1000 Lives update February 2015
1000 Lives aims to support at least 1,000 local people to become champions for health and
wellbeing in Stoke on Trent, focusing on taking social action on issues which are important to them
and which reflect needs in their local areas.
The project started in May 2012. This update report provides an overview of progress and next
steps.
Friends of 1000 Lives
We recently agreed to call 1000 Lives Network members “friends” as our partners felt this was
more friendly and avoided people feeling they were signing up for extra commitments. We are
checking out how people feel about this change.




416 individuals on the database (67% female)
281 FB group members – 153 of them are not on the database
Approximately 285 people on the database are individual members and 131 are
representatives of formal organisations
Total number of friends and individuals representing partners at present 566
We have collected demographic data from 41% (171) of those who appear on the database. Not all
the 41% answered all the questions but the following information can be gathered:
Disability
155 people out of 171 responded to a question about disability. 18% (28) declared that they
considered themselves to have a disability.
Ethnicity
165 people out of 171 responded to the question about their ethnicity:
84.2% (139) describe themselves as White British, English or White Other
6.6% (11) describe themselves as African Caribbean
3.0% (5) describe themselves as Mixed Black Caribbean and White
1.8% (3) describe themselves as Sri Lankan
1.2% (2) describe themselves as African
1.2% (2) describe themselves as Asian
0.6% (1) describe themselves as Pakistani
0.6% (1) describe themselves as Romanian
0.6% (1) describe themselves as Mixed Asian and White
Age
144 people out of 171 responded to the question about their age:
23.6% (34) are aged 18-30
50.7% (73) are aged 31-55
25.67 (37) are aged 55+
Partners
Partners are organisations who share their resources and support the Network either by attending
events and providing information stands, doing talks, offering equipment, space, training etc.
We have held three meetings to bring Partners together. We meet with individual partners as
requested, in order to develop a personalised approach for each organisation.
We have 59 partner organisations signed up. This includes a number of City Council teams but each
team is considered a partner. The workers in the partnerships are included in our database.
Our partners at present include:
 Asist
 Birches Head Academy
 CAB
 Community Organisers
 Healthwatch
 Mitchell Arts Centre
 North Staffordshire User Group
 St Paul’s Church Dalehall
 Staffordshire Housing
 Staffordshire University Faculty of Arts and Creative Technologies
 Stoke Baptist Centre
 Stoke on Trent Foodbank
 VAST
 Voices of Stoke
 WEA
1000 Lives Map
We have mapped the friends, partners,
funded groups and network events into an
interactive Zeemaps programme. Although
not everyone is represented, as we don’t have
postcodes for all friends, it demonstrates the
constituency of 1000 Lives.
To view the current map online, go to
http://bit.ly/1A9SyAN
Events
Our networking events objectives are 4 per year including 1 celebration event. Events are themed
based on champion needs and are planned with champions.
Since 2012 the following events have taken place in the specified venues:
Year 1
18.07.12
Networking event for organisations
VAS, Dudson Centre
19.10.12
Launch of 1000 Lives
WRVS, Hanley
Welcome to 1000 Lives
30.01.13
Networking Event: Making community connections
Cobridge Community Centre
Making Community Connections
24.04.13
Networking event: 5 ways to wellbeing
Blurton Hub
Five Ways to Wellbeing
Year 2
25.07.13
Community awards
Rowan Village Meir (Staffs
Housing)
Community Awards
09.12.13
06.02.13
Networking event: Funding
Funding for Community Projects
SOT Foodbank, Wesley Hall
Church Sneyd Green
Young People’s celebration and awards
Birches Head Academy
Young People's Celebration
28.04.14
Networking event: 1KL ambassadors and funding
OCIS Community Café, Hanley
1000 Lives Funding
Year 3
26.06.14
Networking event: Organising community events
Stoke Baptist Centre
Planning Community Events
02.12.14
Celebration of 1KL and Community First funded
projects
1000 Lives and Community First Awards
St Paul’s, Dalehall
03.02.15
Networking event: community ambassadors
Mitchell Arts Centre
17.03.15
Networking and training: 1KL evaluation
St Mark’s, Shelton
Our events during the current financial year were as follows:
June 2014 at Stoke Baptist Centre looked at
‘how to organise a community event’.
We held a celebration event jointly with
Community First and Community Organisers on
2nd December 2014. Several organisations
presented on how they had used the 1000 Lives
funding.
Feb 3rd 2015 at the Mitchell Arts Centre. Ten
organisations provided workshops for
participants.
