At a recent networking day for Facilitators, we discussed a perpetual topic – innovation. This is an area that can often be confusing and lacks tangible meaning to groups. The main questions we asked each other were:
What is innovation?
How does innovation differ between groups?
Where are the different areas for innovation in the project lifecycle?
Innovation is the introduction of new ways of doings things, something different, something unconventional, something exciting!
We have already seen good examples of innovation in Community Spaces projects, but we want to know things that you have done or seen that deserve recognition and should be shared. Your examples could be from any part of the project process: how you tendered; use of social media; a specific consultation event; the sustainability grant; the launch event; and, of course, the project itself.
Some examples that have already featured on our blog are:
Turning an old tree into some artwork
A group gave ongoing progress reports and photos via their website
School children designing their own artwork, featuring their own pictures
We want to share your experiences to help ensure all project offer something different and promote innovation throughout Community Spaces. Let us know your innovative examples.
The Green Flag Special Awards for Innovation have just been announced, there are some interesting examples here:
http://www.keepbritaintidy.org/GreenFlag/GreenFlagAwardSites/SpecialAwardsForInnovationWinners/AnnouncementofwinnersofSpecialAwardforInnovation/Default.aspx
We are deilghted that our project “herbie” has just received funding. One key aspect to our bid was the involvement of a number of community groups to ensure that we were unique – but more importantly drew on the skills of different groups and will lead to individuals gaining pride and passion in the project. Using people who have had challenges in their life to be part of a community project will help provide direction and deliver a sense of achievement. Innovation doesn’t just have to be a style or concept it can be the use of people in a none traditional way – we will ensure we maintain innovative ways to our project during its development.
Whilst off duty from my facilitator role and in full Mummy-mode I took my girls (4 and 6) to Lyme Park to explore the new play area at Lyme Park (National Trust). It’s a fantastic playground, quite ‘risky’, which spreads into the woods for den building and has lots of MUD! There are also many huge felled trees in the park for great play and climbing challenges.
Well worth a visit for groups in the North West planning play areas – take wellies
http://crowwoodplayscape.blogspot.com/
[...] first mentioned the ‘Herbie’ project in our innovation blog piece see: http://blog.community-spaces.org.uk/2010/09/what-is-innovation If your group is developing a project that is a little bit different please tell us about it by [...]