of support and care at the Gateway Collective and its community, which helped his mental health. Then in 2020, he participated in a Kickstart project with Andrea Ku, focusing on creating ‘Made in Bootle’, which helped him develop employability skills and apply for part-time jobs. For Paul, the impact of The Gateway Collective on his life has been profound.
Other volunteers describe the garden as their “little oasis”, “extended family”, and a supportive place where they “can just sit and have a brew and a chat with somebody”, or “take a break when going through a rough patch but when returning be immediately welcomed back.”
Gateway Collective has successfully established community connections, collaborating with groups like Taking Roots and the South Park Garden and fostering pride in the local community. Most volunteers at the garden also volunteer elsewhere, widening their community's impact. The principle of ‘love thy neighbour’ certainly thrives here.
Melodic Distraction first hit the airwaves when it began broadcasting live from the heart of Liverpool in 2017. With over 150 monthly shows, the Fabric District-based internet radio station showcases DJs, musicians, party throwers, festival organisers and many more involved in the local music scene – and beyond.
Part of Kindred’s second cohort of socially-trading businesses, the non-stop radio station aims to be free to tune into, anytime, anyplace. It also offers various opportunities for local musicians to break into the traditionally hard-to-access industry, all from a studio and venue space made from recycled shipping containers.
The total value of Melodic Distraction’s social impact has reached over £1.8m. From turning a disused bin alley into a free-to-access cultural and community space to its artistic investment, workshops and placement opportunities, Melodic Distraction’s unique approach is championing North West sound and changing the industry.
With the artistic spend of over £46,000 for 2022-23 projected to increase 55% in the next year with Kindred’s support, Melodic has created paid opportunities to allow locals in the music scene to dedicate more time to performing – something that’s been linked to a range of mental health benefits. These opportunities are available for a variety of creatives from musicians to freelance sound and lighting engineers, and include paid gigs at local venues and performances at branded events, as well as performances at the station’s own venue, the Melodic Bar, which has welcomed over almost 12,000 music lovers since August 2021.
Melodic is also paving new ways for aspiring DJs and radio broadcasters to break into the industry. Since its beginnings, the station’s free workshops have provided £24,244 worth of training on equipment that’s financially inaccessible to many. The workshops include DJing, radio broadcasting and radio production and Melodic Distraction is aiming to reach new, underrepresented audiences through a 50% annual increase in workshop offerings over the next three years.
Many who have attended the workshops so far have gone on to receive paid work DJing and presenting radio around the UK: “Learning to DJ at Melodic Distraction’s DJ Workshops for Women helped me pursue a long-time passion,” says one attendee. “I’ve since DJ’d at two events in Liverpool and Manchester.”
Melodic Distraction also provides opportunities to help young adults who face barriers to employment. Since beginning work with schemes such as Kickstart in 2018, the station has provided over £20,000 in social value from taking two young adults out of long-term unemployment, and delivered £4,261 in training for studio producer staff, which has been given to nine young adults on placement through the schemes.
“I joined Melodic Distraction on the ILM Scheme in 2019 after being unemployed for four months,” says one staff member. “My placement was for six months and I was offered a full-time role after finishing. It’s my first job in music and I’ve learned loads of different skills and met so many musically-minded people like myself from working here.”
James Zaremba, one of Melodic’s co-founders, says: “We’re so grateful to Kindred for supporting us in our mission to showcase as much of Liverpool’s fantastic music scene as we can through Melodic Distraction. We deeply believe that Liverpool and the north west is awash with incredible talent and if we can play even a small part in highlighting and supporting that then we’re happy! Working with Kindred helped us realise our impact and focus on our social mission with a greater focus than ever before.”
CV writing and upskilling workshops are also offered to those on placement, supporting them to go on to find jobs in the industry. The station is aiming to work with two new young adults facing barriers to employment every six months, teaching them practical audio production skills and giving them real world working experience in radio broadcasting.
Alongside these impacts, Melodic Distraction has a lot of big plans on the horizon. A seasonally robust events offer, accessible studio space, and a greater budget for discounted live-streaming will be on offer for music lovers and aspiring artists or broadcasters alike. If you’re ready to get your music fix, find out more about Melodic Distraction and tune in, or head on down to the Melodic Bar where there’s coffee, cocktails, and free music events for all.
