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Then you’d be a really great person to volunteer for the Sandwell Together project! And if you are socially isolating and miss a good natter, then get in touch to be linked to a telephone befriender. Run by Sandwell Advocacy, they link up people who are socially isolating with people who have volunteered to be telephone or Facetime befrienders. Here’s the info - be sure to get in touch if you can help, or if you’re socially isolating and you’d love a natter: It’s for people w

IMAGINE  a partnership corridor…or golden thread… of community led spaces that runs right through the heart of Smethwick, reaching out to and run by their super-hyper-local* community. From the Brasshouse  in North Smethwick to St Albans Community Centre . On to ChangeSpaces at Holy Trinity Church to the Dorothy Parkes Centre , via Thimblemill Library , to Bearwood Community Hub  to SMBC-run Lightwoods House . All of these centres connecting their partnership work with nearby

Here’s a copy of our most recent newsletter: We thought it was about time that you heard from Bearwood Community Hub.  Our project leader Sally Taylor has been concentrating on looking after her young children in the absence of school and nursery, but she has begun to reflect on what the current situation means for the community hub.  Here's an update from her. Hi! The Bearwood spirit has been awesome during lockdown.  There's the  Covid-19 Mutual Aid group , groups of reside

Our project leader Sally Taylor has been concentrating on looking after her young children in the absence of school and nursery, but she has begun to reflect on what the current situation means for the community hub.  We recently sent out this newsletter with some detail on ‘what now?’, and here we’re going to list a few ideas to have come out of community meetings, conversations with different groups, or observations about what's been happening in Bearwood since lockdown tha

For information on local support in Bearwood for Covid-19, whether you need support or want to give it, please check out our special page on this: Covid-19 Support Like everyone, we’re trying to work out day by day how to best manage the situation. I’m Sally Taylor and I lead on the development of Bearwood Community Hub (getting word out, involving people, doing the business plan and working out financial/funding investment to make it happen). Along with our Board, I’m workin

Bearwood Community Hub Trade School is going from strength to strength! Hosted once again by Why Not Café, this session was all about How to Declutter. In exchange for the Lorna giving her time to share a skill, she had asked for some barter items.  And word is spreading about Bearwood Trade School. Bearwoodians were delighted to welcome new friends from Balsall Heath, Birmingham and Brierley Hill to the ‘wood. We love to share the good stuff. Once everyone had got their coff

Our day chatting to 150 people Bearwood Indoor Market. It was a cold February day, the first of the month. Quite sunny, but nevertheless a chilly one. Thank goodness we had our volunteer Town Crier George to generate a bit of interest! A group of about 8 volunteers (thank you everyone!) managed to chat to over 150 people that day and Alex Hughes from Drawnalism captured so many of the ideas on his beautiful graphics, take a look below. Now all we need to do is bring this and

Volunteer organiser Coral Musgrave tells us all about Bearwood Trade School. Bearwood Community Hub launched the first Trade School in Bearwood on Sunday 26 January 2020. This is, we hope, the first of many Trade School sessions to be offered locally. Trade school is based on a barter system, so while these classes are free, people coming to the session will be asked to bring something the teacher has asked for in exchange for sharing their skill. This could be seeds, a recip

We can’t wait to share the ‘after’ image!! Volunteer organiser Ellie Shaw has some news about Bearwood’s latest green space, and how you can help make it happen this Saturday. Hello Bearwood! A couple of months ago a post popped up from Bearwood Community Hub on the Bearwood Gardeners Facebook page talking about a possible space for a community garden in Bearwood. I blooming love gardening and can’t help but LOVE the idea of having a shared garden on our doorstep. Birmingham

Bearwood Community Hub project development manager Sally Taylor reflects on her conversations about how to include people who are usually excluded. One of the reasons behind wanting to pursue this idea of Bearwood Community Hub in an accessible place on Bearwood Road is to create a hive of activity and welcome for people who aren’t yet connected (there are lots of them, our research tells us) to all the wonderful things we have access to in Bearwood. To do that it’s really im

