Last Friday we had our most recent meeting with young people. We started thinking critically about a name for the group, which is good as it means we can start submitting some of our mix-funding applications before we go for the big one for phase 1. We also got two new members turning up, both of whom are girls! (it was starting to be a very male project), and one of whom is on the Town Council which could be a very useful connection
The challenge here is that we need a striking name that will stand out from other applications, and reflects how innovative the project is. We also need to stand out from other local projects so that any visitors are well aware of who we are and what we're doing. Whilst I was eager to get the name down there and then, it was decided that we should give the young people a fortnight to brainstorm ideas and bring some concepts, logos and taglines along to the next meeting. This will be good as it means that the members local to Langport can have chance to roadtest their name ideas with other locals to make sure their name ideas fit the criteria.
Yesterday I got the long-awaited feedback phonecall from the HLF South West following our pre-application. Whilst there was a fair amount of constructive criticism and scepticism about the scope of the project, they were also willing to hold a meeting to discuss our application. I was slightly disappointed that they weren't skipping round the office encouraging us to submit the application ASAP so that they could throw money at us because our project was entirely what the HLF were looking for from a Young Roots submission. On the other hand it was very useful to hear that feedback in a process prior to submitting the application, if that process hadn't been in place we would have failed our first funding application!
Today I'm going to meet Rakhee from Eastside Educational Trust. This is a children's charity established in 1994, focussed on arts, culture and heritage in London, who are very good at using social media and the internet to inspire, motivate, interact with, and promote to young people. So good that they've won awards! I'll be showing Rakhee this blog, and the plans for the whole web-presence network to see what she thinks, what she can suggest and learn from her experiences. I'm really looking forward to seeing what she's got to say - I've been blogging and tweeting for a few years, but I don't just want to stagnate at the level I'm at, I want this project to be at the cutting edge (something not many heritage projects can claim to be!)
Other than this, Melita and I are also readying our funding application to Somerset Crime Beat for our mobile office, and working on another application to fund building and training to run our website! Exciting times!
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