Susie Latta

The City Camp monthly meet up will be 18th April at Hove Kitchen from 7pm.

Hopefully see you there.

The CityCamp team

Friday CityCamp is at the Sallis Benney Theatre (kindly provided for us by the University of Brighton.) Doors open at 1.30pm and we start at 2pm. The cafe will be open for anyone who wants to buy snacks or drinks, before, during or after CityCamp. There is wifi at the venue. Ask for a code at the CityCamp registration desk. The afternoon will be webcast so if you can’t make it please follow us live, or catch up afterwards at http://www.events.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/101027

Friday is the Inform day of CityCamp. Here is the agenda

• Intro and Welcome from Catherine Howe,
• Tom Nixon, WorldBlu ambassador and co-founder NixonMcInnes

– @tomnixon

• Josephine Ball, Head of Non-Emergency Contact, Sussex Police

– @balljosephine

• Dr Tom Scanlon, Director of Public Health, Brighton and Hove

@drtomscanlon

• Speakers’ Corner – an opportunity for anyone to speak

Short Break

• Emma Daniel, Coats for Kids

– @huxley06

• Paul Richards, Gig Buddies (last year’s CityCamp winner) – @stayuplateuk
• Jason Kitcat, Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council

– @jasonkitcat

We will finish at 5.30pm.

In March 2012, a group of like-minded people started a discussion group at City Camp 2 around digital inclusion in the city. Everyone agreed on three things:

• It’s a form of poverty to not be connected
• Everyone should have the opportunity to be connected in the way that they want and to help themselves and
• It’s essential to grow digital communities alongside digital business.

We started to map out a programme of activities that could help set out a new level of digital ambition for the not for profit sector and embed a way of working across sectors to solve digital exclusion.  Loads of different things we could do were identified like mapping a digital champion’s network; pop up surgeries, a workshop at the Digital festival and establishing networking relationships.

There was a further conversation at City Camp 2.5 in September which was framed against the current context of welfare reform, reducing isolation, cuts to adult education and the digital by default agenda. Intermediary practitioners at the event asked for a tool to connect with each other, learn new skills and share knowledge around digital inclusion.

So that takes us so where we are now, I along with CVSF reps have been inputting to the financial inclusion, welfare reform consultation and digital inclusion research conducted by the City Council and are more certain than ever that there is a need to connect practitioners together across sectors, to learn from each other and help people get online.

I can’t make City Camp 3 but am hoping there will be some ‘tech’ people interested in looking into what platforms we could be using to connect a network of interested people online – I can do the writing bit. If you are interested in being involved just email laura@cvsectorforum.org.uk.

Wishing everyone at City Camp 3 a fantastic time full of ideas and fun!

On March 22nd-24th people from across our city will be coming together for CityCamp 3 to work on their ideas for how to create a better future for everyone. It’s a free event, and we get people from every area of life along, including community groups, digital professionals, council employees and education professionals. Everyone is welcome!

Here are the latest details for CityCamp 3:

Inform: Presentations about the issues that face the city. Friday 22nd March 2-5.30pm, Sallis Benney Theatre

Discuss: Come and discuss ideas to make the city better. Saturday 23rd 10am-5.30pm Brighthelm Centre

Do: Turn those ideas into actions. Sunday 24th 10am -5pm Hove Town Hall

More details and tickets will be available soon.

Keep coming back for updates or follow us on Twitter or Facebook

(UPDATE Feb 2013: Applications have now closed for this project and are being considered by Paul and his team.)

Gigbuddies, the winner or CityCamp 2, are looking for an innovative and talented freelance app and web developer to develop the online element of our Gig Buddies project.  Gig Buddies matches people with and without learning disabilities through their shared love of music so they can go to gigs together.

The key concept is that we want to create a stand alone app and/or web app which will be easy to use for people with learning disabilities but aimed at a universal audience.

We have won some funding for this work and have the support of the CityCamp Brighton so we are now in a position to actually commission our development work.  As our resources are limited we want to make the best use of open source and free software but we know that this will take some clever development work and creativity in its own right!

We have an idea of what we want but we want whoever we work with to help shape what we are doing. Our goal is an app (Android and/or iPhone), or perhaps a website built on responsive design principles that:

1)      Enables people to sign-up and register as a ‘buddy’ (a dating site without the ‘Love’)

2)      Enables people to choose what gigs go to – aggregating information from existing sources

3)      Enables gig goers to post up short 30 second video reviews of their night out

4)      Promotes our work to a wider audience

5)      Is easy and intuitive to use.

We also want to produce a strong identity for Gig Buddies so we will be looking for someone with a vision for an eye catching design for the project and app.

We would like to hear from someone who can work with us to design the spec for our project and deliver it.

