This website was developed as part of Birmingham City Council's Community Asset Transfer Development Programme 2009-10 which was funded by AWM. Here you can find the story of our two pilot projects and pick up general lessons learnt on asset transfer as well as more up to date information on our new Community Asset Transfer Protocol.
Community Matters has received an extension to its BASIS funded programme
and is able to offer;
targeted support to community organisations to achieve a “Step change in
sustainability”
This can be up to 10 days intensive support on specific issues such as but
not limited to;
· Business planning
· Identifying and developing sources of income
· Review and update of policies and procedures
· Community consultation
· Enterprise development
· Hand holding support to achieve Visible or pre-Visible
accreditation
· Review strategic plans
· Facilitated away days
· Incorporation, registering as a company
· Training courses for staff and trustees/management committee
members on some or all aspects of community facilities management
· Trustee/board recruitment, training and induction
· Supporting volunteering
· Asset transfer
· Legal compliance incl. health and safety/risk assessments
<mailto:alisonbellconsulting@gmail.com> both
email addresses are still activeThe support will be allocated on a first come first served basis to c300
organisations Nationally, and must finish by end of Feb 2013
Sport England have just launched an interactive asset transfer toolkit for sport – commissioned by Sport England and produced by Locality’s Asset Transfer Unit.
The toolkit is a good first point of information on asset transfer from a sports perspective. The toolkit provides information, resources and case studies that will be of use for anyone attempting asset transfer in a sports context.
Community Asset Transfer…”There are risks but they can be minimised and managed – there is plenty of experience to draw on. The secret is all parties working together”
(The Quirk Review - “Making Assets Work”)
It is hoped that this website will act as a support and guide for both public agency staff and community organisations to the ins and outs of Community Asset Transfer in Birmingham giving an interesting, creative and importantly ”warts and all” picture of previous and current work. (more…)
Theresa Mcilkenny recently became a director at Norton hall after years benefiting from the services it provides for her and her son. Here she shares her thoughts on why community run places have particular strengths…
Becoming a director seemed like a natural progression, it allows us to help them understand what users expect from Norton Hall
You can only be as happy as you children, these place allows me to go out and what I want to do, that makes me happy.
The staff here are very committed to the children, to their activities to their education, it feels like a very family atmosphere. If ever you’ve got anything you want to talk about they don’t dismiss it out of hand.
I didn’t want to live on benefits, wanted to be in work. I had misgivings about leaving my son anywhere, but they made me feel very comfortable. In the end Richard was learning so much by being here he sometimes didn’t want to come home.
People don’t understand that places like Norton Hall can be life changing. It was life – changing for me. It allowed me to make things better in my life.
Interview at the Norton hall open day on July 11th 2010, Stevie Prior is the Norton Hall director who’s been involved in much of the negotiation over Community Asset Transfer. Here’s a sumary of her thoughts..
“Delighted to have got to this stage, it’s been an “interesting process” and very useful “learning curve”
there has to be a good relationship with city council officers
there is a tremendous amount of work involved and you have to allow for that
some elements – like legal aspect and dealing with the council in new ways gets “extremely serious and at times quite stressful”
I think we’ve emerged a more robust organisation
it’s enabled us to progress, which is what it was partly about anyway.
there is a need for council officers to understand a little more about community development
Two Norton Hall mums, Shazia and Shabnam share their thoughts on Norton Hall, what it means to them and their families and the “new look”. This short interview is a measure of how deeply people value this community lead place.
Norton Hall open day on July 11th 2010 was a wonderful opportunity for the community to see round the new work on the building and remind themselves of why they value the place. This short film has contributions from Councillors, residents and the team at Norton Hall.
Paul Slatter is the director of Chamberlain forum and has been involved in a number of ways to bring the parties together. Facilitating sessions and using a technique called structured dialogue method, which as the name suggests is a structured way of approaching a dialogue between 2 sides of an issue. For more information on Structured Dialogue see here and for a full report – as a word document – click here.
Nick Booth from Podnosh talks about his role as facilitator on the Community Asset Transfer programme. Nick was asked to start this website to capture the story of the community asset transfer transfer programme and record the learning journey of both officers and community activists involved.
His expectations of simply providing a place for participants in the transfer project to tell their stories changed, as this also became a social reporting project and he has called on his “old media” skills to capture the learning, experiences and journeys too.
Advice to other Local authorities and officers:
Don’t be afraid to tell the truth of your experience as you go through the process. This will be a useful assessment and understanding of how successful the process was for you and others.
This sort of open transparency should be used in all other communication methods too, and should eventually affect your organisations expectations of it self.
Don’t be afraid to be fallible, your humanity will strengthen the process and engagement will be deeper.
Advice for third sector organisations:
Use online tools such as blogs and video as your project progresses because in the end this will help you understand what you’ve achieved and the process. ,
Don’t just limit online tools to telling the story of your asset transfer – they are a great way to tell the everyday story of what you do and who you work with.
At the heart of what Norton Hall does is provide childcare for their local community. It helps the children learn and frees up parents to work or study.
Here three of the staff talk about what it means to work at Norton Hall.