Subjects included: dementia care, 5 ways to
wellbeing, Potteries Gold, cancer awareness
and advocacy for people with learning
disabilities.
Participants feedback included:





Dementia Friends session really made me think – thanks!
Awareness about sexual health and what services there are!!
The 5 Ways to Wellbeing was brilliant – I will definitely be doing some
Potteries Gold – being made aware of changes
Made me think that people work together can be stronger champions
 All extremely informative and thought provoking
Feedback from this event demonstrates the value that the 1000 Lives Network has for partners.
“We gained 5 new members in total, including 2 ‘Messengers’ (i.e. active volunteers) which
was very useful. It was a good event and we are very pleased to have been part of it.
Congratulations to you and to all who helped”. Healthwatch
“There was an excellent lunch and time to talk and network”. WEA
“Gave out lots of information about Green Door and linked into Community Respect event
at Smallthorne” Green Door
“As part of my session I gave out information on how to determine what is a priority and a non
priority debt. They all said they gained new information as they didn't know about priority non
priority debt and they went away knowing the consequences of not paying. The champions went
away feeling as though they knew how to help people prioritise their debts. Overall I thought it was
a very good event and well attended” SNS CAB
“Thanks again for staging another great event. Everyone seemed to be very engaged with
the session, asking good questions and some being very open. One person signed up to be a
member and came to one of our meetings.... I have suggested inviting Lynn or Adrian to our
next Volunteer Support Group in April” NSUG
Our last Network event for this 12 month period will be on 17th March. With the help of
Staffordshire University will be using this event for evaluating 1000 Lives as well as coaching
participants in how to evaluate their own organisations using creative digital media tools.
Resource sharing
1000 Lives is founded on an Asset based approach.
At the majority of Network events we have
facilitated people to share resources on a Got It
Want It wall. People ask for things they need for
their community action, and offer things they
have to share. The items offered and wanted
include equipment, space, time, skills,
knowledge, training, funding and information.
For example: Cobridge Community Centre
offered play equipment which was taken by a
group in another part of the city.
A Friend of 1000 Lives wanted to volunteer and
has been offered an opportunity with Open
Door at St Mark’s Shelton.
Training
Since 1000 Lives began in 2012, 50 people have taken part in training and most have completed the
courses. Some have completed more than one course and this is reflected in the numbers below.
Course
Numbers
Community champions course Feb 2012 unaccredited course delivered by Mike
Romano
8
Community champions course Nov 2012 unaccredited course delivered by Mike
Romano
8
Evaluation course April 2013
8
Speaking Up January 2014 level 3 accredited delivered by Adrian Ball and Penny
Vincent with learner support from Candi Chetwynd. 6 qualified.
9
Taking Part level 3 accredited delivered by Penny Vincent and Anne Revell. 6
qualified.
9
Speaking up November 2014 level 3 accredited delivered by Adrian Ball, Penny
Vincent and Lynne Ball. All qualified,
7
Taking Part February 2015 level 3 accredited delivered by Penny Vincent, Anne
Revell and Candi Chetwynd
11
TOTAL places taken up
60
Feedback from the training includes:
“Has given me the knowledge of what is involved in planning a project”
“I have learned the value of working in the community with others”
“I know how to deliver a presentation with confidence and to chair a meeting”
“I’ve learned how to interact with others confidently, speak out and participate without feeling
awkward”.
“I learned that my views are important”
“I learnt to respect people a lot more and speak my mind”
“I learned what is community and how we can involve and change it. Understand more
about local issues”
“I learned more about how our communities are governed and who by. How I can be more
involved. I liked mapping of our area”
Small Grant funding
At the beginning of the financial year we were given £10,000 to provide community groups with
funding for projects which would encourage new volunteering opportunities in their communities.
This funding has helped to identify gaps in existing community champion activity, and to establish
projects to address those gaps.
We have had 3 rounds of the small grant fund with a 4th round planned for next month. Friends of
1000 Lives have taken part in the decision making process. We used stringent criteria and the
following organisations have been funded:
Round 1
YMCA – Go Outdoors - £840
SCIPE – Cultural Awareness: practical hair and skin care for minority ethnic children - £570
OCIS Community Café – Scrabble meets Chess - £776.50
Round 2
Fenton Hub – Grow it, Cook it, Eat it - £1000
Whitfield Valley Centre – Fun for Kids - £750
Chameleon CIC – JobFest - £1000
Closer to Homes Walks – admin support - £300
Round 3
Wooldridge Court Residents - £102.04
STOCCA – Steel Returns to Stoke - £500
AirSpace, WI and Sainsbury staff consortium – Bee Friendly Garden - £500
Burslem Regeneration Trust – Root ‘n’ Fruit - £496.76
Moorcroft Grange CIC – Around the Table - £465.00
Total granted: 6803.54
Total remaining: £3196.46
The 4 funding categories were Young People, Outdoors, Poverty and General.
