Luci visits some of our Caithness members!
Luci is new to the team here at the Highlands and Islands Climate Hub but not only that, she’s new to the world of community development and so, spent some of her first month shadowing alongside Thurso Community Development Trust and Dunnet Community Forest to get a feel for how different members work within their communities, how they tackle community engagement and the barriers they face. She’ll use this learning to continue on her journey supporting communities in East Caithness and Sutherland with community engagement.
On Wednesday the 14th of June I was invited to Thurso Community Development Trust to join them in their Future Thurso discussion. The Community Development Trust has launched Future Thurso as they are coming to the end of their 5 year plan and are looking for feedback to find out what development the Thurso community wants to see moving forward.
The discussion was based on getting the local community to engage with the trust through their website “Future thurso” and through in person meetings and activities.
The discussion included the following:
Which groups/businesses they would reach out to
How to collect information from the groups/businesses
How to get younger people’s opinions
Trust team members, Stephanie and Danielle made a list of all the groups and businesses in Thurso that they would reach out to and how it would be best to collect the information that they could receive. This included:
Brainstorming ideas to get younger groups of people to share their ideas in person and make it fun and interesting.
Discussing how to get more engagement through the website by sharing the link to groups and printing posters to give to local businesses.
Using suggestion boxes in tourist hotspots.
Setting up a social media marketing campaign
A plan was set up to move forward and we have each taken responsibility for a section of groups/businesses to reach out to and gather their thoughts and opinions on what development Thurso community would like to see in the future.
On Saturday the 17Th of June, I joined Thurso Community Development Trust in their stall at the Thurso town market. The aim of the day was to get some in person engagement from locals and tourists in Thurso. The development trust had set up a map of the community with post-it notes for the public to write any ideas or thoughts on about the town.
This was a very positive experience as we had quite a few people come forward and show a real interest in what we were trying to do and they were all keen to share their thoughts. It was also good to see a couple of tourists coming over and sharing what they enjoyed about visiting the town and what they noticed while staying that could improve the town from their point of view.
We added some good suggestions onto the maps along with positive notes from people who wanted to share what they already liked about the town. This was a really good opportunity to start engaging with the community.
Dunnet forest
On Monday the 19th and Monday the 26th of June Garance Warburton (the forest development officer in Dunnet Community Forest) invited me to spend some time with her an a couple of school groups that were visiting Dunnet forest.
Garance took the groups down to the forest pond to have a look at the species that live there and how they grow, she also taught the groups about the importance of the different species within the eco-system of the forest. This was a very fun and interactive activity for the groups and teachers and you could see that the groups were learning to respect the delicate species that they were interacting with.
After a visit to the pond we headed up to Dunnet forest’s log cabin. Here the groups had some lunch and a chat about the morning before moving onto their next activity. The group then learnt about the different types of trees that were growing in the forest. They were split into small groups and sent on a hunt to find one leaf from each different tree that they would then come back and learn to identify using Garance’s knowledge of the forest.
Both days were fun and interesting, I think it’s a great way to get younger people out in nature and learning to respect what’s around them.