Get a feel for Melodic’s approach with this new documentary, which captures the journey of running a live radio station from the middle of one of the UK’s most respected electronic music festivals, where the team delivered more than 50 hours of broadcasting across four days.
Want to find out more? Take a look at Melodic Distraction's entry in the Social Directory here...
Foundation School of Martial Arts is a community that uses movement, and elements of Japanese culture and values as tools to help build resilient and confident people in Liverpool City Region.
The classes and programmes that it runs are rich in variety; from ninjitsu, traditional weapon training, sparring, to calligraphy and taiko drumming. Founder Simon Melhuish emphasises that a class of 30 kids will all have different needs and it is the job of the club not only accommodate every student, but help them to thrive.
Social value has underpinned the foundation’s work from the beginning, first with children and young people on the Barnardo’s Young Carers Programme, running camps and activities which focus on giving its recipients respite and growing their sense of self. It has since worked with Advanced Solutions, which focuses on empowering neurodivergent children, and runs workshops in schools and for the NHS, promoting stress management, mindfulness and empowerment.
Simon says ‘a lot of the parents come to classes wanting to make their kids tougher and more disciplined, but the kids come out with unexpected assets; sense of self, social skills, resilience and trust’. He says that working with the parents in that process is an integral part of the work Foundation does, ‘it is often more the parents we’re teaching than the kids,’ he says. Parents must stay for sessions and, as a result, watch their kids grow, share their sense of achievement, resulting in strengthening familial bonds.
As a result, 90% of adults classes are populated with parents of children at the school, creating a community with a strong ethos of investment in nourishing relationships with themselves and each other, and in physical and mental wellbeing. The foundation boasts reams of positive feedback from whole families; all reflecting a sense of belonging, an increased sense of confidence, within a context that expands knowledge and respect of Japanese culture and tradition.
This sense of community is present in every aspect of its programmes and projects; many of the kids go on to become junior instructors. They gain valuable experience which sets them up for later in life but, beyond their skills, they are wonderful ‘as individuals; confident and compassionate, with a genuine concern for others’, Simon says proudly, ‘and those who go on to become instructors are the best we have – they get more gifts at Christmas time than I do!’
The goal of Foundation School of Martial Arts is simply to improve the lives of the people that it works with, through positive reinforcement and skills training. The growth of its students is organic, and looks different in every individual, young or old. The effect this can have on a child is enormous – from personal to educational settings. The lack of positive reinforcement at home or at school can so often leave people behind, when all that was needed was a change in tactics to let them thrive.
Click here to find out more about Foundation School of Martial Arts...
iWoman Academy is a community interest company that uses radio as a wellbeing tool to empower women who are out of work and give them tools to move forward in their career. CEO Ngunan Adamu says, 'losing your job is not the end of your story, it is an exciting new start, but you need the confidence to make it happen.' This is where iWoman academy comes in.
iWoman Academy is a 12-week course. In the first project the participants create a music show as a 'soft way' into them finding their voice, Ngunan explains. "We've had everything from soft rock to RnB to Arabic pop music, Polish soundtracks, music scores, musicals - it's been amazing." And where the music show gives them a chance to celebrate individuality, the next part of the course reinforces the opposite. They research into health, a topic which highlights their shared experience as women, wherever in the world they are from; whatever their experiences. And they learn to research critically, as a journalist would.
“I realised research is so important, especially when you're not in a nice situation; you can Google the wrong information and panic yourself over things,” says Ngunan. The research aspect of the course gets them looking critically at sources; learning how to glean information that will empower them. There is also a holistic side to the course; they go through practical skills to find work, discuss what their barriers are (timekeeping, for example) and are given resources to overcome their challenges.
iWoman CEO Ngunan Adamu
Conversation between these women means that it becomes a community and they find a universality in their experience as women; whether they are survivors of domestic abuse, asylum seekers, trans women or claiming universal credit. "These are women that would never have met each other, they would never have been friends," but through the course they become just that, "a sisterhood [...] and there's always someone who makes cake!" Ngunan laughs.
Over lockdown, iWoman Academy went online and reached women on an international level; Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates, to name but a few. This showed that iWoman "is needed," Ngunan reflects, and while "Liverpool will always be our base - it's got to be Liverpool! - going international is definitely the next step."
Ngunan is a producer and host with the BBC herself; but whenever she travels now "I've made such a fuss about iWoman that people know more about it than they do about my work in the BBC... and I love it!"