The following table shows how the projects fitted into the categories. Some projects covered more
than one category:
Theme
Young People
Outdoors
Facing Poverty
Organisation
YMCA Go Outdoors
STOCCA Steel Returns to Stoke
Whitfield Valley Centre Fun for Kids
SCIPE – Cultural Awareness: practical hair and skin care for
minority ethnic children
YMCA Go Outdoors
Fenton Hub Grow it Cook it Eat it
AirSpace, WI and Sainsbury staff consortium – Bee Friendly
Garden
Burslem Regeneration Trust – Root ‘n’ Fruit
Closer to Homes Walks – admin support
Chameleon CIC – JobFest
General
Burslem Regeneration Trust – Root ‘n’ Fruit
Fenton Hub – Grow it, Cook it, Eat it
Moorcroft Grange CIC – Around the Table
Wooldridge Court Residents
OCIS Community Café – Scrabble meets Chess
There were 4 projects which specifically (but not exclusively) connect with minority ethnic
communities either as organisers or participants. These are:
SCIPE – Cultural Awareness: practical hair and skin care for minority ethnic children
STOCCA – Steel Returns to Stoke
OCIS Community Café – Scrabble meets Chess
Chameleon CIC – JobFest
Participatory approach to co-production
As 1000 Lives has evolved, we have involved community champions in the following activities:
Training delivery: Debbie Ball, Candida Chetwynd
Training review group: Eileen Allman, John Forster, Carmel Murphy
Events organising: Mike Oliver, Debbie Ball, Candida Chetwynd, Howard Jones
Social media: Shiya Mohan, Debbie Ball
Funding panels: Eileen Allman, Mehwish Javid, Carol Burt, Derrick Wallace, Carole Kind, Linda
Hamnett, Jay Gardiner
Interview panel for support worker role: Chris Smith, Debbie Ball, John Forster, Anna Macowecky,
Shiya Mohan
Evaluation and Planning: Candida Chetwynd, Shiya Mohan, Linda Harrington, Basir Hashemi,
Carolyn Tham
Every Network event and training course is evaluated by collecting feedback from participants.
As an example:
At the last Partners we asked “ What can 1000 Lives do for you?” Responses were:
 Interest in signing up on organisational level
 Got it want it is good but needs to be an online tool for others to view it
 Can raise the profile of vulnerable people in the community
 Provide volunteers for Stoke on Trent Pride
 Help me feel listened to like I have a valued voice
 Make me feel part of something good
 Share community information linking organisations
 Offer training to our volunteers
 Widen our volunteers network and opportunities




Create a culture of training and learning for volunteers
Connect volunteers with other volunteers
Help to pass the message on that everyone is equal and should be treated with respect and
to eradicate discrimination
Offer an additional level of support for volunteers – a lot like a “trade union” for volunteers
(doing all the elements of this and providing an independent voice. I don’t mean this in a
heavy duty way)
We then asked “What can you do for 1000 Lives?” and the responses were:











offer opportunities for volunteer development
share skills and training
volunteerinstaffordshire.org.uk development and voluntary support - VAST
lots of formal meetings for Speaking Up graduates to sit on – Healthwatch
a role in mapping groups and organisations – we could share? Healthwatch
Public Health have their own twitter feed – share
share with our volunteers/ members what 1000 Lives do – newsletters and on staff intranet
site
promote though social media and being an ambassador (Cultural Sisters and me personally)
happy to encourage volunteers to be part of this (Tom Pine)
we could be a partner and support one another
provide learning disability awareness for any person/ organisation
All of this continual feedback ensures that 1000 Lives meet the needs of the Community Champions
and partners involved and is developed through co-production.
Support worker
Having received some extra funding from Public Health, we appointed Lynne Ball as 1000 Lives
support worker in October 2014 for one year. Lynne’s role is to work with individuals who need
support getting involved with the network. She will also be working alongside Adrian in outreach
activities and has supported learners on the recent Speaking Up course.
