The Pride of Place Collective

View the article to find out how, together, and with the right tools, community, business and local/regional government can work smarter to nurture and grow all important pride in the places people live in, work in, grow up in and visit.  It's all about collaboration!  Everyone's talking "Pride of Place".  

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"I am Daniel and being a contributor helps me with my mental health challenges"

"To say I have had mental health challenges throughout my life is to say I am Human. As an autistic I have had challenges in certain areas of existence that would be considered as amplified when compared to most others. From mid-2013 and for 18 months I was ill with clinical depression and anxiety disorder.

Here's my story!"

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"To say I have had mental health challenges throughout my life is to say I am Human.

As an autistic I have had challenges in certain areas of existence that would be considered as amplified when compared to most others.

The same is true of my talents.

I have had to deal with the challenges. I have been able to express my talents.

The start of my photography journey, in terms of it having a positive effect on my mental health was when I returned from a trip with my father to Chicago, USA in February 1997.

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I had taken a small compact film camera and wanted to capture some of the scenes from the trip, largely as a memory reference point, but also to show others.

With such an inspiring ‘canvas’ to work with I quickly started to use up film stock.

I also found during the trip that I wanted to capture images that were not just documentary, but that had an inherent aesthetic, and to extenuate and draw attention to the aspects unique to the place and my experience of it.

‘Skyscrapers’!

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Wow, I was awestruck, the sheer scale overwhelmed me, and I became desperate to somehow capture the feeling with photographs.

I was pleased with the process and the results, and when returning to my new adopted city of Birmingham, I sought to find similar feelings and capture the associated photographs.

Birmingham is not Chicago, but it became, for me, something else.

The city is not full of incredible skyscrapers, but it is full of so much more!

People have hobbies, special interests, mine became urbanscape photography.

I began to discover the city of Birmingham and found that I developed a positive perception of the place and its massive diversity on so many levels. I grew up in London and the south-east and had a typical view of cities ‘up-north’ but not having actually experienced any properly.

I knew people had a dim view of Birmingham on a national level, and having started to live there I developed a feeling of indignation, the city had a bad reputation, but that this was largely unjustified.

I enjoyed capturing photos of the city but developed a motivation to use them as a way of dispelling the negative myths about it.

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In 2010, having had very positive feedback from friends and family for my burgeoning collection of positive images of the city, and comments made like, “I’ve never seen Birmingham looking like that!”, I decided to create a set of ten actual postcards. I had 200 of each printed and managed to get some local city centre outlets to sell them. In the digital age this proved to be a very limited success but I was encouraged in principle.

From mid-2013 and for 18 months, I was ill with clinical depression and anxiety disorder.

In April 2014, as part of my eventual recovery I tried to get out into the city and take further photographs, as something to do, as a ‘what the hell, I’ve nothing better to do with my time’, the summer was approaching and there was a lot of transformation going on in the city centre.

I decided to start publishing my photography regularly on Twitter and slipped into a process of almost daily acquiring and posting photos of the city centre and surrounding areas.

I have since continued this with a small gap in 2023 due to similar illness. My Twitter account now shows over 12 thousand posts to date.

In 2015 I met Jonathan who had seen and recognised my photography as an expression of my passion and pride in my adopted city.

Having met we soon realised that there was also the large element of a positive benefit to my mental health, from the process and the recognition received through social media for my efforts.

Jonathan was in the early stages of developing a unique digital people engagement tool, the purpose of it’s functionality being to enhance social engagement, community cohesion and producing social values with economic growth.

The platform being developed had a public facing output channel that could host and present my photography (and other community contributors of digital content). This would be adding to a large searchable library of content generated by people passionate about their community, place and their particular interests.

I joined Jonathan and his team as a development partner on a voluntary basis and have continued since.

The involvement in the development of the digital platform, in addition to the onward contribution of digital content, gave me an enormous boost in terms of confidence, self-esteem and general mental health wellbeing.

A mapping project of Birmingham and the wider West Midlands I have been involved in has now attracted well over 2 million views.

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As a result of being involved with this project, and my continuing publishing my city photography, further opportunities for me became available.

In 2016 I was contacted by the Chair of PWC Birmingham. Matthew was impressed by my photography, why I was doing it, and had a proposal for me.