Participants complete the course with a newfound confidence and a set of skills; going to take on their careers once more, pursue degrees, or starting their own businesses. The course is all about bringing these women back into society. "They gain so much," says Ngunan, "in terms of confidence, in strength and voice - I hope they pay it forward. We're in a global battle at the moment, as women, and we definitely have to support each other." And iWoman certainly does that; a course run by women, for women, who will doubtless pay it forward in kind.
For more information about iWoman, head to its website, iwoman.co.uk.
Wirral-based Hype works predominantly with people under 24, giving them the skills to get into employment. Its key objectives are to create more opportunities for young people; support young people to reach their potential and in doing so to strengthen local communities. It has developed a number of products and projects to support young people, moving to an increasingly sustainable business model as it grows.
Hype began in 2007, with chief executive Matt Houghton and his two co-directors combining their shared interests in football and music to run holiday activities and clubs for young people in deprived wards across Wirral.
Hype Merseyside chief executive Matt Houghton
“I used to go to youth clubs at that age and was inspired by youth workers,” says Matt. “Some of my circle are in prison now, and others have had problems with drugs – but I always had football to keep me away at times from the other things that were going on.”
Matt and co-directors Dave (a PE teacher and coach) and Sean, a DJ and club night promoter, began Hype with a £10k grant from Expanding Horizons. It set them on their way, delivering workshops for free during school holidays in Rock Ferry, Seacombe and Woodchurch. As its work with young people expanded, the team was asked to run evening sports sessions in local schools: Gino, one of the first young people Hype worked with, became a volunteer at their next holiday workshop. He went into coaching, volunteering, youth work and became a paid member of Hype staff, before going into teaching. He’s now a deputy head of a year at a local school and testament to the transformational nature of Hype’s work.
Seeing widespread demand, the Hype team focused its activity to key areas: Bidston, Central Birkenhead, Rock Ferry and Woodchurch. A strong geographical correlation led it to partner with Magenta Housing to work within its communities, taking on work with the younger siblings of its traditional clients and their parents, if they were out of work.
Matt admits that gaining the trust of local communities that has proved a catalyst for Hype’s work. It used community centres as a base for youth clubs, employability and holiday clubs, before adding work with schools and dance, health and wellbeing, football, art to its roster of activities, alongside work with young people with behavioural issues, vulnerable groups and hard to reach groups.
In 2020, as schools provision, youth clubs and holiday clubs stopped with lockdown, its bike projects – from guided bike rides to maintenance and bike leaders – have snowballed. By far Hype’s biggest growth area has been in its social bike shop. The community shop opened in June 2019 in the centre of Birkenhead, designed to help more people get out and about on bikes. Yet the coronavirus pandemic saw a renewed focus on cycling, aligning the project with government plans to encourage more environmentally friendly forms of transport.
With 120 bikes on its books that were due to be used for group rides, Hype turned its attention to donating them to key workers at Wirral and Liverpool hospitals, to get to and from work more safely. Demand for bikes to borrow rocketed, alongside hundreds of donations, and the maintenance needed to get bikes roadworthy and serviced.
A new unit near Cammell Laird now houses around 200 bikes, and Hype’s bike mechanics shop, running programmes aimed at employability, linked to the bikes. Repairs and hire brings in an income for the shop as Hype moves towards a socially-trading model, whilst providing training for the young adults it works with.
Hype has made a success of working with young staff under 24, that leave the organisation not only more qualified and experienced, but with a good understanding of social enterprise and how it works.
Extending that practical ethos to its work, in 2015 Hype began redeveloping shops and buildings with its young volunteers, in order to deliver more activities in them. 2015 also saw it take on a series of garden tidy-ups, which led to the identification of a fenced half acre plot of land in Birkenhead Park in 2016. Running its own fundraising campaign, the team transformed the space within 18 months into a vibrant park, with planting, an outdoor classroom, nature trail, safe play area – with young people involved in its design throughout. As an event space, it has become a focal point for increased participation and the perfect environment for its wellbeing programme.
Hype’s work in Birkenhead Park led to similar work across other areas of Liverpool City Region. As a football coach, Matt had delivered coaching projects in South Africa for a number of years, and pulled together a project to link his young volunteers in LCR with sports coaching and teaching in Cape Town’s Greenpoint Park in South Africa (2018) and New York’s Central Park (which has historic links to Birkenhead Park) in 2019. Working in school, parks and communities gives Hype’s young people a variety of life skills alongside their work experience, exposing them to new cultures, broadening their horizons and boosting their confidence.
