By Kathryn Woolf

The co-design workshop in Pengegon went well on Friday and gave us much food for thought. I have attached a few photos and uploaded the rest to the Designing Communities Flickr Page

The best bit of the day for me was when all the children arrived after school and got busy drawing floor plans and making a community centre out of cake & sweets! This gave me an opportunity to talk to some of the mum's about the idea of a community centre reward card / loyalty scheme which they thought would work really well. The basic idea being that residents could exchange volunteer time for points that they could cash in for things like cinema tickets, food, electrical goods, travel vouchers etc.

We would like to develop this idea further for the final report as we believe that a community volunteer scheme will help to make the centre sustainable long term and help individuals gain confidence and develop some of the skills they need for getting back into work.

I also think it would be great to get local businesses on board to providing incentives, sponsoring events, and maybe even providing job opportunities longer term?

We have also been working on ideas for a residents handbook that could be co-designed in tandem with the new building. This handbook might not necessarily be a printed handbook - it could be a website, a film or even a tv channel?! The aim would be to communicate with and provide information to residents about services and facilities in the local area. It could include useful numbers / contacts / training schemes etc. The community loyalty card could be part of this handbook. Perhaps it is a swipe card that collects points upon entry into the building and points are listed on a community website?

In the meantime, Nigel Stock and Anna Hart are busy developing some visual concepts for the proposed new building based around the key themes and design direction from residents and service providers.