The Transforming Central Community Survey is now live. You can contribute to our future by giving us a few moments of your time. Keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter feeds for events and happenings over the next month.
The Transforming Central Community Survey has five objectives:
- Deepen the Churches understanding of the local community
- Ensure any potential projects will meet real needs
- Create a sense of local ownership and participation
- Avoid unnecessary duplication of provision
- Give local people a say in the future of their community
Also the research will also help the Church to deliver mission whilst engaging the community through the project. It will also enable the Church to set clear goals for their mission and ministry and gain a credible understanding of the area in terms of needs and opportunities.
No Imagine Projects Community Surveys are theoretical, but are be action orientated, resulting in a clear mandate for the Central to help transform the local community.
The approach Imagine takes involves the following phases. The phases will move progressively from high-level to more detailed investigation.
- Phase 1 Project inception meeting
- Phase 2 Desktop research
- Phase 3 Stakeholder focus groups
- Phase 4 Community engagement
- Phase 5 Market testing focus groups
- Phase 6 Final debrief
- Phase 7 Implementation
We are about to start phase four. The Community engagement phase
Getting people to give you their view is harder than you think (just think general election turnout, or when you are approached by someone holding a clipboard!). Rather than just surveying, you need to engage your audience.
Imagine Projects ad
opts some creative techniques. For example, if you want to focus in on pensioners in your community, what about providing some tea and biscuits and interview them as they queue in the post office or wait in the GP surgery. Training of volunteers to undertake effective community engagement is delivered in in accordance with data protection act and Market Research Society guidelines.
The tried and trusted community engagement strategy is quite straight forward and has proven to be effective.
- Pre- survey publicity – A1 and A4 posters. And a pre-questionnaire leaflet drop in every home and business in the research area.
- Distribution of questionnaires
- On line survey
- Facebook and Twitter
- A mid term story in the local paper
- PO Box Response for completed paper questioners
At the end of this phase, the data will be collated and analysed. The information then together with all the other data collected to date, and as the Central begins to crystallise the problems, it should begin to propose viable, solutions.