Although in 2020 many park initiatives stopped, in February last year Hype delivered its first European Park project as part of the Erasmus programme, with 24 young people from Portugal, Italy and Greece, plus volunteers from LCR observing and developing activity in the city region’s parks. Now, they’ve taken that learning home and will be encouraging people to engage more in parks in their home countries, and have secured a repeat of the project for 2021.
As a result of the growth of its bike programme, Hype saw its turnover double in 2020, although it only managed to work with a tenth of its usual number of people (600, compared to 6,000 the year before). It is now using investment from Kindred to continue to develop trading income and oversee projects in communities centres, schools and parks, prioritising those which will ensure the STO’s sustainability and increase the impact of its work.
Hype has just recruited its first cycle development officer to make the most of demand for its bike service and its Full Circle bike project will see projects run for every age group, developing skills around balance and employability, and combating anti-social behaviour.
For more information about Hype, head to its website, hype-merseyside.co.uk, or for its bike project, have a look at www.hypeurbanbikes.co.uk.
Beautiful New Beginnings bridges the gap between parents, schools and services. The North Liverpool-based early years organisation has grown hugely during the pandemic, supporting thousands of parents to become the primary educators in their child’s life from birth and bridging the gap between parent and professional, from pregnancy to school age.
As face-to-face support for both antenatal and post-natal services disappeared, Beautiful New Beginnings moved its business online, and has now pioneered a blended model, supporting parents across the globe. “There has been a huge need for people to feel connected,” says founder Carolyn Whitehead.
It has created a genuinely accessible place to support isolated parents, adding online membership packages, sensory bags and boxes, a baby massage oils range alongside the Seasons programme, which dovetails with the new mental health curriculum launching in schools.
“Working with the Kindred team has been a breath of fresh air,” says Carolyn. “To be surrounded by a community of people determined to grow and scale the impact of the good works they are doing is invaluable. We are so excited to be part of the first round of investments made by Kindred and cannot wait to impact more families in our area.”
The Beautiful New Beginnings team includes a number of professionals, from qualified teachers – including special educational needs – to a counsellor who delivers wellbeing sessions, a pregnancy pilates practitioner and a midwife for positive birth and labour information, plus hypnobirthing and breastfeeding support. A nutritionist and first aider advise on baby-proofing your home and baby first aid, alongside a dedicated breastfeeding worker.
Beautiful New Beginnings has expanded into a creative space online, using National Lottery funding to purchase equipment to create a platform for people to stay connected, and train parents to set up coffee mornings in cities from Leeds to Bristol and London.
Carolyn says: “There’s been huge demand for what we do. Price rises for ‘traditional’ support and reduced offers will be a real issue for many parents (and children). Many children are likely to be facing challenges with social skills and separation anxiety as parents go back to work. There are also issues surrounding speech and language because of the wearing of masks – we really feel there’s a need for 24-hour access to support out there.”
A full range of sessions includes: antenatal classes, baby first aid, breastfeeding, children coping with stress and anxiety, nutrition, pelvic floor exercises and incontinence, Pilates for pregnant women, signposting for early years, healthy minds sessions / mindfulness, sleep training, stay-and-play and baby massage, story telling, supporting parents to understand their children’s education and wellbeing sessions.
Over the next ten years it’s inevitable that cities will change drastically. We’ll no longer be able to rely on cars and public transport to travel - cycling and walking will be the new norm. Cycle of Life’s Ibe Hayter realises a radical new approach is required to tackle the social inequalities in mobility, health, emissions and socio economic status in the city/region – as well as the other barriers that prevent people from confidently choosing to cycle. As the world we live in changes, it’s vital that people aren’t left behind.
“I enjoyed cycling with my father as a child – it was all about roaming freely and going where you want to go. I tried to pass this on to my own children,” he says. “But I found that they didn’t enjoy it as much, as there wasn’t a cycling culture in my diverse neighbourhood.
“I trained up and worked as a cycle instructor, running cycling projects. I remember one of the instructors I worked alongside at a school telling a young Somali student that she would have to take her headscarf off to put on a helmet or she would not be allowed to ride. I felt she was being forced to choose between her identity and riding a bike, which was unfair.
