CityCamp June meetup

Post written by Clem with a few additions from Susie

We started off with an update from Bert on Brighton Untold and his QR codes. There is now a Steering Group and work is progressing nicely. Ten sites for the codes have been identified and carefully recorded by Simon Bannister who has suggested a material for the plaques, which does not deteriorate with time. Richard Vahrman suggests contacting OpenPlaques who have mapped Blue Plaques across the country to learn of the challenges that they faced.

Sue George filled us in on progress with last year’s winner, My Urban Angel which is an app that helps people make safer choices when they are out and about. It brings together other services in one application. She has had discussions with the Community Safety Partnership about building a network of places that are willing and able to act as safe places. This is resource intensive but it now looks as if the council and partners will take care of and manage this as part of making the city safer. This will allow the project to progress much faster. Paul Richard (Gig Buddies) mentioned that there was a service “thumbs up” that provided details of safe places for people with learning difficulties. There are plans to set up a testing scenario for the current version of the app, which is Android, and once it is ready they will look at viral marketing (slowly) through networks of friends.

Richard Vahrman told us about his project, House of Games. He pointed out that we should not talk about the gamification of life as games came from systems in life. (There was a lifeification of games.) More details here. But his project involves bringing gaming principles such as getting rewards for tasks, to social involvement. And there are more points for more social and community involvement and social responsibility. He has been making links in with other projects such as “We live here”, Public I and Demsoc and is hoping that the project will align with others. Public-i is going to help develop initial levels in Brunswick through a series of mini City Camps. He told us the story of a troll under a bridge. It is on his blog here. Richard is taking July to September to walk from the Shetland Islands to Brighton following long distance pathways such as the Pennine Way and South Downs way. Details of and updates on the walk can be found on his website

There are two aspects to this year’s winner, the Gig Buddies project: finding and training volunteers and the technology for connecting people. The CityCamp prize money is being used for the technology side of things. Paul is working with an organisation called Good For Nothing who is also helping with this and applying for more funding. Suggestions included the Resource Centre for help and Nominet as a possible source. Paul would also welcome help with applications, if anyone has expertise in this area.

LBGT HIP was not able to attend this meeting but Susie met with them and they are going to start coming to Third Thursdays. They need help with setting up forms and a database of people willing to be consulted on health issues. Jonathan Tilley might be able to help, contact details to be swapped.

Susie has also been speaking to the Maternity Services Liaison Committee which provides support to and feedback from users of maternity services to the NHS. They have a grant to set up an SMS text service. They are also looking for some help with a rebranding exercise (including finding a snappier name) if anyone can help with that.

We were joined by Liz Hobden from Brighton and Hove City Council Planning Department to talk about the CityPlan. There are more details about the plan on the Democratic Society Brighton website or on the Council website This is the last chance to contribute to the consultation which is open until July 20th check out Consultation Portal

There was some discussion about the lack of public events or adverts to raise awareness in the areas affected.  There were some thoughts about how CityCamp could help with promoting the things are happening and disseminate to grass roots level, not relying on top down hierarchies that don’t always work? Leaflets for example are not a good way. It is far better to get people on the street talking about it. There was discussion about how future documents such as this could be made open source to allow for easier searching about issues relevant to the reader.

And finally we had a great quote from Richard Vahrman that might become our new strapline. ‘CityCamp involves people who are doing things’

The next meeting is on Thursday 19^th July from 7pm at Hove Kitchen and will include Demsoc Brighton Drinks.