I had started to capture and publish regular photos of the demolition of the Central Library, Matthew asked if I would like to continue a photo journal to include the construction of their new headquarters, One Chamberlain Square, on the new ‘Paradise Birmingham’ redevelopment site. This was with view to creating a coffee table book for the eventual launch and opening of the building.

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I agreed a small fee and supplied regular photography up to the completion of the building, the book was produced and handed out at the launch event in December 2019.

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During this process I decided that I would start to document, in my own photographic style, the construction of several other building in the city, together with a focus on the Paradise Development and have continued since, creating several full construction photo journals for many buildings.

I am now a major contributor of content to many platforms and I have helped with the launch of Centres for Pride of Place. The benefit for myself over the years to my general mental health has been considerable, being busy is always better for me, and being able to indulge in my passion for photography, having an outlet for this, the recognition for my efforts, and the contribution to some social positivity has been significant.

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HERE is a link to the video I have helped create.

As part of my extra-curricular work, I have also produced seven 'Birmingham Gems' charity calendars, 2017 to 2023.

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Getting out and taking photos is only the start of a process I go through as part of keeping me occupied. Because of the outlet I have through my Twitter account and the contributing to the Community Passport, and wanting to produce images that are the best I can, I go through a process of using software to enhance the images from their original camera acquired versions. 

I generally take more photos than I eventually publish, I like to spend time with my laptop looking through what I may have collected and picking the ones that stand out for me in some way and become worth processing and then publishing. I can be quite harsh with myself and only publish the best images. 

The evaluation and post-processing of my photography gives me an outlet for my creativity, generally I get very positive feedback and this really helps my confidence and self esteem.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my story".

Asset Mapping with Community at Centres of Pride of Place

There are many ways interactive mapping, provided to Centres for Pride of Place when given access to Community Passport, can be used.  One of those is for mapping assets with community. With reference to a particular area of Birmingham, let's show you how it works and how it can add value for shaping places, promoting places and connecting community and business.

The journey we are about to take will show how, with and within community, Community Passport now available to Centres for Pride of Place (CPoPs) from Values Shared is being used for mapping assets and for engaging community and business in growing pride in the places people live in and work in.

Here is our map of Birmingham shared and made available license free to Values Shared.  

All layers on the view of the map shown below are turned off so it has no real value until data and content is added.

 

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So, first .....

Let's zoom in to a particular area on the map. 

In the image shown below we've zoomed in to the area around the Edgbaston Reservoir, a lovely spot with neighbourhoods such as Edgbaston, Ladywood all close by. 

Edgbaston Reservoir is only a couple of miles from the centre of Birmingham.

 

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Still we can't really do anything of real value with this map till content is added.

 

So next .....

Let's take a look at the layers of data and content which our community at Birmingham We Are has been loading and adding to interactive maps over the past 3 years and which is now regularly updated.

Here are the layers we have available to us.  We can select any of the layers and it will start to build our map. 

 

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Note:  The map created for Birmingham has already been viewed over 2 million times with 100,000 views every month.

 

In this instance we want to use it for looking at assets around our Centres for Pride of Place.

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So next .....

Let's turn on our mapped Centres for Pride of Place (CPoPs) and we can immediately see our first CPoP being run out of Birmingham Settlement's Nature and Wellbeing Centre which we can see pinned and located right next to Edgbaston Reservoir.

 

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By selecting this pin, we can go and find out more about the work being planned that will be carried out at this particular CPoP.  

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Within the feature (as shown above) are links, posts, maps and content that the community can engage with. 

 

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People and businesses can connect with the Centre, register on to events, apply to go on courses and learn new digital skills.  Most importantly, they can get involved in promoting Pride of Place and together grow Shared Prosperity for their community and neighbourhood.  

 

Next .....

Let's go back to the map and start opening up other layers on the map to see what is close to our CPoP.

Below we've selected the layer of lakes and reservoirs and these are then immediately added to the map.  We can now see Edgbaston Reservoir highlighted.

 

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We can now select the Edgbaston Reservoir and this will take us to another feature created and maintained with the help of community.  This time, our feature is all about the great things happening at Edgbaston Reservoir, again with links, posts, maps and content to explore.