“Many of the children we trained at schools lived in my area, although none of the instructors did,” Ibe continues. “After completing the training I noticed many children stopped riding. When I asked why, they informed me that their families did not encourage them, as they felt riding bikes on the road was dangerous. Parents listed many barriers to cycling and why they did not encourage their children.”
After completing an Active Citizen course at Kuumba Imani, Ibe decided the time was right to change the culture, removing some of those barriers. Starting in early April 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that his first project was to provide bikes to NHS and key workers, enabling them to travel to work safely.
But Ibe realised a radical new approach would be required to tackle the social inequalities in mobility, health, emissions and socio economic status in the city/region and create new attitudes to active travel and alter behaviour in city life.
A year later, Cycle of Life has delivered 90 community cycle rides, 45 hours of cycle repair workshops a week, repaired over 180 bikes and provided another 50 to NHS and key workers.
Its focus is on communities that have been traditionally overlooked or less represented in cycling and it has 150 members. It’s trained twelve cycle leaders – eight of whom are female, and six from BAME backgrounds – and established new cycling groups at Unity, Asylum Link, Liverpool mosque and a women’s group at Calderstones Park. Cycle of Life’s social value added has been calculated at over £400,000 in its first year.
“Collaboration is key to effective social change,” says Ibe. “Working with the public, private and voluntary sector means we can all achieve goals with limited resources.” He’s signed agreements with organisations as diverse as Liverpool City Council and Back on Track, providing a huge variety of services. Cycle UK has trained its volunteers, providing insurance and policies for them to become cycle leaders. In turn, they’re delivering led rides to local community groups like Asylum Link, and making plans to deliver balanceability classes, start a cargo bike delivery service with a young person’s cycle sports club with British cycling. “We’re also developing a 12-week targeted social prescribing pilot with Alder Hey Children’s hospital to tackle increasing health concerns in young people. And we’re negotiating a contract with a national provider to deliver a revamped model of instruction in schools with local instructors who reflect the communities they serve – not only will they teach children to ride, but will take their parents on led rides to give them the confidence.”
Cycle of Life will start bike buses with families cycling to school and create a big change in travel choices in Liverpool. Not only does the STO aim to increase active travel in Merseyside and remove barriers to cycling, but it’ll build skills in local communities by delivering cycle maintenance workshops, a cycle repair centre and develop an instructor and mechanic training centre, creating employment opportunities for local people.
The plans also support Liverpool’s ambition to become a zero-carbon city by 2030. A cycle hub will provide a repair station, café and showers for commuters, become Liverpool City Region’s first training centre of excellence for cycle mechanics and instructors and house an Active Travel consortium. Cycle of Life has created an L8 Active Travel Forum, made up of local residents, businesses and community organisations, to amplify L8’s voice with decision makers, consult and listen closely to its community and enable the area to be chosen for larger investments such as Liveable Neighbourhoods and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. It will also develop an effective tool to enable schools and other organisations to facilitate an effective active travel model within their communities, and help develop local ‘business on wheels’ entrepreneurs.
“I cycle for a few reasons,” says Ibe. “Keeping fit is one of them. It also relaxes my mind, whereas when I drive I feel stressed. Cycling gives me a chance to think about the wider picture. How we want our city to look in the future for our children. Now, for me, it’s about creating an inclusive culture with long term economic, environmental and health benefits. Cycling is a force for good. It creates an environment which can solve a lot of social ills.”
Wirral’s Festival of Beautiful Ideas took place in April 2017, bringing people together to share ideas for making Birkenhead a better place to live and work. Funded by Wirral MBC, the prize pool was matched by Wirral Chamber of Commerce, bringing it to £12,000. Just three years later, projects developed as a result of the festival are on course to deliver more than £3m of value in both financial and social impact.
The week-long festival included events and hack days in some of the town’s more unusual spaces and places, creating an opportunity for people to talk through ideas and share opportunities. Four key focus areas: Wirral Eats, Wirral Plays, Wirral Makes and Wirral Spaces, became a catalyst for the town’s talent.
People from across the peninsula were encouraged to bring along an idea or business plan to make Wirral a better place to be. They bid for support from a funding pot of £12,000, to help take ideas to the next stage of development.
Over 60 ideas were submitted, from mobile food and drink carts to furniture prototypes, yoga, mindfulness, and music and making venues. Five individuals received funding in the culmination of the week’s events and three new Wirral-based collectives emerged, including the Wirral New Music Collective and the Wirral Wellbeing group.
