Awarded – Plymouth Octopus

Ernesettle Launch Pad

Collaborators

Ernesettle Community Network
St Aidan’s Church
31st Plymouth Scout Group

Briefly describe your project

Ernesettle Community Network, St Aidan’s Church and 31st Scouts will work together to reinstate the Ernesettle Carnival for the Coronation of King Charles 3rd and as a launch event for the Ernesettle Community Network. The Carnival will then continue as an annual event, including the passing on of the King’s and Queen’s crowns each year. We will host a shopping and craft village and other types of fun-day activities with the addition of live music running until early evening.

Describe what you hope your Collective will achieve

This collaboration aims to bring people together to reduce social isolation and improve their well-being. All groups, residents and organisations who live and work primarily in the Ernesettle area and also in the wider Plymouth community will be brought together in a Carnival parade which will bring diverse communities together to celebrate their uniqueness and to also share their skills and knowledge. The collaboration will also promote inclusion. We hope that all who come to the event will have fun and feel accepted within the event. The event will take place on 6th May and run from 1100 – 2000 and have 2 distinct sections, the fun-day part finishing by 1600 and the live music and a BBQ continuing until 2000.
St Aidan’s are committed to playing their part in seeing the Ernesettle community flourish and thrive and helping residents through challenging times.
31st Plymouth Scout Group has a strong ethos of community and will help with the logistics of the day and to take on certain activities like the sports events.
The collective hope is to achieve a willingness for more Ernesettle community groups to come together to put on events for the residents. To bring together different community groups who have a variety of skills and creativity to problem solving in making the event a success. It will show other POP organisations within the Ernesettle area the benefits of collaboration.
The hope would be that this is a launch event for the new Ernesettle Community Network. City wide organisations and POP members would be invited to be part of the day to celebrate Ernesettle (and with the NSPCC Together for Childhood pilot project) as a safe and welcoming space and to then have these groups and organisations collaborating together through the network.
The majority of the funding will be spent on this event but if there is anything left it will go to other events that the Ernesettle Community Network would like to put on later in the year with other POP members in Ernesettle.

Describe how your Collective formed

It started off with community members who are part of Ernesettle Community Network and St Aidan’s Church coming together to talk about having an event for the coronation. At the next Ernesettle Community Network meeting the idea was brought to those present and asked who wanted to be part of the collaboration. Due to the ideas brought to the table we thought that it would be good for other organisations to be involved like Pride and Scrapstore.
All organisations within the collective have a strong ethos of community so wanted to come together to put something on for the community of Ernesettle.

Which collaboration “shape” do you expect will best describe your project?

MURMURATION – Like a flock of birds flying together, all the organisations of the collective work closely together on all aspects of the project.

In which areas would you expect most of your grant to be spent?

Events

Window of Opportunity

The Storytelling Collective

Collaborators

WonderZoo CIC
Omnium Radio
Marbles Lost and Found
Mindful Art Club CIC

Briefly describe your project

Mindful Art Club, WonderZoo, Omnium Radio and Marbles Lost and Found will work together to create an opening gig, creative workshops and a closing exhibition over three months in 2023. These events will feature a research element, where participants will be asked to talk about what they need to help improve their lives within the changing social and political climate. An independent evaluator will collate the findings in a report, and this will be presented at the exhibition. This will be a pilot research project, hopefully leading to a longer collaboration.

Describe what you hope your Collective will achieve

This is a collaborative pilot project between four groups that aims to tackle social isolation and improve well-being. At the heart of the project is fun, laughter and putting a smile on people’s faces, within group settings that foster empathy, trust and acceptance. The project will take place over three months (Feb-April 2023) with research conducted with the participants that will feed into a report written by an independent evaluator. The ideas gathered from the research will inform a plan to create a two year collaboration between the four groups, with further funding sought from National Lottery or other larger funding bodies. This pilot project will be a testing ground for different ideas using existing expertise and community connections. The four groups all currently work with diverse individuals, providing opportunities for creativity, skill and knowledge sharing, social interaction and mental health support. The organisations will offer their tried and tested workshop formats, but with the additional offer of letting the participants have a voice that will feed into the research aspect. Participants of the project will be able to express their views and offer ideas for how their current difficulties can be supported better within the community. This will hopefully lead on to create a longer program that is evidence-based and tailored to people’s present experiences, rather than using past models, which may not be suited to current issues.

