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Author: POP
Developing Our Voice and Story
The POP team are currently working on how we tell our story (see here if you’re interested https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZDOd0wR99lr9Z0hxHWJkjWkWaNyfMcHAYK6EB2E1osU/edit?usp=sharing). everything below is simply my thoughts after the start of the conversation.
There is the big picture
Economically and socially we see year after year the same groups of people being badly affected – and most adversely affected by economic and global crises such as COVID & the Ukrainian war. Environmentally we are already seeing the impact of climate changes on our food chains, living costs and future prospects.
What is clear is that the longer we wait, the number of people who are worst off will continue to grow. It is also clear that there is not one single ‘solution’ that sorts everything out. We have to reimagine how we work, what we value, our responsibilities and ways of organising society. It can be hard to know how to start.
This is why POP is working on the hidden rules that define how we come together. We know amazing stuff happens when we work together, which is why we are concentrating on the barriers that get in the way.
These barriers are:
- Funding – we continue to need funding to get deeper into communities and support rather than undermine collaboration.
- Community ownership – we need assets to be owned and held in the community so all our efforts don’t simply increase the wealth of the few (and we make a bit of income along the way).
- We talk collaboration, but don’t really do it – I’m constantly reminded that competing priorities, time and capacity, funders requirements, putting our egos aside all act against us genuinely collaborating.
POPs role in this is twofold
First and foremost we help grassroots sector to thrive and develop. The grassroots are small, democratic groups run by ordinary people. They glue local communities together through collaboration and forming networks. They have diverse styles and set their own goals. For the grassroots to have a voice and influence change so their community thrives, we need this sector to collaborate well, interact well and be listened to within decision making.
Secondly we take a leadership role – the big picture will not happen without effort and we need it to happen so that our work becomes redundant. So we take a leadership role to try and achieve this.
What are we doing?
SUPPORTING AND ADVISING – we help and support grassroots groups across the city.
FUNDING – we experiment with money, finding ways to promote collaboration and grassroots activity.
BUILDING NETWORKS – we connect groups up.
GRASSROOTS DATA – we publish our data about the grassroots sector making the invisible, visible.
BELONG IN PLYMOUTH – a large programme of work looking at how citizen voice can generate collaboration that delivers better public services.
How can you help?
- The easiest way is just to get in CONTACT. Tell us what you think.
- Collaborate! CONNECT resources, SHARE passions, GIVE generously.
- Encourage your peers to become a MEMBER.
- Join the conversations about the big barriers HERE.
- Help us create strong neighbourhoods by joining or starting a NEIGHBOURHOOD NETWORK.
POP Page November 2023
Click here to download the POP Page.
Notes for editors:
For more information, please contact Caroline Blackler on 07920 741718 or email carolineblackler@phonecoop.coop
POP November 2023 Newsletter
POP Page – October 2023
Click here to download the POP Page.
Notes for editors:
For more information, please contact Caroline Blackler on 07920 741718 or email carolineblackler@phonecoop.coop
POP & Take a Part – Plymouth Together Commission
In 2022, POP commissioned Take a Part to work with POP, its members and the wider charity & social enterprise sector to take a creative investigation exploring collaboration.
Collaboration is at the heart of what POP does and champions, so it made sense to try and find out what drives it in Plymouth. This is not a impact report showing POP’s success. Our original brief stated clearly why:
“The rationale for excluding attribution of POP’s influence is that people and organisations make their own change and their own success. The role of POP is secondary to celebrating this. To view it in any other way removes the agency of those we seek to support, and thereby inadvertently acts against our primary role as support for grassroots groups.
To acknowledge the arrogance in claiming vicarious success does not conflict with showing confidence in our own strengths and role in Plymouth. We therefore want to highlight, celebrate and make the case for grassroots groups and grassroots collaboration.”
Instead, we want this to be an independent portrayal of what we think makes collaboration work and what gets in the way.
Here are the results:
Celebrating Ten Years of POP!
Plymouth’s favourite octopus is celebrating its tenth birthday and reaching out to invite communities of all shapes and sizes to join in the fun!
For ten years the charity Plymouth Octopus – or POP – has been committed to supporting citizen and community action across the city: from tiny grassroots projects to networks in geographic neighbourhoods, POP has encouraged them all. POP is inviting everyone to come along to celebrate with a week of festivities celebrating “The Community of Us”. There will be people showcasing their projects; workshops to take part in; networking events and, at the end of a week, a party! As the chief executive of POP, Matt Bell says, there are many reasons to celebrate:
“In the last few years, we’ve seen much greater recognition of the importance of the work – and power – of communities. And now, what’s really exciting, is the genuine change we’re seeing in the way citizens, businesses and public services are willing to work together, and learn from each other, to find a better way forward for all of us.”
