Category: Grassroots Channel

Meeting and talking to people doing fabulous things in communities.

Grassroots Channel Spiked by the iPhone

13,587 programmes were downloaded from the Grassroots Channel Podcast in December 2007, 30% up on both November 2007 and the month just finished, January 2008. Would I be right to speculate that this mini spike is caused by Christmas playtime for people with the new iPhones and iPods?

No help from looking at the figures for the previous Christmas. December 2006 saw 3786 programmes downloaded, but in January 2007 you lot consumed 5219 programmes – an increase caused mostly by us putting 8 new programmes and a pdf on the channel in 1 rather bonkers month.

December 2007 was not only our best month for downloads, it was the moment when the total number of Grassroots Channel programmes delivered breached the 100,000 mark. (Smile to ones-self – punch air). The channel sets out to (mostly) tell the stories of active citizens in Birmingham’s neighbourhoods.

The most popular programmes since our first outing in October 2005 have been:

1.Soweto Kinch on life in B19. The award winning brummie Jazz star (Amazon here) on his remarkable album collaboration with Moira Stuart and why he still lives in B19.

2. It Shouldn’t be So Common. Simon Walker of Curio City talks about the murder of Alex Mendez, who visited Birmingham from his home city of Boston to support this project in Ladywood.

3. I am the Grass Now. The neighbours from Balsall Heath who volunteer to keep open Edward Road Police Station.

4. Does no Pay Make you Powerful? Linda Hines and Michelle Ashmore of Witton Lodge Community Association get tearful as they talk about how people power is transforming Perry Common.

5. Generating Market Forces. The story behind Kings Norton farmers market.

Quinzone, Safe Haven and Community Policing – new podcast on the Grassroots Channel

PC Bernie Flynn has been working with young people in Quinton in Birmingham consistently since 2001, merging policing with youth work. For him finding the right people for the job and giving them time to show respect and earn respect is at the heart of good community policing. Anti social behaviour in and around his patch has fallen by 40% and in this podcast he explains how that has happened.

This is the most recent in a number of programmes on the channel about the link between policing, and community including the residents who run their own police station, patrol their own streets, those who had the courage to confront pimps and prostitution and how young people act as agents for safer streets.

 
Birmingham Community Empowerment Network

Quinzone and Safe Haven (dead link)

West Midlands Police

Briefing on Neighbourhood Policing as a pdf

The Big Green Challenge Hits Birmingham – a new podcast on the Grassroots Channel

big_green_large_logo

NESTA was in Birmingham today to entice us into innovating. The Big Green Challenge is a two year climate change project with a £1 million pound prize at the end. Any community group (or similar) can win if they find a communal and repeatable way to cut CO2 emissions by 60%. Easy then!

There were queries/criticism at the launch (which you’ll hear in the podcast), some on the blog post of the media partner for the prize.

I approve of ideas with ambitious targets. Too often public life offers mediocrity born of easy targets.

As one Brummie told us (if anyone remembers who please tell me) at today’s regional launch it may well work best if people collaborate on ideas. Indeed I was wondering of the prize fund could have been split to reward a winner and reward those who collaborate to innovate – something on the lines of that audacious open source bid for the Third Sector Innovation Exchange.

Listen to our podcast at the bottom of this post, watch Sarah Beeny’s video, read the website, subscribe to their blog and let us know if you apply.

By the way I heard interesting ideas from Jerome Baddley of Nottingham Energy Enterprise – so hello Jerome. The prize is also on partnership with Unltd. Birmingham was the first launch, more dates in other cities throughout November.

The smell of trouble – neighbourhood policing in Birmingham – a new podcast on the Grassroots Channel

“We’re not aiming high enough” is what the Chief Constable of the West Midlands tells the Grassroots Channel this time. We hear from Sir Paul Scott Lee as we return to the theme of communities and policing and look in detail at the community watch programme in Perry Common in Birmingham.

Sue Beardsmore talks to Mary Harvey and Sheila Barker of the Witton Lodge Community Association. Also of interest will be this PDF Briefing on neighbourhood policing plus earlier programmes on the volunteers running their local police station and how demolition in Perry Common planted the power in the hands of the people.