Working Groups

Much of the Forum’s activity is generated by Working Groups, set up and managed by the Steering Group. Working Groups are developed based upon priorities identified through consultation. Current areas of activity include community involvement, funding and training.

Membership of the Working Groups is open to Forum members, so to get involved please contact the Forum Manager outlining your interest and experience. The Working Groups are also keen to hear from members about projects or problems they have had to help them develop case studies and direct activity.

Each working group explores the following when setting their agenda:

Auditing the current position
Identifying knowledge or information gaps
Selling the benefits of green space
Identify and engage stakeholders and partners
Determining actions that need to be taken
Identifying best practice
Identifying areas in need of research
Promotion and dissemination
Making the case for additional resources for parks and opens spaces
Issues identified in the Forum’s risk assessment especially around potential barriers to involvement

Community Involvement Working Group

GreenSpace East Midland established a Working Group to address community involvement within green spaces in the region a few years ago. A brief was formulated by the group, to include:

• Assess the number and type of community groups and supporting organisations there are in the region.
• Assess who provides advice, information and training opportunities to community groups and their supporting organisations. Identify gaps and needs in this provision.
• Explore the role GreenSpace East Midlands have in providing advice, information or training for community groups or their supporting organisations. This may take the form of:
• Ensuring that appropriate advice, information and training is available for community groups and supporting organisations
• Supporting network activity between community/green space groups
• Promoting and developing best practice for community/green space groups
• Advocacy on behalf of community/green space groups to those agencies that can support their activity.

The working group resolved that a survey should be undertaken in the region to provide information for this brief. The survey will also inform future working group agendas and priorities.

The survey was undertaken in August 2009. This first draft report is now available for comments until 24 Feb 2009 here.

The working group is currently focusing on developing an action plan. This will require further research into the details of the type of support community officers and community groups would like. The working group will also be developing a range of informative case studies to join the survey report.

There are many useful tools and publications available here.

The position of Chair of this working group is currently open.

Funding Working Group

Parks and open spaces have experienced a well documented decline over the last 30 years [1]. This is widely recognised and funds have been made available to tackle the investment needed to repair the degraded infrastructure. This money has primarily come from grant sources such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, generating a complex funding environment where managers bring in money from a range of sources. This funding is predominately capital and in the mean time there is evidence that revenue budgets are in decline [2]. Partnership working is increasingly important whether with the community, the commercial sector or professional charities such as BTCV and GroundWork to increase funding options and also access skills.

Green space managers lobby for funding, they are innovative around using their green space assets to bring in income and they also raise funds from grant sources. In this complex environment they work towards funding quality green spaces for people to enjoy.

The following objectives have been adopted for the Funding Group

Objectives

• Inform CABE Space / other national bodies on the regional financial impact of their national green space campaigns


• Promote the economic, social and environmental benefits of investment in green space to relevant stakeholders, regional partners or funding bodies


• Participate in the planning process to secure increased funding support for green space provision and management


• Develop a strategy to encourage cross boundary funding partnerships


• Support other GSEMF working groups to identify funding routes for their work programmes


• Investigate the feasibility of becoming a strategic funding body for GSEMF Members


• Provide access to information on funding / funding strategies


• To undertake research to support the above objectives

[1] DTLR 2000, Urban Green Spaces Taskforce. Report of Working Group One
[2] Barber 2005, Green Future. GreenSpace

Chair: Eddie Curry, Nottingham City Council
Email: eddie.curry@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

See the Meeting Minutes listing to download previous minutes
See the Forum Diary for meeting dates, times and locations.

Training Working Group

The training working group was set up in August 2009. They are currently discussing the working groups remit about how they can add to the national picture and support regional activity. More informal surveys are planned to identify and evidence tasks for a future action plan. Terms of Reference are also being drawn up.

In August 2009 the group carried out an informal survey asking GSEM contacts to list their training and skills 'hot topics'. This summary is available here.

Chair: Ted Talbot, Learning and Development Officer, Losehill Hall
Contact: 01433 620 373 ted.talbot@peakdistrict.gov.uk