Hello Digital

Talk About Local - Highgate

• Mon 19th October 2009 12:00am — 12:00am

• Stanhope Hall

Part of Hello Digital’s Fringe Event are Talk About Local’s Highgate Sessions. On Friday, 6th November, TAL organiser Nicky Getgood writes:

On 19th October we kicked off some talk about local activity in Highgate, Birmingham with a preliminary social media surgery style session in Stanhope Hall, Ketley Croft, Highgate, Birmingham B12.

Things got off to a great start – about 12 people came along, including the local police and we created a site for the Stanhope Women’s Group that meet regularly in the community centre.

We’re going back there at 11.00am this Monday 9th November to work with the group on developing this site and talk to anyone else who is interested in creating or contributing to a community website. The session is open and completely free, so if you’re nearby and would like to learn how to create a website, or perhaps need help with a site you already have, please come along and talk to us.

On Monday the talk about local team went to Stanhope Hall in Highgate for a second session. William [Perrin – ed] talked to the group about how a website can help with local campaigning and getting their message across. We then worked with the Stanhope Women’s Group on developing the site they created during the first session.

The Stanhope Women’s Group plan to use their Wordpress blog to cover all the activity within the Stanhope Hall centre, which is a real focal point for the community. So much goes on there that is well worth bringing to a wider audience, such as their garden, which grows some of the food that’s eaten in their community lunches and the herbs for the womens’ group’s holistic medicine course.

We helped a member of the Highgate Neighbourhood Forum create a Wordpress blog to keep track of reporting issues to the council and making sure these are resolved.

We also spoke to the person behind Abacus Flats (Bradford Street, Digbeth) about how she can safely use her Wordpress blog to discuss reoccuring problems within the three apartment blocks, hold the property management company to account and create a sense of community amongst the residents.

It was a great follow-up session that let us delve a bit deeper into the potential of the community websites created once we had gotten past the initial set-up stages. We’ll be keeping in touch with the people we met at Stanhope Hall, giving them ongoing support and poping by every so often to enjoy one of their delicious community lunches!

Here is a roughly edited video of the session. Thanks to the TAL team.

With thanks to Nicky Getgood for the photographs.