The Culture Mile Business Improvement District held its first community event yesterday evening, as I previewed in this post. Here’s feedback and ideas on how it could mark the start of better engagement with local residents.
Update: Links to videos and transcripts at the end, and the latest post: No community forum for City’s Culture Mile area
Dear Culture Mile BID team
Thanks for a friendly welcome at St Bartholomew the Great, with drinks, canapés, and a wealth of information about the BID. As expected, your presentations covered community grants, the public realm study, and the idea of a community forum.
May I offer some feedback, and ideas?
Feedback
First, accessibility. St Barts has a good sound system with microphones and hearing loop, and the ability to live stream or video events. I couldn’t hear some of what was said because you didn’t use the system, and I know others had a problem too.
Participation was limited to the 50 or so people attending, with no record for those who had other commitments.
Second, the purpose and style of the event. As I understand it, you wished to brief residents on the work of the BID, update on some current work – including the public realm study – and also start the engagement process first promised in 2022, which I reported here. That’s a lot to do in one hour. It was all presentation, with no opportunity for questions or discussion.
It was billed as a forum but “A forum is a public discussion. It can refer to a meeting, a meeting house or any conversation that is available publicly”. A useful meeting, but not a forum.
Third, lack of collaboration with councillors. One of the challenges for BIDs is they lack accountability beyond the businesses who pay a levy, as I covered here.
Culture Mile has the biggest residential population of any of the City BIDs, and so it would make sense to involve elected Members in planning community engagement. I don’t believe that was done.
If we residents don’t like the way the BID is operating, there’s nothing we can do about it.
If we don’t like what the City Corporation is doing, we can engage with Members and ultimately express our views at elections. That is particularly on issue where there is lack of clarity about responsibilities. That’s very much the case with the pubic realm study, as I wrote here.
Fourth, communications strategy. You confirmed in conversation last night that although you have an X/Twitter account, you don’t intend to use it. You will restrict online engagement to LinkedIn, Instagram and one-to-one emails. That seems to me inadequate. There is a newsletter, but it is broadcast, and doesn’t offer interaction. Again, no forum.
I know it is easy to grumble, and appreciate that you have a small team, so here’s some ideas.
Ideas
Share. Most immediately, share the content from yesterday evening. The presentations were really interesting, and the public realm information boards had content that would engage residents and workers across the area. Could you put slides online, and make the information boards available as pdfs? Even if you won’t use X/Twitter, other users could help promote.
Enhance the website with the above information, and more. I know that you plan to publish maps of Inspiring Places, which will be welcome. How about more on the Our Community section? There’s little detail about the projects that have received grants, for example.
Report back. It looked as if the there were a lot of good ideas on post-its about Connected Community, Inspiring Places, Cultural Destination. Could you summarise, report back, and explore ways to take ideas forward?
Invite collaboration. The post-it ideas – and others – could be the basis for workshops involving residents, Members, businesses and other key interests.
The author of the Destination City review, Paul Martin, has said that to achieve its aims we need partnerships of cultural and heritage organisations, the Livery companies, the BIDs, businesses themselves, resident organisations – “we need to think how we can harness the totality of these enormous and extraordinary community assets to achieve the goals of Destination City.”
I think that applies more widely. Can Culture Mile BID help develop partnerships, perhaps in association with local Corporation Members?
Rethink “Forum.” As I understand it the Forum originally proposed during the process of getting support for the BID has come down to two meetings a year. While events for networking, presentations and informal discussion – like last night – are welcome, they don’t constitute a forum. What’s needed is a process of engagement using a number of methods in person and online. My suggestion would be to invite further feedback from residents and Members, and review what might be appropriate.
Immediate request Can we please have pdfs of the public realm study information boards, with permission to publish – or view them on your website?
Best wishes
Engaged resident
PS If I am off-track on anything here I would be glad to add/amend.
Update: I have now uploaded videos and transcripts of the presentations at the event, and an analysis of what I think they mean for community engagement and the public realm study.
Update 2: the BID has published the public realm boards here.