– First event will be a collaborative performance event – an opportunity for one representative of The Storytelling Collective to give a short talk about the project, its philosophy, aims and activities. Followed by seven artists who will perform comedy, music and spoken word. There will be food and drinks for the audience, who will be invited from the general public, as well as regular participants of the four organisations.
– Three workshops run by each group during Feb-April 2023, with feedback forms and/or online surveys for research. During the sessions, casual conversations will be had with participants that aim to bring out honest perspectives and potential ideas, with notes taken for keywords and phrases. There will be 12 workshops in total, at different locations in Plymouth including Omnium Radio HQ, Union Corner, Oasis Project and The Plot.
– An independent evaluator will create a report using feedback from the workshops, that will enable the groups to reflect upon the pilot project and start creating plans for a two year project.
– The three month project will culminate in an evening at a location TBC, showcasing the work that was done during the workshops and the results of the research and evaluation report. It will be an opportunity for participants to get together and hear how their ideas and perspectives have been heard and will feed into a larger project.
– If this pilot project is successful, with the groups able to work alongside and support one another, there is the possibility of creating a new network within Plymouth that is geared towards tackling social isolation using creative practices.

Describe how your Collective formed

Our four different groups have known of each other as friends for several years, with some of us working together already on various projects. We felt that working together as a collective would allow each of us to gain further knowledge, experience and skills, which will make us more resilient as organisations, leading to greater long term sustainability and positive impact on our community.
Our groups have similar values and aims, as we all work towards tackling social isolation, supporting mental health, giving people a sense of fun and purpose, and providing opportunities to develop friendships. We felt that we’d be able to work together successfully as we all offer unique creative approaches and perspectives, such as performance, radio, visual art, and talks, which can enable mutual support and growth. We hope that this pilot project can lead to longer term collaborations.

Which collaboration “shape” do you expect will best describe your project?

MURMURATION – Like a flock of birds flying together, all the organisations of the collective work closely together on all aspects of the project.

In which areas would you expect most of your grant to be spent?

Events

Wildlife Corridor Makers

Collaborators

Inner City Seeds
Climate Clarity CIC
Hope in the Heart
The Village Hub

We hope to work inclusively with our community to develop a wildlife corridor in the heart of Stoke. We are as interested in providing safe spaces for wildlife as we are people and recognise we need some tending of relationships so we can work together really well and hold relationships as carefully as we hold our passion for the planet.

Describe what you hope your Collective will achieve

We want to take our gardening project to the next level by learning together about sustainability for people and planet. Using learning and support from Hope in the Heart CIC and Climate Clarity CIC we want to develop our collaborative growing space whereby people know they can come and plant and tend without fear of being criticised, and where we can learn how to be part of the solution to our climate crisis, even in a micro attainable way. We will also be learning how we support a completely open, communal space in ways that don’t demand exclusivity or ownership. Our space is also used as a footpath to the local pub and a place where people can drink and smoke outside, and it also contains bins and rubbish as any traditional back lane, so how do we learn to work together and embrace the use of our wildlife corridor by the humans that regularly use it. And how can we give nature and wildlife as much of a look in as everyone else?

We would like to share learning of how we have found ourselves in the climate crisis and why and how we can disseminate this knowledge around, even to people who might not see the crisis.

Describe how your Collective formed

We formed through Inner City Seeds approaching the Village Hub to develop our small courtyard gardening space since July 2021 with the support of volunteers on a drop in basis. We met with Hope in the Heart as a suitably person centred organisation that could help us learn to appreciate and value our own diversity and uniqueness as well as helping us work together better, and with Climate Clarity CIC as the best ever facilitators of Climate Learning that allows us to look at this huge crisis with a lens of what we can do rather than what is beyond us.

Which collaboration “shape” do you expect will best describe your project?

