Event
The Building Stronger Communities - Engage project took over Campus West Arts and Conference Centre in Welwyn Garden City on Tuesday 22 January to pool resources with around 230 community leaders, representatives of community groups, organisations and local councils across Hertfordshire.
The event was held to launch a number of new resources promoting community engagement in Hertfordshire. It aimed to bring people together to share knowledge, skills and experience and learn more about a new guide to community engagement. Engage draws on skills and experiences of local groups and organisations across the country and includes case studies from the different groups and organisations in Hertfordshire. For more information see The Guide.
The event funders were Building Capacity East and Dacorum Borough Council. Delegates were welcomed by Natalie Webb, Stronger Communities Development Officer at Dacorum Borough Council. Caroline Tapster, Chief Executive of Hertfordshire County Council, explained her commitment to supporting engagement in Hertfordshire, while Mandy Wilson, Co-director of COGS (Communities and Organisations: Growth and Support) explored the key themes of engagement and empowerment.
Sally Foan from People Tree Training (www.peopletreetraining.co.uk) held a motivating seminar on developing personal skills for engaging people in the community, and attendees also had the opportunity to attend fun, interactive workshops on:
- Empowerment and capacity building
- Methods and techniques for engaging the community
- Working with diverse communities
- Engaging children and young people
- The policy behind community engagement and empowerment
A market place of information stalls also gave people the chance to explore the work of local organisations.
Engage organiser Natalie Webb commented: "Engage welcomed a fantastic range of people and from the feedback we received it really helped to increase people's knowledge about community engagement and the issues associated with engaging people and communities. The networking opportunities were also really well received."
Feedback on Engage
"The conference was a good initiative and you used the opportunity well"
"Just to thank you for organising a fantastic day yesterday. It was very useful and clearly very well organised."
"Thank you for organising a brilliant day, great contacts, speakers and event!"
"Thanks for both for a very useful event and an excellent support document."
"I picked up some useful information to use at a local level."
"I've just looked through the Engage folder and I wanted to tell you how fantastic it is. I'm really impressed - it's a great piece of work."
"Congratulations to you and your team for an excellent event which was very well organised."
