Dundee Wave of Change – Launch
Feedback from the Dundee Wave of Change event on Thursday 3rd December 2009
Just imagine….
What will Dundee look like in 2020? What will it feel like to be in the City – in your part of the City?
Imagine that Dundee has continued to flourish, has become a fantastic place to live across all parts of the city. What has enabled this? What stories would you tell about how we achieved this together? What has your part been? And what have others contributed?
That’s what Dundee Wave of Change is all about. A two to three year project where people gather and creatively describe the story of Dundee’s success in 2020 – and we want to engage as many people as possible in imagining this potential, in telling their stories.
Go Dundee has been approached to gauge interest in a Dundee Wave of Change project. A launch event was held on Thursday 3rd December at which attendees explored how we should respond to this opportunity and begin the process of creative conversation.
The issues addressed at the meeting were:
- How should we define the various communities within Dundee?
- How can we communicate with each of the defined communities?
DEFINING THE COMMUNITIES IN DUNDEE
Geographical
- Local community planning partnerships – including disadvantaged people
Identity
- Universities and College – students and staff
- Schools – pupils, staff and parents
- Work / businesses
- Locations, e.g. workplaces, commuters
- Staff and customers, e.g. retailing, hospitalit
- Business representative organisations, e.g. Chamber, Federation of Small Businesses, City Centre Action Group, etc.
- Age – pre-school, retired groups, excluded young people, etc.
- Health:
- Staff employed in health-related services
- carers, community groups, disability groups, etc.
Interest
- Arts & culture – Rep, DCA, Science Centre, music, drama, art, nightlife, etc.
- Science – life sciences, etc.
- Digital media – computer games, etc.
- Sport
- Religion / faith
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Shoppers
Age
- Should use ‘virtual communities’ with age ranges as proposed by Tom Schuller at the Learning City event, i.e.
- under 25
- 25 to 50
- 50 to 75
- 75+
Socio-economic
- Need to recognise that there is a substantial disaffected community within Dundee
- There are also transient groups such as students and temporary workers
METHODS OF COMMUNICATION
- Listen!
- Promote ‘blethers’ in pubs, cafes, clubs, etc. – organise a Big Blether Day
- Media phone-ins / local paper letters pages
- Discussions at home – switch off the TV!
- Community councils
- Community Centre Network plus libraries, medical centres and other community facilities
- Social networking (requires internet access)
- Schools should play a greater role in their community, e.g. evening access
- Use story-telling to make connections with certain groups, e.g. the elderly
- Media – use radio (Tay, Wave) and local newspapers ( Courier, Telegraph) to make connections
- Aims of communication exercise:
- to create a real planning process with proposals and dialogue
- to secure ownership of a genuinely shared vision
- need somewhere to leave/collect thoughts and comments
- linguistic sticklebrick
- Need to work out how to measure the success of the Wave of Change initiative, e.g. improved confidence, morale, perspective
Background
A Scottish Wave of Change follows on from the work of Scotland 2020 and Glasgow 2020 which Gerry Hassan led with the UK think tank Demos broke new ground in Scotland, the UK and internationally by developing innovative ways of imagining the future through stories and the concept of ‘mass imagination’. The projects produced two books, numerous resources, skills and tools, and even, for Glasgow 2020, a music album. Both of these projects
One of the primary strands of A Scottish Wave of Change is to develop a series of conversations, discussions and events in a number of places across the country over the course of the project. This will allow for long-term relationships to be built and different groups of people and ways of working to be developed
Dundee Wave of Change would become a distinct strand of work as part of the wider Scottish Wave of Change with a variety of activities including story telling and imagining the future. It could create its own Dundee-specific resources and publications while also being part of a unique Scottish and international project.
For further information please take a look at the following web links:
http://www.godundee.co.uk/coming-events/dundee-wave-of-change/
http://www.vds.org.uk/tabid/384/Default.aspx
http://www.gerryhassan.com