PLATFORM –An organisation, supported by others, that generates opportunities for self-expression by individuals or organisations.

In which areas would you expect most of your grant to be spent?

We expect to pay for workshops from Hope in the Heart and Climate Clarity to support community members to continue developing excellent relational skills as well as more understanding of the wider issues. We also expect to pay Inner City Seeds to lead the project to include green walls, wildlife planting, other planting and growing along the corridor and in our courtyard garden , delivered by community members. The Village Hub will take a 10% admin fee to pay for utilities, equipment as needed, relational support and publicity.

Plymouth and District Junior Netball League

Collaborators

West Devon Junior Netball League
Ivybridge Junior Netball Club
Musketeers Netball Club
Plymstock Community Netball Club
West Devon Junior Netball League

Briefly describe your project

To promote Netball in Plymouth. To encourage more players to come forward and try a new sport, make it affordable to all and develop the players we have to enable them to work towards playing regionally and accessing the pathway to county and national netball.

Describe what you hope your Collective will achieve

We want to encourage children to keep fit and healthy by participating in a great team sport that brings children in the community together. By making netball more affordable and accessible to all parts of Plymouth we hope to give children that are possibly struggling with poor mental health and financial hardship the chance to be part of something new. Our aim is to use the funds to go into schools and offer taster sessions, be able to help clubs take on new children by training more coaches and offering additional workshops throughout the year that will be open to all.
We would also like to help children that are members of local clubs to be put forward for their coaching and umpiring qualifications. We have a lack of Level 2 coaches and umpires in Plymouth and at the moment this restricts what we can offer. By subsidising these costs we hope to encourage more people to think about doing these qualifications. We would also like to provide uniforms for our umpires at the junior league. We would also look to support creating Pathways in Plymouth to allow any girls that are exceptionally talented to progress. Currently any girls that fill into this category have to travel to Exeter or Truro.

Describe how your Collective formed

Our collective was formed through the netball community in Plymouth. We are all like minded and want to see netball grow and be more affordable to all. We formed a brand new junior league in March 2022 and vowed to bring Netball back to Plymouth! We all have netball in our hearts and work well as a collective. We all share different attributes that we can offer. Some of us are trained in safe guarding, health and safety, Level 2 netball coaches, finance, policies and procedures. We hope that by sharing our skills we will be able to successfully collaborate and bring something great to Plymouth Netball!

Which collaboration “shape” do you expect will best describe your project?

MURMURATION – Like a flock of birds flying together, all the organisations of the collective work closely together on all aspects of the project.

In which areas would you expect most of your grant to be spent?

Training / Education

Precious Plastic Collective

Collaborators

● Precious Plastics Plymouth

● Nudge Community Builders

● Plymouth Scrapstore

Briefly describe your project

Plastic is a precious material, however, in the UK we only recycle less than 10% of plastic. We want to change that. Precious Plastics endeavors to take on recycling on a local level. We already have 2 shredders and an injection-moulding machine but are looking to add a sheet press to our equipment. This will allow us to recycle more plastic and turn plastic waste into new valuable and versatile products; from sheet materials for construction to prototyping and material research. The project will bring the community together by being playful and educational, whilst learning about plastic and its properties.

Describe what you hope your Collective will achieve

Our vision is to make Precious Plastics Plymouth a household name in the city and raise awareness about plastic processing, making and recycling. By producing sheet material with the sheet press we will be able to provide Nudge Community Builders- and individuals around Plymouth- with building materials to create items like desks, tables and shelving but also material to create dividing walls for their buildings, like the newly acquired C103 Building on Union Street.

Plymouth has signed up to the ambitious plan to become a Fab city. (https://fabcityplymouth.co.uk/) This means that by 2054 everything that gets sold in Plymouth will need to be created in Plymouth. This plan requires businesses and individuals to change the way they think about production. There will be a need for more maker spaces and creative thinking around new ways of fabrication. We feel that our project will come instrumental in achieving some of the educational and technical elements of this change.