Communicating with Friends of 100 Lives
Having previously used email to send information to friends of 1000 Lives, in October 2014 we
decided to use Mailchimp to send out monthly newsletters. Currently 358 people receive
information this way. This means we receive reports about who is reading our newsletters, who
opens links to other information, whether emails are still current and it helps us to have a better
idea of what information our friends find useful. A small number of people don’t have access to
Facebook and so we send them information in the post. Another minimal number communicate
with us by SMS texts.
Added Value
Most of the Network events and training courses we have held, have used venues which have been
provided free of charge by partners. We have therefore been able to use our budget to good effect
to offer more training, for example.
We were contracted by Staffordshire University to support a commission from Stoke Adult Social
Care/ Joint Commissioning to organise an event for people with learning disabilities and their
carers. The event was held in November 2014 called ‘My Days My Say’. It attracted 250 visitors who
took part in creative activities, provided an opportunity to get information about important health
and social care services and changes. Participants were all invited to give their views about what
they want do in the daytime, what stops them, and what support they need - using participatory
methods. 1000 Lives gained 8 new Friends and are working in partnership with the City Council to
explore potential for a new Carers Network and Friendship Network to develop with our support.
Marketing
Our approach to marketing has been based on largely face to face engagement and word of mouth
publicity. This is done by visiting Community Champions in their groups in their communities by
invitation, attending community events, and attending meetings and workshops organised by
partners for their volunteers.
We had posters, flyers and “business cards” for 1000 Lives designed by Changes which we take out
to every meeting, event, workshop and visit we make. We give out cards to people asking them to
“pass it on”.
The publicity materials signpost people to our website which includes a News section where
publicity about forthcoming 1000 Lives events, training and funding is posted and records of past
activity is shared.
Re-branding
In response to the development of the 1000 Lives network and feedback from our champions, it
was agreed that the original style of branding was too closely linked to our host organisation,
Changes. People were confused about who we are. The working group felt that there needed to be
a change of branding.
Staffordshire based Yes Agency http://www.yesagency.co.uk/
was approached as they have strong community values. They
offered us a very favourable deal which included a lot of
support as well as the design with much of their time given inkind. Yes came up with 9 logo designs and, together with their
managing director, we shortlisted 4 of them. An online Survey
Monkey was set up so that our champions could give us their views. Forty three people took part in
the survey. Here is the logo which performed best in 7 out of the 8 criteria. There may be some
adjustments to the strapline but the logo will stay the same.
Evaluation
Our co-production approach ensures that formative evaluation is integral
to our development through action learning.
The Get Talking model of community based participatory action research
developed by Staffordshire University, underpins our approach to
planning and evaluation. Get Talking is based on principles of team-work,
inclusion, honesty, flexibility and action. This model employs creative
tools to carry out group consultations and semi structured interviews. The
Get Talking process is cyclical.
Involve
P
L
A
N
Action
Listen and
learn
Cross-check
and analyse
Friends and partners have had training from Staffordshire University, who have recognised
expertise and experience in this field. Our trained team of community researchers have worked
with us to plan our summative evaluation of 1000 Lives so far.
Our March 2015 Network event will be entirely given over to evaluation with activities designed
and led by the trained research team with support from staff from Staffordshire University who are
facilitating the collection of digital stories using digital media tools and techniques. This will support
us to undertake intensive evaluation of the project over the last three years to demonstrate our
impact.
Future Plans …
During the next 6 months we aim to:






offer a 4th round of small grants
visit all funded projects to assess impact and offer support
follow up Got It Want It resource exchange contacts to assess impact,
hold drop ins at community venues around the city
identify / recruit new champions
organise an intergenerational celebration event



work more closely with partners, asking them to host one networking event which their own
volunteers attend along with our 1000 Lives friends and to offer places to 1000 Lives Friends on
their in-house training courses.
finalise 1000 Lives new branding
develop a ‘Finding Your Voice’ short course to be offered as a taster session for the Taking Part
course
Sustainability
We have set up and are developing a CiC which will make 1000 Lives independent with a
membership and advisory group of Champions.
Voices is a new partner and they are keen to explore the possibility of 1000 Lives training for their
volunteers and experts by experience which they can fund.
As mentioned above we have worked with Staffordshire University to assist with the My Days, My
Say event and follow up activities. We have also been approached for equality and diversity training
by a community based organisation. We anticipate that, as the network continues to grow, we will
be able to partly fund our activities through bespoke training and support for other organisations.