In ten years, POP has evolved into a vibrant organisation with more than 300 members. Some, such as St Luke’s Hospice, Livewell southwest and Plymouth City Council are well-known, but the majority are grassroots projects, flying ‘under-the-radar’, yet making a profound difference to their participants, such as the community singing project, Soul Singers. It was set up four years ago by MJ, a former primary school teacher, who believed that through singing she could help improve people’s health and wellbeing;
“I know the impact it can have on people’s lives,” says MJ. “I know that there are times when someone struggles to get here but they’re glad they did. I see the change in them, and I see them walk out of here like a different person.”
It is projects like these that POP supports enabling the people behind the projects; people, like MJ, who might otherwise have no-where to go for information and advice
on how to set up and run such a project. It is a unique service that in the lastn ten years has provided business support and funding advice to nearly 700 different groups and organisations. It’s a service says Imogen Potter, POP’s capacity building manager, that has helped to generate real social change in Plymouth:
“We’ve seen a real shift in the number of people with lived experience now coming forward to set up their own organisations and run their own projects. This has given individuals a greater choice and, in many cases, a more profound experience.”
Three years ago, POP took the radical step of becoming a funder: providing money for local people to run local projects. Since then, it has invested more than £600,000 in more than four hundred projects of all shapes and sizes across the city with – significantly – the majority operating at a ‘grassroots’ level. Projects, such as, the Tree Project in Keyham which uses yoga and mindfulness to support children and young people’s health and wellbeing; the Mindful Art Club which, through art, help’s people to manage stress and anxiety and Red Velvet Cinema which provides entertainment and companionship to older people. As Sarah Foulis, a regular at the Plymstock Soul Singers group says, projects like these can make such a big difference to people:
“It’s lush,” she says. “It makes you really happy and no matter what sort of day you’re having, it makes you feel that you’re in control.”
From the 6th – 10th November there will be opportunities to experience the talents and hear the stories of other local grassroots groups & community organisations at venues around Stonehouse. This year’s keynote speaker is Indy Johar, described as ‘one of the most influential people in London’ and founder of the organisation Dark Matter Labs which is focused on radically redesigning our cities, regions and towns for a more-democratic, better- distributed transition (one of the projects DML is currently working on is “Trees as Infrastructure: Re-wilding Urban Forests”). We hope you can join us to celebrate The Community of Us and all that we’ve accomplished together in the past decade. For more information and to book your place visit https://support.plymouthoctopus.org/agm-2023
-ENDS-
For more information email carolineblackler@phonecoop.coop or call 07920 741718.
POP Ideas Impact Snapshot – July-September 2023
POP October 2023 Newsletter
POP Collectives Relaunch
POP is delighted to announce the launch this month of its new-and-improved Collectives Fund.
Set up by POP in August 2020, The Collectives Fund exists to support POP members working at the ‘grassroots’ level of community action. Through the creation of many unique and innovative collaborations, the fund has helped to bring about real social change, by the people, for the people. Now, after a brief lull during which there has been a period of consideration, reflection and learning, POP declares the Collectives Fund Mark II open for new applications! This is our commitment to creating change through collaboration.
POP has invested more than £270,000 in 62 projects across the city in the last three years.
Here are some examples of collaborative projects that were helped by the POP Collectives Fund:
- Ocean City Publishing – improving literacy and increasing literary opportunities in Stonehouse.
- Vacancy Atlas and its Window of Opportunity – bringing creative ideas into empty shops and livening up the City Centre.
- Setting Sail Together – providing sailing lessons for refugees and asylum seekers.
- Pride Community Working Together – creating inclusive spaces so that we might share and learn from each other.
We know that Plymouth is buzzing with ideas and vibrating with the energies of so many people wanting to create change, particularly within their own communities. The Collectives Fund enables like-minded people to come together to generate change.
Different types of POP Collectives:
- Working in geographic communities, e.g., in Stoke; Ernesettle and Chaddlewood
- Those sharing an interest or passion, e.g. History and Storytelling
- Collectives formed around ‘health & wellbeing’, such as, those supporting people with mental health; trauma and periods
- Collaborating around shared ‘Sexuality’ such as the Pride Communities
The POP Collectives Fund is now open!
As before, you’ll need to be in a collaboration of (at least) three POP members. However, there will now be six rounds of funding throughout the year (roughly every two months) and we will be funding three projects chosen by your fellow POP members. Applicants can apply for up to £5,000.
Those organisations within a successful collective will need to wait twelve months before they can apply again. For more information visit https://support.plymouthoctopus.org/funding-details?recordId=recHw9DYbYyGkiZvC or email simon@plymouthoctopus.org