Working with the University of Plymouth and Nudge community builders we have already been able to reach a number of individuals and organisations. The response is overwhelmingly positive. Our base of operations is the Greenhouse at the Plot. The Greenhouse project at The Plot ( https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/arts-humanities-business/the-greenhouse – a Makerspace) will act as an incubator for local people to develop a variety of skills ie CAD/CAM and mould-making for new products and other technical/maker skills that will benefit our project. The greenhouse has a strong link with the University of Plymouth, this will help in nourishing a network of savvy and curious individuals, that will benefit from the material experimentation and bring in new ideas and projects. Whilst maintaining a foothold within Union Street and the communities around Stonehouse.

Working together with Plymouth Scrapstore allows us to streamline our source material (Plastic) from various businesses and individuals in and around Plymouth. It will allow us to tap into their resources so we can buy large quantities of clean plastics of the same type (polypropylene and Polyethylene) that are suitable for our production process. We would be holding free events in collaboration with the Scrapstore which will help to encourage different users to visit and engage with them. It will also allow us to sell our products in their store so visitors/customers can see what can be done with waste plastic. We will encourage customers to come up with ideas for new products that they might want to create for their own gain. This can lead to them skilling up and getting involved in the project through activities at the Greenhouse at the Plot, creating a more resilient community in the process.

Describe how your Collective formed

These three entities, Precious Plastics, Nudge and Scrapstore have well-established connections with each other. The Scrapstore has provided space for Precious Plastics to hold some of its events and promote the process via demonstrations of the equipment. They also support us by providing the public with a place to bring their unwanted plastic waste. The added benefit of the Scrapstore collection point is that the plastic is clean and often uniform, this saves us time in sorting and washing. The Scrapstore also helped to bring Precious Plastics to Plymouth from Tavistock, so we have a vested interest in it expanding and growing .. saving more plastic from a short life and giving it the opportunity to be even more Precious! Since one of the directors of Precious Plastics also works with Nudge Community Builders in The Greenhouse at the Plot there are strong connections with the activities that happen there around upskilling and creating a resilient community. The production process of Precious plastics has many aspects that overlap with the skills offered in The greenhouse, Like Computer Assisted Drawing (CAD) and Computer Assisted Manufacturing (CAM) They also have equipment that is able to be used by Precious Plastics staff and or members. All these well-established links allow each of these partners to promote each other’s work and benefit from each other. A joined-up, linked way of thinking is very much needed to make this a success. I have been very transparent with Nudge and the Scrapstore about what we will use this funding money for. It is evident that in the short term this will have the most benefit for Precious Plastics. By holding free events and producing materials for both partners we will however all benefit from this injection of money to get our sheet press to become a reality.

Which collaboration “shape” do you expect will best describe your project?

HUB AND SPOKE – Like a bike wheel, one organisation holds things together at the centre, while other organisations perform specific tasks

In which areas would you expect most of your grant to be spent?

Equipment Upgrades

Marine Edibles

A Timeline of Change

Collaborators

Friends of Central Park
Karen Moore History
Old Plymouth Society
Fotonow

Briefly describe your project

Plymouth’s Central Park has seen huge changes in its 90-year history and people have always been central to the story. A small part of the story is already available as an online community resource. The rest of it can be told once the necessary copyright permissions can be purchased. There are a large number of images and a Collectives funding grant will make it possible. In this way the whole story of Central Park and what it means to the people of Plymouth will become available as a free community resource.

Describe what you hope your Collective will achieve

We want everyone to realise what a treasure they have in Central Park and how it could have been lost because of successive developments. By documenting its history, we want Plymothians to fully appreciate the value of Central Park and what it means in all of their lives.
As a community resource, we hope to establish a place where more people are encouraged to contribute their memories or photographs such that the record can be progressively refined and updated as new information comes to light.
Much repair and restoration work remains outstanding in the park, and it will need to be informed by knowledge of what existed previously as well as by present needs and desires. We want decision makers to have all the historical background so that they will make choices which are appropriate for the park and work to increase people’s enjoyment.

