Sea Mills is an early council estate on the edge of Bristol built just over a hundred years ago as housing for families and men returned from the First World War. In the centre, tight-knit neighbourliness and well-trimmed hedges surround a large circle of grass with the main road cutting across. By the bus stop, within sight of the Methodist church, library and ‘smallest museum’ (in a phone box) is a concrete flat-roofed structure. Driving past it is unremarkable, but step inside and this is a gem. It’s a community café run by volunteers and it’s packed. On this cold Monday morning all the tables are full and three volunteers are serving teas, bacon sandwiches and hot spiced apple juice. Many of the people there are retired and come almost every day for a hot morning drink and a chat. Sea Mills is lucky to have the café, but it has no community centre and very few opportunities for people who don’t come to the café or church to know what’s going on, or to offer ideas, things, time or skills for the benefit of Sea Mills. Ruth Myers and I, both working a few hours a week on Wise Connections (the project behind the Dare to Hope game), are meeting Mary Milton – in the last few years she has been instrumental in getting the community mobilised to open up under-used spaces, to learn about local history, to create the smallest museum, to get people together. We explain the idea behind the box and the Dare to Hope game and she immediately sees so many ways in which it could be used in Sea Mills. There could be a box at the church, definitely a box at the library. It would be great to have a box in the café but there just isn’t enough room – so maybe mini versions for each of the tables, then perhaps there could be a box used as part of social prescribing activities. We all talk about how there will be a tea party in a couple of months time for everyone and anyone who has come across the boxes– we’ll open the boxes together and share what’s there. The contributions will be anonymous but the point is to enable conversation, to explore ideas from the experts in the life of Sea Mills (the people who live there!), and to make new connections. After our meeting I go home and start painting boxes with a sense of excitement about what could be, filling them with envelopes, decorating materials and cards. Maybe no-one will be interested and when we open the box there’ll be nothing more than a crisp packet and the examples it started with, but maybe something might just come out of it – someone clearing someone else’s garden, kids bringing their toys to a swap, a photography exhibition – perhaps someone will have Dared to Hope.
Dare to Hope game boxes are soon to be in four areas of Bristol and in London N19. If you would like to know more, have some thoughts on how the game could develop, or want a box to trial in your community please get in touch. Blog post by Tot Foster
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Have you ever hoped for something but dismissed the idea before it’s even fully formed; you might worry that you don’t have the skills, the resources, or the time to make it happen… The Dare to Hope game aims to build action in communities by turning hopes into possibilities. The game is about mobilising what people in your local community have to offer, so that not only can those hopes turn into reality but people get connected and feel good about what they’re helping to make happen. So, there’s an experiment called the Dare to Hope game happening in different areas of London and Bristol. It is about gathering hopes and then finding out what gifts – ideas, resources, time, skills – other people offer. The game takes the form of a box with envelopes on which you can write your hopes, and cards for gifts to go inside the envelopes – whatever you can think of, big or small. In Bristol, at Sea Mills a set of sky blue boxes is about to be launched in various community venues. In Hillfields, there’s already a box at the library – a warm and welcome space in this difficult winter. At Avonmouth there’s boxes in the library and the community centre. In Southmead a community group who produce plays about Southmead – Meadows to Meaders – have tried the box out already and made some brilliant suggestions as to how it could be used and developed. In London N19 there are boxes being passed through a neighbourhood from hand to hand with people adding their hopes and gifts, there’s a box for wishes in a café, and it’s hoped there will be a box at a GP’s practice. If you see any of these Dare to Hope boxes where you are, please add something. At the moment this is an experiment – you won’t be asked to realise your gift and please don’t leave your name or contact details. Once the hopes and gifts are collected we’ll explore how we can further support action locally. But if you are in Bristol and look in a box you’ll see an invite to a tea party – at these events we’ll open the boxes and see what ideas and conversations the contents spark, and take it from there…
Blog post by Tot Foster |
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