Three and a half years later, Future Yard, the product of Wirral New Music Collective’s vision, has just opened. The event also provided the evidence for Wirral Council and Make CIC to work together to open Make Hamilton Square, now 18 months into existence in the council’s former Treasury Building. Make has received an additional £59,000 investment to launch the site from a variety of investors, and a number of the festival’s participants are also now residents in this new creative community hub, which has become a focal point for socially-trading organisations.
A group of STOs, including Grow-Wellbeing CIC, Blossom Haus, which provides mental health services for people under 18 and Pathways to Work are now resident at Make Hamilton. Hilary White Designs, an artist who participated the Festival of Ideas, is artist in residence.
Cllr. Christine Spriggs was Cabinet Member for Culture, Heritage and Creative Economy at Wirral Council between 2017 and September 2020. She worked with Wirral Council officers who commissioned the Beautiful Ideas Company to deliver the festival, and says: “What’s happening in Birkenhead right now is pretty exciting as a new, confident, creative community emerges. There has always been so much creative and artistic talent here on the Wirral, but this has been galvanised by initiatives such as the Wirral Festival of Beautiful Ideas and what has emerged since… The transformational potential of cultural and creative activity in Birkenhead has been driven by this grass roots movement of creative entrepreneurs. It has only really just begun.”
Post-festival, five music events across five different venues proved the music collective’s concept. They resulted in Birkenhead’s first music festival at Birkenhead Priory, which created a financial impact of £282,191. After 97% of visitors expressed a wish to attend more events like the festival, it opened Future Yard – the first live music venue that Birkenhead has had for years – in the middle of 2020. Not only will it support live music in the town, but industry skills and artistic development, with industry-led training pathways for local young people, a 350 capacity live venue, music studios, co-working space and café/bar.
“We have a blissfully optimistic idea that you can change a place through music – through enabling and encouraging music communities,” says Future Yard’s Craig Pennington. “Venues are often the places where those things start and it’s musicians that colonise and start those processes. But it’s not just short-term gentrification – our aim is to enable a long-term shift from the bottom, up. The venue is our platform, with performance as its core.”
Liam Kelly is the CEO of Make, and a Commissioner for Town Centres on behalf of Liverpool City Region. “The bubbling of creative activity in Birkenhead is starting to move from a slow simmer to a roaring boil – in spite of a global pandemic,” he says. “Make Hamilton is close to being completely full, which far exceeds forecasts and expectations. Alongside other brilliant projects like Future Yard, Convenience Gallery and others, it’s living proof that both demand and desire exist in Birkenhead, and that we're ready to take brave next steps in its renaissance.”
The financial impact of the town’s cultural renaissance* can be estimated at around £2,290,000 this year, rising to a potential £2,790,000 next year as Future Yard opens up and welcomes tenants.
Its equivalent social impact, based on studies of similar place-based social, maker and creator activity within a locality, shows that Birkenhead is estimated to deliver at least £916,000 of social value every year, bringing the total delivered as a result of the Festival of Ideas intervention to date at £3,206,000 (rising to £3,906,000 in 2021).
Collaboration lies at the heart of the approach. It was embedded in the Festival of Ideas, and has continued amongst the STOs that benefited from it. Future Yard, Make Hamilton and Bloom are now embarking on their own cultural triangle, creating a cultural shift to opportunities and perceptions in Birkenhead.
* These figures are derived from those ventures that resulted from or were inspired by the Festival of Ideas, that have been tracked. Not all ventures were tracked as no follow-up resource was supplied. Some of the key ventures have continued to rely on Beautiful Ideas Co and Creative Economist for support, at an in-kind cost circa £30,000 per annum. Average turnover figures have been applied to tenants of key ventures in line with national micro and creative business turnover and available Companies House information. Social impact has been estimated using detailed studies of similar interventions and creative, maker and social activities at 40% of financial impact.
dot-art Services CIC supports emerging and established visual artists across the region by helping them develop their careers and gain exposure and promotion for their work. dot-art also delivers a programme of public-access art classes across Liverpool alongside the dot-art Schools programme, an inter-school art competition, which launched in 2012.
dot-art’s work recognises the contribution that art and culture make to our wider community and wellbeing. As well as supporting visual artists and helping them make a living from their work, whatever their background, its goal is to enable everyone to enrich their lives through art. Working with around 100 member artists at any one time, dot-art develops and generates a wide range of projects for them to work on, from producing bespoke artwork for the interior of the Liver Building or delivering workshops in schools, to taking part in exhibitions. Member artists deliver around 4,000 participation hours every year, teaching everything from landscape painting to analogue photography to the public.