We have a budget of £5,200 (inc of any VAT) for this project and closing date is 28th Jan 2013.

Email us to make initial enquiries, paul@stayuplate.org

Please also email examples of any previous work.

www.stayuplate.org

City Camp funding has been helping Speak Out trainers with learning disabilities to promote the Thumbs Up scheme.

The trainers want local services to join and commit to good support for customers with learning disabilities. In joining the services will have access to training, advice and resources to help them meet the needs of people with learning disabilities.

City Camp has supported the trainers to get on facebook, use flipcam and a new zoom h2 sound recorder to help promote their message.

If your organisation hasn’t joined Thumbs Up yet there is more information about the scheme in this presentation.

For more infomation or to join contact the trainers email: traininggroup@bhspeakout.org.uk or visit our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/bhspeakouttraining for more information.

(UPDATE Dec 2013: this position has now been recruited and Gig Buddies are moving from strength to strength)

The winner of CityCamp 2 is recruiting a project manager.

Here are a few details:

Gig Buddies project manager

18 ½ hours,  £10, 409  (pro rata based on £20, 817 full time) based in Brighton and Hove.

We’re looking for someone with the skills and passion to set up and run our gig buddy service, matching people with and without learning disabilities through a shared passion for music.

You will need to be committed to promoting social inclusion through practical activity, a natural innovator, and experienced in working with people with learning disabilities.

We’re very excited to be employing our first paid worker and want to find someone who is as excited about joining us on our journey.

Click here for more details

Providence Place Gardens, in the heart of Brighton has been transformed to make it into a meeting place for those who live, work and study in the area. The railings have been removed and decking, seating and better lighting have made the space a more pleasant place to be. There is also new public art to see. The space has free wifi for a year, and to make full use of this we have arranged a series of events for the next two weeks. Join in with what is going on at #commonroom or on Facebook

Information Prescriptions (Tuesday 2nd October, 2-5pm)

NHS Brighton and Hove will be running an Information Prescriptions drop in session from 2-5pm, where people can explore this new website with information on both local and national health and social care services as well as information on wider help and support for general wellbeing

Social media surgery (Tuesday 2nd and 9th October 3-5pm)

Volunteer surgeons will be offering free help to charities and community/voluntary sector groups at these drop in sessions on using the web and social media such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging. There are more details here

CityCamp Meetup (Wednesday 10th October)

Following on from the success of CityCamp 2.5 we will be having the monthly meet up from 6-8pm. Join us for a follow up on the pledges from CityCamp and the next steps.

Toy Hacking by Exploring Senses (Saturday 13th October, 2-5pm)

Exploring Senses highly successfully toy hacking workshops are gaining quite a following. This workshop helps children create new toys from old. They will be at Providence Place Gardens for this free family workshop.

Please contact us if you would like any more information about any of the above and maybe we will see you there.

On Monday we had a full house at the Brighthelm Centre for CityCamp 2.5 to discuss digital inclusion. Starting with presentations from Paul Sweeting from Brighton and Hove Advice Partnership (link to Paul’s presentation here);  Paul Colbran, Chief Information Officer/Head of ICT at Brighton and Hove City Council and Catherine Howe Chief Executive of Public i (link to Catherine’s presentation here) which gave us an overview of the current state of the digital city. People then proposed discussions for the rest of the day and the agenda looked like this. The day finished off with reports back on what was discussed and pledges turning that into actions. Thank you to Bert for taking the photos and thank you to everyone who came and contributed to make it such an interesting day.

Reaching the hard to reach With welfare reforms we need look at people’s needs and interests and how digital media might help. The scale of benefit changes is massive. But we also need to deal with feelings of apathy. With refugee and migrant workers the only engagement that works is face to face. Digital work works when supported by a relationship of trust and the person who sends the message is based on a trusting relationship

Pledges

• To set up an ‘Inclusion Doorstep Squad’ to help people understand the changes to benefits and rights and establish what digital issues (skills, knowledge and threats they face)
• To connect with as many community groups as possible

Social housing and digital inclusion Give staff from council, community groups, volunteers the skills to pass on. Have digital champions out and about – promoting digital inclusion. Use the infrastructure that exists such as digital tv aerials. Is it possible to use Carelink alarm links? Library service – Council Connect – lots not heard about free service to access the internet – use it or lose it. Crowd funding – crowd funding platform to raise money for community projects (SpaceHive) It would be useful to have a directory of services that are available now for workers so they can pass on information.

Pledges

• If you are out and about and engaging with people – help them to get an email account
• Promoting council connect
• Set up a Directory

What’s Metro wifi about? This was a session explaining how citywide wifi would work. There were no pledges.

BME and new communities Need real communication and trust before we begin with digital communication. We need to become a trusted source of information There are particular barriers faced by migrant communities, particularly those with insecure immigration status. There is not a lack of skills and expertise in migrant communities – they use these technologies eg for communication to family elsewhere in the world.

