GETTING STARTED
 

There are lots of different ways to approach a People's Parish project. You might be starting from scratch, or perhaps you have already started working a project and would like to expand it to involve more members of your local community. 

We encourage People's Parish projects to involve research of and by the community. Be prepared to be open to experimenting with different approaches, especially when proposed by the participants themselves.

Before embarking, we recommend that you arrange a visit from our People's Parish team. We will provide an advice and training session introducing you to some key ideas in community action research, outline the different stages of a community project and demonstrate some of the different ways in which you could make use of our Resources Booklet. 

If you are thinking of starting a creative community project, consider these starter questions below. We will discuss these and other questions with you during your initial advice and training session.

  • Who’s involved in your People's Parish team?

  • Can you run a project with an existing group? Do you need to set up a new group? 

  • Are there groups in your local area you would want to work with? Perhaps you could link in with the local care home, older people’s daytime club, oral reminiscence group, local history society, walking group, tourist information centre, civic society, allotment or community garden, sports club, local school, writers’ group or other voluntary arts groups

  • Who makes the decisions?

  • Who is funding the project? If there is funding, who gets paid and who are volunteers?

  • Do you have the capacity to achieve what you want to do, or do you need help? 

  • Do you know where to find local parish sources? e.g. museums, libraries, archives, websites, local knowledgeable people?

  • What are the existing significant events in your parish? Are there seasonal festivals, local annual days, occasional or regular events (pub sessions, singing groups, ceilidhs) that you that you could connect with?       

  • Are you going to use social media? An online group or simple website can be a great day to bring ideas together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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