Describe how your Collective formed

The Timeline Collective comes from work in 2019 and 2020 to capture individual memories and photographs from Central Park’s past. Led by Fotonow and the Friends Group, with Council support and Lottery Heritage funding, it was very successful in setting the scene and shining a torch into areas that were previously unknown.
Following The Box’s opening in 2021, it became possible to go through the official records. It required painstaking research by Karen Moore and was part-funded by £250-a-POP. It identified a very large amount of new material from which heritage volunteers have compiled about 40 new articles. Once licensing and website issues can be addressed, these new articles and the existing ones will enable the whole of Central Park’s story to be told.
Moving into the final phase of work, The Box is keen to encourage the project and has joined the Collective having already provided useful information and generous offers of support. The Old Plymouth Society has also joined the Collective having heard about it in the Community Heritage Forum and being one of the main users of the information generated by the project.

Which collaboration “shape” do you expect will best describe your project?

RELAY TEAM – Like an athletics team, a collective where one team member works on the project then passes the baton

In which areas would you expect most of your grant to be spent on?

Research / Pilot

Front Page / Back Page / Centrefold

Open Collective page

Collaborators

CAMP CIC
Flock South West
Visual Arts Plymouth

During the first round, POP members will be asked to advise you. What advice would be most helpful?

We would be interested in finding out different ways of publicising this opportunity to local artists and creatives, so we can reach as many people as possible. As well as places and people to send the publication to, so the news of Plymouth, Devon & Cornwall artists goes far and wide!

Briefly describe your project

Front Page/Back Page/Centrefold is a portable artwork and publication showcasing the amazing talents of local artists from Plymouth, Devon & Cornwall. We want to raise the profile of Plymouth as a city of creatives, and with the large touring exhibition the British Art Show (BAS) arriving in October, this is THE time to do it! The BAS receives a lot of attention and we want some of this attention on local artists! We are Plymouth, hear us roar! (artistically!).

Describe what you hope your Collective will achieve

We want to support and publicise local artists and get their work seen far and wide.

The British Art Show is a large touring art show, organised every five years, that celebrates the vitality of recent art made in Britain. This year it has toured to Aberdeen, Wolverhampton, Manchester and is coming to Plymouth in October 2022 to January 2023.

The British Art Show can provide an excellent opportunity for local artists to get their work seen by a large audience that will travel to the city to see the British Art Show. But how to do this in an effective and agile way? How can local artists infiltrate the arts organisations in the city that will be showing the British Art Show?

This is how!

Front page / Back page / Centrefold will be a high quality publication featuring work by artists from Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall. Artists will be invited to submit an image of an existing piece of work to be showcased in the book. There will also be three commissions for artists to create new work especially for the publication – one for the front page; one for the back page; and one for the centrefold. The artists will be paid a fee for each of these commissions.

The collective has far reaching networks across Devon and Cornwall and we will send the call out to artists far and wide across the two counties. Many artists who contribute to the cultural life of Plymouth live in wider Devon and Cornwall, which is why we would like to spread the net further. We would also invite members from other POP organisations to submit their work.

The resulting publication will be made available for people to pick up free at the British Art Show venues across the city (The Box, Arts Institute, MIRROR and KARST) as well as other cultural venues. We will also post the publication to arts organisations across the country, and work with the arts organisations in Plymouth to access their mailing lists and social media to further publicise the publication.

The money from the POP collectives fund will be used to pay for the design of the publication; fund the three artists’ new work commissions; print the publication; distribute the publication; and promote the publication.

All three partner organisations have strong track records of successful commissioning and publishing projects, and project management.

We need to work fast to get the publication produced for November/December 2022, but we are all passionate and committed arts workers who love Plymouth and want it to shine brightly creatively, as other British Art Show cities have done!

Describe how your Collective formed

CAMP is a grass roots artist-led support network for creatives living in Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall. Flock South West is an arts production collective made up of local freelance arts workers. Visual Arts Plymouth (VAP) is a group of independent artists and arts organisers in the city.

