All you need to plant your own acorn is
- A venue in your Ward to host the meetings
- A day and time for the weekly meetings
- The name of your Ward
- The name of your Westminster Constituency
- The ability to distribute the flyers
- An e-mail address to we can converse, and send you templates
We will
- Update the website to include your meeting Ward, venue, day and time
- Provide a PDF Document for your meeting – which you can print yourself or use to order flyers from a printer
- Provide a series of PDF badge icon templates – which you can use to print yourself on pre-cut sticky paper (link provided)
If you would like to arrange a gathering in your local ward, then follow the steps below
1) Determine the Ward for your Postcode by using the Ordnance Survey Election Map website, by clicking this link here
2) Enter your Postcode into the search box top right
3) Select ‘Boundary’ from the menu on the left, then scroll down and select District Ward
4) Click on your house in the map, and your Ward name should appear at the top of the map. If you zoom out, using the zoom slider on the right, you should see the boundary of your Ward, just below ELECTION MAPS
5) Click on the Westminster Constituencies option in the menu on the left, zoom out, and click on your house area, you should see the boundary of your Parliamentary seat
6) You need to physically find a suitable venue, within the boundary of your Ward, for a weekly get together. It could be a village hall, a pub, a club, a school, a care home, a hotel, a youth club etc. Consider easy of access, location, parking, facilities (is there food / drink – as this will be the pay back for any hostlier generous enough to host you ) etc.
Contact the manager / owner etc and see if they are open to the idea of using their venue for a meeting of the local community.
If they are, find out what day and time might suit them best ( ie a quiet trade day). Evenings are probably best, but you might want to run both a daytime and evening gathering. It is entirely up to your group, and it may well change over time.
Agree what works best for all involved.
7) Once you have these bits for information drop an e-mail to
info@s-y-n-w.net with the following bits of information
a) The Westminster Constituency from step 5) above
b) The Ward Name from step 4) above – this will be the Ward you focusing your community activity in.
c) The Name, Address and Postcode of the Venue where you have agreed to hold the meetings.
d) The Day of the Week you have agreed to hold the meetings.
e) The Time of the Day you have agreed to hold the meetings – in 24 hour clock format
f) A correspondence e-mail address
NB: We need (a)+(b) to check there isn’t one already, or in the process of being setup. We need (f) so we can send you leaflet and badge icons below, and keep up-to date with any changes.
8) Once we get back to you, confirming no one else has applied to setup a SYNW meet-up in the same Ward, we will send you the customised SYNW leaflet, along with the ice-breaker badge icons.
We will update our website with the Venue Name, Address and Postcode, along with the Day and Time. This will be on the bottom of the customised SYNW leaflet.
9) You then have various options on how to get the meeting known about.
You could get the leaflet printed and hand deliver it to each household in your Ward. This is our preferred method as it is direct and means everyone is notified. It takes the most amount of effort and cost.
Vistaprint charge around £40 to print 1000 A5 flyers.
You could ask the Venue to publicise it.
You could print out a few leaflets and hand them out locally and ask people to spread the word.
You could print a few out, get them laminated, and zip tie them to lamp posts?
10) If you want to use the badge icons, again you have a few options
You could buy some plastic badges, print the icons onto circular stickers and make them yourself. It might be an idea to have a few Tupperware boxes with them in, and a little description of what the icons imply. Let people help themselves – but ask them to return them when they leave.
You could just print out the icons onto sticky backed paper and ask people to help themselves when they arrive.
11) Then it’s a case of turn up on the day and see how it goes. You might want to invest in a pop up display banner. Again it’s entirely up to you and your community.
Closing Thoughts
Finally, it’s not all on you – if the community wants to bond it will, and people will generally offer time, effort and money into enterprises they deem worthy. As the Acorn, you just planted the idea – if it flourishes it will be up to everyone else in your Community, and who knows what direction it will take?
The mark of success is simply that people will know each other a little better, and feel like they have a connection with their neighbours. A true community, who will support each other in day to day activity, or work together to resolve crisis events .
What more could you ask for?