Sally Taylor visited a coworking space and community centre in Balsall Health looking for snippets of gold dust to bring back to help us develop the plans for Bearwood Community Hub together. There was much more than a few snippets - what an awesome building! When I arrived at the Old Print Works coworking space I felt like I’d walked into a welcoming home - so comfortable, bright, ‘lived in’ and stylish too. It was so different to the really high spec co-working spaces I’ve

Ideas flowed when about 45 people from across Bearwood came gave up two hours for the first #MakeItHappen meetings on 16th October to explore different ideas about why community space in the centre of our community is important. We started off designing a Tour of Bearwood to understand what people in the room value in terms of the assets we already have - people as well as places! Photos at the bottom of this post. The big picture to your right is our attempt to bring all the

Reflections on conversations at Bearwood Action for Refugees ’ monthly Community Lunch Last Saturday I was very excited to have been asked to share lunch at Bearwood’s monthly lunch for newly arrived families and local families. At this lunch, volunteers cook (and wash up!) so that families can rest, chat, play and get to know one another. After lunch there was a choice of more play and nattering or Baby Yoga  or adult’s yoga . Over a good lunch and for a good time afterwards

A reflection from Sally Taylor The National Lottery Communities Fund brought a load of black country people together today for their ‘Reaching Black Country Communities’ event - a day where we heard from the Community Fund, shared with others what we do, connected, and got to choose different breakout groups where we could hear all about how other social impact organisations do what we do. All the sessions I chose to attend were related to community engagement - you can tell

Author: Sally Taylor. I took myself off to Gather Dudley CIC on Wednesday. Gather Dudley is a community interest company, a “coffee shop and creative community venue enabling and encompassing everything that good people are doing in Dudley”. Sound good? Sure does, and I went with the intention of working there, seeing what they do and how they do it - without prearranging, just turning up and observing. What I got instead was an incredibly warm reception from lovely people de

For those of us who have been desperate to get started but have struggled to carve out the time (that ol’ Bearwood Street Festival was a lot to deliver!!), it’s been a long time coming, but the Board have now charged project lead Sally Taylor to ‘get on with it’. A series of updates on the website and in social media have got us started, and now we’re just securing dates and space to kick of our first ‘Make It Happen’ meetings, where all are welcome to muck in and start desig

Funding bids successful! | The plan | Keep in touch We’ve done it, we’ve managed to attract enough funding to develop the idea of a Community Hub and co-working space on Bearwood’s high street!   Thanks to our funders SCVO and the National Lottery Community Fund, we can crack on with exploring the potential, collaborating locally, and business planning. If you’ve been with us since last summer’s pilot, thank you for your patience! If you’re new to this whole idea, welcome! Wh

Sally Taylor shares her experience of co-working and explains why ‘it’s not just about the desk’. The vision for co-working as a social enterprise in Bearwood is about creating community.  Yes, there will be desks. There will be quiet space. There’ll most likely be a kitchen and free tea and coffee. We’ll definitely have wifi, obviously! But what else? Co-working is a growing movement that’s been around for yonks.  And it’s different to simply renting office space. The essenc

Graphic developed with participants at our 3rd June Build, Make & Mend day by Annabel Evans Bearwood Community Hub CIC is born  |  Looking for a space  |  Engagement & Consultation  |  Finances In this update we tell you about progress to creating Bearwood Community Hub  (click the link to find out more detail!), co-working space and flexible creche. Here's a quick-fire update - 4 key things you need to know.  After that we'll explain how you can get more involved if you'd li

A little bit of neighbourly magic happened on Milcote Road in Bearwood last weekend. Residents closed the road so children (and adults!) could play out.  In this blog, co-organiser Sally Taylor tells us about the day and how residents got it going.  It all started with a video shared on Facebook from PlayingOut.net , the Bristol-based organisation helping people across the UK to enable kids to play out safely and easily.  "Let's do it here" said Anya. "I'd love to get it orga