Inclusive Action Group

Meeting 2

The second Sensory Trust IAG was held on Monday the 10th of February 2003 in London.

Hazel Stuteley OBE, a health professional in Cornwall, kicked off the day with a presentation of her nationally acclaimed work in the Beacon estate in Falmouth. It was an inspiring presentation which set the tone for the rest of the day. Hazel described how she had motivated a small number of people (her ‘Trojan Mice’) who then spread the desire for change throughout the community. Real sustainable regeneration was achieved by building from the grass roots.

Eve Mittleton-Kelly, from the London School of Economics followed Hazel with a whistle-stop tour of complexity theory as applied to organisations. Eve managed to make a difficult subject reasonably approachable. By using complexity theory, Eve was able to outline and formalise some of the techniques that Hazel had employed, instinctively, in her successful work in Falmouth. Emphasising things like change in focus from budgets and planning to relationship building. By formalising these approaches, it’s hoped that a model can be created that will enable people to reproduce the Beacon Estate’s success in other places. Anyone wishing to look into complexity theory further should visit http://is.lse.ac.uk/complexity/. Her paper “Ten Principles of Complexity and Enabling Infrastructures” is available at http://is.lse.ac.uk/complexity/PDFiles/publication/Ch2_Mitleton_Kelly.pdf.

After the break for a light lunch and a whole lot of networking some members of the IAG gave brief presentations:

Julia Cassim from the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre, Royal College of Art, presented a short film describing a prototype system of colour description for blind people using tactile shapes on tags and labels in clothes shops.

Peter Atkin gave everyone a quick run down on the services offered by the RNIB transcription centre in Ivybridge near Plymouth.

Ian Richardson from the Milton Keynes Parks Trust showed a presentation covering some of the accessible places and activities in the parks in the town.

Jemma Sharman talked about the activities of BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers), particularly her own work, looking at what motivates people with disabilities or socially excluded people to visit the countryside.

Sarah Moore from Urban Parks Forum talked about the activities of the Forum, its history, and about its publications. She also gave us a brief run down of their Community Networking Project which is to create a national register of community groups to reduce their isolation and share information.

Mike Bruton from the Disabled Ramblers Association talked about the potential for rambling trips on a national basis for people who use wheelchairs, but like the freedom of the mountain climbing buggies.

Inspired by Eve’s talk on complexity, we wound up (or wound down) with an open mike session to explore some of the issues raised by Hazel and Eve. This also gave members the chance to pose questions, and offer possible solutions to others to their working issues.

It was a great day, and a lot of valuable contacts were made. If it was possible to bottle the energy that was in that wee room, we’d all be rich. As it is, we hope that we can sustain some of the enthusiasm and take the ideas of the day onto another level.

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