Community Networks are the essential life blood of community action. Without the ability of residents and community groups to link up, making a difference can be a hard and lonely task. Having other people to talk to doesn’t neccessarily get you what you want straight away, but having a wide network of people who all have skills, energy and expertise to share, can make the impossible possible, and enable you to get things done.
In December, Resident University held a seminar for community networks, that looked at why networks are important, and the kind of things they need to be able to do, in order to be useful and effective for their members.
During the seminar, we looked at a new assessment framework for community networks that has been developed by Community Network 4 Birmingham, an umbrella organisation dedicated to supporting networks, and helping them to link up together.
The purpose of the framework, is to help networks assess what they are doing well at (and not so well at) and is a starting point for thinking about developing a plan to improve.
The framework is still work in progress, and lots of helpful feedback was generated in the seminar which will be used to improve it. You can download a copy of the first draft here, but please come back in a while to get the latest version!
