Getting Together - Working Together
Co-ordinating your project
Once the project idea has been shared and embraced by the local community, the next step is to channel some of this enthusiasm into establishing a group to co-ordinate and drive your project forward. The membership should, if possible, be drawn from all sectors of the community already consulted, in order to ensure that a variety of different viewpoints are represented and that everyone feels they can become involved in the project if they want to.
You may need to set up a formal group to carry out your project, although this is not necessary in all cases. If you want to apply for funding for your project you will almost certainly need to form at least an informal group as most grant bodies are willing to fund individuals.
There are several types of group:
- sub group - of a larger organisation
- project group - formal
- project group - informal
If you do decide to set up a formal group here are some questions you night need to consider:
- what makes a successful group?
- do you need a constitution or set of rules
- how will you organise meetings?
- who will do what jobs in the group?
You may need to agree a set of rules in order to draw down funding from certain grants bodies. If you decide to set up a formal group you may want to set up a bank account for the group, appoint a treasurer and organise a method of keeping track of your incomes and spending and ensure that your cashflow (money coming in and out) is balanced.
If your group feels uncomfortable about setting up as a financial entity, either because of the scale of the project or because it will only take a short time to implement, you may want to link up with an established group or organisation, that already has a constitution and bank account, to help you manage your project or to act as banker for any funds you raise. If you decide this is a good solution for your group then you do need to make sure that both your group and the banker group sign an agreement where the responsibilities of each side are clearly set out and agreed.
Using your skills
One of the great things about a community led project is the wide range of skill and talents within the community; some of which may be really surprising.
Some ideas include:
- organisers
- book keepers
- builders
- painters and decorators
- plumbers
- architects
- designers
- gardeners
- poster or banner making
- machine operators
- goods or machine time
- child minders - vital for volunteer work days
- bakers - vital for volunteer work days
Try to be inventive about how you use people's skills, what at first might not seem to fit the project, could turn our to be useful in other ways. Don't forget a community project is also an opportunity for people to build new skills as well as using existing ones, so you might like to consider some of these questions:
- does the group want to build skills as part of the project?
- does the group need any new skills in order to get the project on the ground?
- will any training be a 'one off' event or will you need/want more as the project develops?
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