Members of CAMP and Flock recently visited the British Art Show in Manchester and were impressed by the way local artists were supported and made visible by arts organisations in the city. We then thought, hey, we want to make sure this happens in Plymouth too! So on the train back we got our heads together and came up with this proposal. We then invited Visual Art Plymouth (who organise the much missed and hopefully soon to return, Arts Weekender Plymouth ) to be the third partner in our collective.

A lot of the work done by the three organisations in this collective is done by voluntary labour. We all want great things for local artists, and by coming together in this way, we can support each other and be each other’s cheerleaders. As many of the organisations in POP will know, it’s hard to keep going when most of your work is done voluntarily. By working together collectively we hope to make more things happen than we could do on our own. We’re excited about our proposal and what it could bring to the city.

Which collaboration “shape” do you expect will best describe your project?

HUB AND SPOKE – Like a bike wheel, one organisation holds things together at the centre, while other organisations perform specific tasks

In which areas would you expect most of your grant to be spent on?

Core Funding / Time

Confidence Booster Workshops

Collaborators

● Art Craft & Giggles CIC

● Wellbeing Workshop Devon CIC

● All-Inclusive Textiles

● Kristina Coles Fashion & Textile Designer

Briefly describe your project

Together we plan to deliver 8 x 3 hour confidence boosting workshops over 8 weeks for women from low income households ( working or not). They will be held at the Art Craft & Laughter studio in St Budeaux. Free tea & biscuits will also be offered.

As we already have an established connection within the community, we asked them for suggestions on what issues they would like the workshops to tackle. Examples were:

• Learn new skills

• Make new friends

• Reduce stress and anxieties

• Build confidence

• Breathe without pressure

Also, with the current cost of living crisis we believe the participants will be able to save money by developing skills which will enable them to save money as they will be able to upcycle the clothes they already have.

Describe what you hope your Collective will achieve

From the feedback Kristina Coles decided to deliver 4 weeks of dress for confidence course (between week 1-4) aimed at boosting the confidence of women by teaching them how to enhance their natural beauty using fashion, discover personal style, discover body shapes and how to dress flatteringly, choosing right colour palette for one’s skin complexion and building a bespoke functional wardrobe. The feedback, from all previous workshops showed that the target of increasing confidence was achieved.

Within week 5 Wellbeing Workshops Devon CIC will deliver a one-off wellbeing workshop which aims to build the participants confidence, develop a growth mindset and acceptance of self. This workshop will look to marry the the dress for confidence workshop and practical sewing skills workshop together. With the aim to reinforce the understanding and acceptance of self, covered within the first 4 weeks and to provide a platform of a growth mindset for the participants to carry forward and to be able to try new and challenging skills.

Week 6-8 All Inclusive Textiles & Art Craft & Giggles CIC for these workshop we will teach ladies to use a sewing machine, understand & cut out a pattern & assemble & sew an easy stitch skirt. This will tie into the previous dress for confidence workshops by giving them the opportunity to create an item of clothing which they feel confident within. This will also give them the skills to be able to adjust their own garments in the future and be able to change their clothing to dress with confidence.

Our aims are to provide the participants who attend our workshops with the skills to be able to manage and maintain their own wellbeing in relation to understanding and accepting themselves for who they are and their personal appearance. Developing confidence, positive mindset, and practical skills which they can take forward and apply within their lives during and after the workshops. Giving them lifelong skills, which can help to support them throughout their lives.

In order to measure the impact of the workshops, we will ask the participants to complete a journal to track their journey. We will ask them things like what they have learnt, how the workshops have made them feel and what they are grateful for. This will provide us with qualitative feedback and enable us to look for themes within the data.

Describe how your Collective formed

Debbie at Art, Craft and Giggles CIC contacted the members of the collective to be able to form the group. Each member of the group has experience of delivering our specialities and we have all crossed over at some point and believed that we could a great project together. We have chosen to work together as each organisation has the same morals and values regarding wellbeing and improving within the community. We all have specific specialties that when bought together will have a positive impact on the communities we work within.

Which collaboration “shape” do you expect will best describe your project?

RELAY TEAM – Like an athletics team, a collective where one team member works on the project then passes the baton

In which areas would you expect most of your grant to be spent?

Core Funding / Time