Democracy and politics Discussion of the nature of power and politics and how to increase participation and get more people involved. But be more wary about just hearing the majority voice. We need to listen to minority voices as well. Is democracy about votes or about collaborative leading to consensus?

Pledges

• Make progress with neighbourhood councils more visible
• Constructive support for these projects is more likely to make them democratic
• When making decisions we want information decisions can be made in an intelligent way
• Briefing for people taking first democratic steps online – how to do it (could Demsoc do this?)
• Take part in Police and Crime Commissioner elections

Social networking for the elderly Discussion of what a network is, a social network, open or closed? Ideas of projects were discussed from showing people how to use Skype to more complicated things. Stressed the difference between talking and doing

Pledge

• To set up something similar to Digital Education Brighton  for anyone interested in things for the elderly – elderly, support workers, companies with products etc can sign up and run sessions. Sign up and we will have first meeting next month

Future of Local media Local media is changing profoundly and can’t fix local newspapers. We need something so that everybody finds out what is going on. An open and inclusive community conversation to inform decision making

Pledges

• A lot of people are already online talking about the community and we should look at again at finding out what is going on already
• See how inclusive it is and then seek out the voices that aren’t out there
• Turn that into a persistent resource to be an effective, critical friend of decisions but still being part of the community.

Council services and access The conversation was around the council’s customer promise to be easy to reach. They aim to maintain service through lots of methods eg; phone, letter, online. Some services are good online and some are not and they need to be careful about how to manage that. And look at the people and the way they like to use services. No one size fits all and sometimes we do need a face to face discussion Use existing infrastructure and physical networks like the libraries. Council officers need to be less risk adverse. They worry a lot about doing things right and should sometimes think about doing things differently How do we include democratic feedback into council priorities and council principles? What is the driver for services? Cost? Excellence? Customer service? need? We need to share experiences and see how other councils and community and voluntary groups have done things to give the best service for residents

Pledge

• Everyone to give feedback on council services
• We will listen and respond in a better way and maybe have a ‘meet your council officers day’

Pleasure not pressure People should go online for pleasure not because they feel pressured to. Ask what people are interested in and show people these things online. Examples given were poetry and gardening. It may be a one off experience or a lifelong love but there is nothing lost. No one should be forced to be online but we should provide help to those who are disadvantaged by not being online. There is a responsibility on the rest of us to keep them included. Some people don’t care that they lost money – they would rather be offline than save the money. They feel that the internet is a sterile invasion of their privacy. This is an exercise in humanity and the interaction between people. An important relationship is the interaction between grandchildren and grandparents

Pledge

• Help friends and family online and with online things.
• Campaign for access to the internet should be a human right

Community run wifi Future of the internet is 4G and this will need expensive new kit But it is about making it affordable to people. Came up with the term #comunifi which is about sharing wifi networks within a community

Pledge

• Set up a meeting to look at piloting a simple initiative to share internet access between houses

Role Community and Voluntary Sector and Communities Discussion of the use of digital inclusion to reduce service user isolation and the role of community and voluntary sector. There is a need to increase the skills of community and voluntary practitioners to help with this.

Pledge

• To explore a cross sector network on digital inclusion, collaboration and crowdsourcing issues and ideas.

An update on Gig Buddies from Paul Richards

Since City Camp in March I’ve felt a bit like the character Rhubarb in the classic children’s TV cartoon ‘Roobarb and Custard’. In every episode he always disappeared off in to his garden shed and worked on a crazy invention, and you never knew what it was going to be until he had finally finished and opened the door. I’ve felt like the last six months have been a bit like that, there’s been loads of things happening behind the scenes which has largely involved writing funding bids. We were also asked to be part of the Good For Nothing ‘Summer Of Love’ weekend camp in June where a team of lovely people gave up their weekend to help with techie things like a Facebook app, social media marketing ideas, branding ideas, a funders pack and press release type things.

We also had a trial run in the Brighton Festival Fringe where we had some ‘buddies’ come along to the launch of a new compilation we’d put out (Wild Things 3). However, we don’t want to properly publicise what we’re up to until we know that we have the funding in place to employ a part-time project worker.

And the good news is that we’ve just heard we’ve been successful in our grant applications meaning that we’re hoping to reveal what we’ve been building in our ‘shed’ within the next month or two.

We’ve also just heard that we’ve been successful in being part of the National Council for Voluntary Service’s Crowd Funding Challenge 2012. We’re new to crowd-funding but it looks like a potential great way to sustainably fund Gig Buddies. You can follow our weekly challenges and progress on twitter. #crowdfunding2012

There’s still a bit of banging and sawing to do but we’re not far off now!