Empowering Design Practices
  • HOME
  • About
    • TEAM
    • IMPACT
  • DISCOVERING
    • LEARNING FROM PAST PROJECTS
    • LEARNING FROM PROFESSIONALS
    • EXPLORING PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS
  • DEVELOPING
    • LONGITUDINAL PROJECTS
    • THEMED WORKSHOPS
    • TARGETED WORKSHOPS
    • DESIGN TRAINING
    • LIVE PROJECTS
    • STUDY TOURS
    • DESIGN STUDIO
    • EDUCATION & TRAINING
  • SHARING
    • GET INVOLVED
    • EDP AT EXTERNAL EVENTS
    • RELATED PROJECTS
    • EDP LIVE
  • EDP RESOURCES
    • ONLINE COURSE
    • INSPIRING DESIGN STORIES >
      • DESIGN PROJECT STORIES
      • STORIES OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN DESIGN
    • HOW TO THINK ABOUT MAKING CHANGES >
      • DESIGN THINKING GUIDE
      • COMMUNITY-LED TRANSFORMATION: SOME KEY CONSIDERATIONS
    • EXPLORE DESIGN AND KEY DESIGN TASKS >
      • EXPLORE DESIGN: Community Buildings
      • DESIGN TRAINING: Film
      • DEVELOPING A SHARED PURPOSE: film
      • PREPARING TO WORK WITH ARCHITECTS
    • HOW TO ENGAGE COMMUNITIES IN DESIGN >
      • DESIGNING PLACES WITH PEOPLE: Booklets
      • COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN DESIGN: Film
      • DIGITAL MEDIA booklet
      • USING DIGITAL MEDIA - film
  • Blog
  • CONTACT

Exploring assets, challenges and opportunities with churches at Diocese of Ely

21/9/2017

0 Comments

 
post by Katerina Alexiou

This was a truly bustling and industrious summer for EDP. The last two posts in this blog reflected on the Design Training delivered in Manchester and two themed workshops focused on the role and potential of faith buildings to serve their communities. My last activity before going away for the summer was a workshop at the Ely Cathedral Conference Centre, which brought together 22 participants from 8 different churches, mainly located in rural areas, who are currently developing plans to repair and update their buildings to increase their use.
 
The workshop aimed to help participants reflect on their assets, challenges and opportunities, share experiences, learn from completed projects and get a taste of some of the activities used in EDP to support people to think about the design of their place and their project.
 
We had run a similar workshop right at the beginning of our research, with 8 different places of worship who travelled to London Lumen from different parts of England for this exchange. This workshop, however, was focused on the particular geographical area around Ely, and the churches were introduced to us through Geoffrey Hunter who acts as Church Buildings Consultant for this Diocese. We also invited participants from the Great Bavington United Reformed Church (in Northumberland), who shared common characteristics and challenges with churches in the Diocese of Ely, despite coming from a completely different geographic area.
 
The assets, challenges and opportunities exercise
The first part of the workshop is an intensive exercise which helps groups identify challenges that stand in their way and immerse themselves in the roots of those challenges, but also gradually moves to a position where they start unearthing assets and coming up with ideas or ways in which their assets can help them overcome those challenges. Key to this exchange is having another group act as critical friends, helping their peers to externalise and clarify their thoughts and visions, often providing advice, creative input and inspiration. The exercise has two rounds, and people rotate around the tables, so that every group has an opportunity to explore their project, as well as act as a critical friend to another.
​Some of the key challenges that the participants identified were understandably related to their location, such as not being visible, not having good access routes, being a long distance away, having a sparse local population. Some churches felt there was an element of competition with other churches who may be in a similar position in the area. Consequently, due to having a small congregation and small local population, participants found funding, and even the prospect of applying for it, extremely difficult.
 
Despite those challenges, all groups considered their small, but dedicated congregations as their key asset: a small number of people who invest their skills and determination to help achieve their mission.  Participants were also aware of the importance and potential of their buildings as historic places to be a focal point in their community. Key opportunities identified were establishing collaboration with local schools and other institutions active in the area and taking advantage of their local surroundings, footpaths, heritage trails etc. 

​Inspirational material and taster workshops
The assets, challenges and opportunities exercise was followed by an inspiration presentation where we shared some examples of projects and interventions that we have come to learn about through our site visits to completed refurbishment or reordering cases. This led to a final session of taster workshops, where participants had the opportunity to explore different themes: demystifying design, mapping assets, harnessing conflicts and fundraising.
This was a really intense workshop, and at the end of the day I felt tired but grateful to the participants who were describing their experience of the day as "inspirational", "useful", "encouraging" and "empowering".
 
We have taken the challenges, assets and opportunities workshop to quite a few places so far: apart from Lumen and Ely, also to churches in Chester and Congleton, to Bow Church and to the Israac Somali Cultural and Community Association in Sheffield.
 
As well as being a vehicle for groups to reflect on what they have and what needs to be done, the feedback we have received suggests that the exercise really helps people to feel that they are not alone in their struggle to make things better for their building, their congregation and their community.

​
0 Comments

    EDP

    Blog from the EDP project team.

    Archives

    December 2021
    June 2021
    October 2020
    March 2020
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    April 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    July 2015
    March 2015

    Categories

    All
    Architecture
    Art
    Assets
    Bow Church
    Cemetery Road Baptist Church
    Chester
    Churches
    Civic Leadership
    Co-design
    Community
    Community Engagement
    Controversy
    Covid-19
    Design Challenges
    Design Training
    Diocese Of Ely
    EDP Live
    Educational Resources
    Emotions
    English Heritage
    Faith
    Film
    Focus Group
    Gaming
    Germany
    Heritage
    Heritage Lottery Fund
    Historic England
    History
    Innovative Design
    Intangible Legacies
    Israac Somali Cultural And Community Association
    Live Projects
    Major Parish Churches
    Opportunities
    Pews
    Policy
    Professionals
    Research
    Rural
    Schools
    Shared Spaces
    Sheffield Buddhist Centre
    Site Visit
    Site Visits
    Spirituality
    St John Stadhampton
    St. Luke's
    St. Martin's
    St Mary's Sheffield
    St Michael And All Angels
    Stratford Upon Avon URC
    Study Tour
    Style
    Sustainability
    Utopia
    Values
    Village Hall
    Vision
    Yorkshire Baptist Association

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly