IN DEPTH
Do you need some totipotency?
Having no masterplan or top-down agenda may be the only way to find out what your community really needs and give you the manoeuvrability to deliver it. A project in Nailsea, Somerset has been running with the idea for nearly five years with surprising results.
WHAT form would the perfect community engagement mechanism take? Would it be a pub, a café, a GP’s surgery or a library? And could you answer this question with- out narrowing the field by taking a punt on one or other of these options? Institutions that need to listen to their com- munities may do well not to choose. Having no masterplan and no agenda has been the most consistent aim of a project in the North Somerset town of Nailsea. Initially funded by Nailsea Town Council and NHS Digital, and now in its fifth year, the project remains intentionally hard to label. It is known as 65 High Street and it contin- ues to deliver a variety of responsive solutions for its community.
Ian Morrell, one of the founders of No 65, believes the response of communities to Covid has demonstrated why community spirit per- forms better than an organisational plan. “Trust is the vital element. When people trust a venue or other people in their community, amazing things happen. That’s what we saw with Covid. Com- munities responded at speed but it wasn’t about a national policy because everyone was winging it. It was because of trust, compassion, goodwill and common sense. That’s where the agility of No 65 comes from. We have an ethos which means we trust the process rather than try to adhere to a strategic plan. We’ve got to be fluid in the way that we respond to what people want in the com- munity and we can only do this by being generous listeners and having a mentality of why initiatives
April-May 2022
Rob Mackinlay (@cilip_reporter2,
rob.mackinlay@
cilip.org.uk) is Senior Reporter, Information Professional.
can be made to happen, not why they can’t. We are risk aware, not risk averse.”
Totipotential Dr Malcolm Rigler, a retired GP and CILIP mem- ber, who approached Ian with the initial idea, and has been involved in the Nailsea project from the start describes the problem: “One simple example was one of my patients who was deeply in debt, and she wanted to know how to deal with it. But we weren’t taught where to go for advice about debt at medical school – yet when these problems appear we need to be able to help the person quickly. There are cells of the human body which, when they are unformed, are called totipotential. It means they can become anything. And the idea is that this high street place can be anything for anybody. It is not about saying ‘we are here to
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