Member David Andrews ran sessions in 25 schools around the Anfield area. His project culminated in a community art work for Liverpool Football Club, alongside regularly delivering his popular one-day street art workshops.
“I really enjoy the variety of projects I get to work on through dot-art and the big name clients that I wouldn’t usually have access to if it wasn’t for their representation,” he says. “The LFC project is the largest one in my portfolio and I loved working with 500 children across North Liverpool, as well as staff from the club, to create this mural at Anfield.
“Being a member of dot-art has helped push my boundaries and comfort zones of being an artist to build my confidence, experience and portfolio. In the last five years of being a member, I have also had the chance to work with young people in foster care and pupil referral units, as well as creating murals for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, the 50th Anniversary of Sgt Pepper’s and two office blocks.”
Between 2012 and 2019 dot-art Schools worked with 398 schools, and 6781 students, across the North West. Notable outcomes from the programme include creating cultural participation that crosses geographic and demographic boundaries, raising pupils’ aspirations and building self-esteem.
Alongside being a regular contributor to Kindred Conversations, the dot-art team has been working with Kindred to better articulate its social impact as an organisation, and has been working on new bids to help take its work with schools national, with support from Kindred.
“Kindred is a really refreshing new approach to support for our sector,” says managing director Lucy Byrne. “Since we first engaged with Jo and Erika at the beginning of lockdown, both through one-to-one support and online events, I’ve felt that they’re genuinely here to help us and have the knowledge, experience and contacts to back it up. We are all experiencing tough times, but it really helps to know there is someone you can call on for practical help and realistic suggestions.”
“During the pandemic, families have been thrown together in an unprecedented way, unable to see friends, to visit the places they love, or even to go to school, college and work,” says Baytree Catering founder Michelle O’Dwyer. During lockdown, the Baytree team created fun, interactive cookery sessions, designed for them to learn, work together and share great food.
Baytree has plenty of experience cooking in the community. Every year it cooks a Christmas dinner – in 2019 it served 170 people, bringing people from across the city region for dinner. In 2020, it’s worked alongside community volunteers, drivers and community centre’s, including the Joseph Lappin Centre in Old Swan, Granby Children’s Centre, Unity Youth Children’s Centre, The Florrie and The Caribbean Centre. During lockdown it has provided 1,860 food kits, containing 7,440 servings of fresh, nutritious food to families in the L8 and L13 areas of Liverpool.
Debi McAndrew, the children’s centre co-ordinator for Liverpool City Council, says: “In terms of real benefits to families, we can confidently report that children and their parents have reported improved relationships by sharing cooking activities; parents are more aware of healthy eating and how this can be; children are making healthy choices and families are engaging in adult/ child activities which promote and help to develop positive relationships.”
Amongst its many benefits, the programme helped build confidence in cooking skills and food choices. It created intergenerational activities, supported community members who were shielding, alleviated food poverty through the provision of meals and ingredients, and reduced food waste by providing recipes which re-use ingredients.
The recipe kits are made each week on Monday to Wednesday mornings and include hummus and crudites with vegetables and pitta, pizza and coleslaw, chickpea and lentil soup and chocolate chip cookies.
“The recipes have been easy to follow and parents have commented how easy it was to cook from scratch,” says Debi.
“They also report that children are ‘less fussy’ in eating different foods, as they have made it themselves. Overall, this has been a great success. Families have posted their cooking skills on social media and – as a result of sharing via social media – we’ve had messages sent to us from those who haven’t received a recipe bag asking if they can become involved.”
Baytree Catering works with a number of volunteers from marginalised communities to deliver its services, supporting them to begin working within the communities that they serve and helping them into education and work.
“I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t come here. Without Julie and Michelle I’d have been lost,” says Anne-Marie, one of Baytree’s team.
Michelle attended a Kindred event and has since received support to help her rethink what growth might look like for the business. She’s been learning about social impact and has linked Baytree Catering up with other socially-trading businesses to collaborate and reach new customers.