 

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Next .....

Let's go back to the map and select the layers of parks and open spaces, canals and rivers.  Let's also add our historic builds and places of historical interest.

Here is the result as mapped below.

 

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Not only are we now starting to map our local assets, we are also creating a wonderful digital space of places for people new to the community or for those residents that have lived here for ages to explore.

This interactive map will be made available at our CPoP run out of the Nature and Wellbeing Centre for people to go and use so they can find out what is close by. 

People will also be invited to participate in this themselves by adding content and creating posts.  

 

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Imagine the impact on the social economy if similar Centres were set up in every ward or district of Birmingham and then rolled out across the region. 

CPoPs could be hosted anywhere, with digital maps and features accessed via a simple QR code. 

CPoPs can be located in libraries, in community centres, in schools, in centres of faith, at developments across the city, in pubs, in fact anywhere convenient for the local community.   People don't have to visit the CPoP if they don't want to, they can connect online.

 

But for the purpose of showing a place mapped .....

Let's go back to the map we are building of the area around Edgbaston Reservoir. 

Here we can select a layer of construction and work that is in progress.

Note:  All developments from pre-approval through to construction is now mapped on the Birmingham developments map that can be explored here. 

Developments are shaded in yellow on the map.

Select any of these shaded areas and you can find out what's going on.  

Here we can see that on one side of the reservoir, work continues at the Nature and Wellbeing Centre of Birmingham Settlement.  

 

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On the other side of the reservoir is a new boating complex being built which we now know is for the new home for the young Sea Cadets.  

 

 

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There are some great community assets being developed and added to the area around the Edgbaston Reservoir and by regularly updating the map and platform, community can be kept informed and involved. 

 

Next ..... 

Let's return to the map and we can zoom further out to see just what is on the doorstep of the area we have just been looking at.  The full scale of the physical and structural assets offered in Birmingham is now available for people to explore.

 

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People in our community (our greatest local asset)

What about the people who live in this area and what about the groups that are formed by those people.  People will always be our greatest asset.

How can CPoPs help promote the wonderful work groups in community undertake and how can we connect more residents with these groups. 

Let's show you just a little of the work we've started with huge community input. 

As you can see below, on our Values Shared map we've added a "Friends of" layer for mapping all the great work being done by volunteers, social enterprises and people who are passionate about their places and their community.

 

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So first .....

Let's see what this layer when selected brings up at Edgbaston Reservoir.  Here's a "Friends of" pin over the actual reservoir itself.

 

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Next .....

Let's now take a closer look at what this "Friends of" group is and what they are up to.

Here is the Friends of Edgbaston Reservoir feature opened up.

 

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As more people contribute, the number of community groups and networds such as "Friends of" groups mapped will continue to grow for the benefit of everyone. 

 

What next for mapping assets with community?

Using the mapping tool, community can explore all the assets in and around their neighbourhood.

Most importantly, they can engage with their neighbourhood and add content themselves.  At the CPoP, they can access the tools needed to do this, or alternatively connect to the digital space via their own phone, tablet or laptop while they are in and around places they enjoy visiting.

We can also involve schools that are on the map and train young people in digital skills that have real practical value and benefit to the place and community in which the school is located.

 

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We can get GPS and health centres involved so they can engage patients in exploring the wonderful places close by.  This will all have major health and wellness benefits.

 

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We can get businesses involved, and help create, using the map, greater links with the local community.  Let's map and feature businesses with CSR budgets and those running social value projects so together we can grow the local social economy. 

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Let's get local traders and social enterprises mapped and involved. 

 

In conclusion 

Places and organisations that take on the status of a CPoP, and are given access to Community Passport and Community Workspace, will become a magnet for their local community. 

People new to the area can be introduced to places and local groups.  We can even do this with moderators for people where English is not their main language using the chat module in Community Workspace. 

Community can increasingly help with mapping the assets in their area.

Community, businesses, schools, colleges and universities can all get involved in mapping their local area. 

And most importantly, community, will together, promote "Pride of Place" and opportunity for all.

 

Further details available from:

Jonathan.Bostock@YourPlaceYourSpace.com 

07432 637322