What kind of Community Champions do we want in Bury?
Take part in our Easy Retro Conversation here
Bury Council have been busy recruiting community champions from across our diverse communities to help spread accurate information about Covid-19, hear what’s important to communities and create a network of community voices at a grassroots level. This work has started due to Covid-19 and has the power to go beyond the current pandemic and give communities more agency in shaping the future of Bury.
We are Collaborate Out Loud CIC a s small Bury based social enterprise who have been commissioned by the Council to work with existing champions and Bury’s diverse communities to help to shape the role of community champion for now and the future. We have a team of locally based people who will work on this project who bring local knowledge as well as experience of helping communities work different with Councils, the NHS and other public and voluntary services.
What do we mean by the term champion?
According to the Oxford English dictionary, one definition of a champion is ‘a person who vigorously supports or defends a person or cause’. A community champion is therefore someone who passionately supports their community, whether that be a community of place, interest, experience, identity or action.
It’s important to say that the word champion can be seen in many different ways and we want to explore this as part of this work. Language is really important and can be the difference between someone engaging in something or not.
What do we mean by the term community?
According to the Oxford English dictionary having a sense of community is “The condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common”. There are different types of community, including:
Communities of place. These are groups of people who share interests, priorities and concerns based on the fact they live and/or work in the same area. People may feel they belong to a community at a hyper-local level such as a street, at a neighbourhood level, at a town or borough level.
Communities of interest. These are groups of people who share the same interest or passion, for example Bury Ramblers Group.
Communities of experience. These are groups of people who have a shared life experience, for example homelessness, mental health or substance misuse.
Communities of identity. These are groups of people who have common priorities and concerns based on their identity, such as LGBT, older people, faith networks or BAME communities.
Communities of action. These are group of people who are united by the collective action they take, for example Radcliffe litter pickers.
There is often a lot of crossover and most people feel that they belong to more than one community.
What do we want to do?
Simply we want to do three things:
- Hear what’s important to you in terms of shaping the role of ‘community champion’ in Bury
- Understand the support and development you would like to see for ‘community champions’
- Work with you to shape a role profile and induction, development package for ‘community champions’
Our Fab Four Questionsfor Communities
We have created our fab four questions that we think will help us to explore this tipic with communities and here they are:
- What are the positives of your community?
- What struggles and challenges do you and your community face?
- What gives you and your community hope for the future?
- How would you like your Council to work with the community differently?
One way you cna share your ideas is to contribute to our Easy Retro Board which allows you to ad your responese to these four questions as well as comment on other people’s responses and give thumbs up or down to other responses. by worlimg in this open and transparent way we hopwe we can start a dialogue with a difference.
Take part in our Easy Retro Conversation here
How we will do this
Over the next four weeks we will be hosting:
- Drop in sessions
- Attending meetings and events to hear your views
- Hosting an online conversation
- Creating intentional spaces to hear views
- Having conversations with small groups and individuals
- Using every opportunity we can to hear from communities across all corners of Bury
We will add links in here with dates and booking etc once this has been agreed with Chris and Vicky
Once we have gathered lots of great stuff from communities about what is important, we will then share this and continue to work with you to shape the role profiles, induction and development offer. This is about working with communities throughout to create something great for everyone.
Here is a little bit from the Council’s website about what communities champions are all about
What we ask our COVID-19 Community Champion to do
We want you to share this reliable and up to date COVID-19 information with anyone in your network- family, friends and community.
By receiving trustworthy and clear information regularly, Bury residents will be able to make more informed choices, as we ensure the safety of the public and manage the pandemic.
Please note that being a COVID- 19 Community Champion is not an enforcement or regulatory role.
Become a Covid-19 community champion — Keeping Bury safe during COVID-19
COVID-19 and the various measures taken to manage the virus and protect us, continue to impact everyone in Bury.
It is now more important than ever to ensure that Bury residents stay up to date with the latest guidance and advice, which aims to keep us as safe as possible.
The COVID-19 Community Champion network is made up of volunteers from all areas of the borough and will help residents to stay up to date with how to protect themselves and others against the virus.
What will we do?
Bury Public Health will keep COVID-19 Community Champions informed of the latest advice and guidance, hold exclusive webinars and Q&As, and allow you to ask questions to the Public Health Team. This will help your family, friends and other community members to make sense of the latest facts and guidance about the virus.
Get in touch
If you want to talk to us about this work then you can get in contact via hello@collaborateoutloud.org
We are really excited to be doing this work with Bury and we look forward to meting many of you in the coming weeks.
