NO, I’M NOT ASKING YOU TO FILL IN ANOTHER FORM
I’m currently involved with wide-reaching arts and health developments across the north-west region ranging from evaluation and research, to advocacy and training; and I’m acutely aware of how fed up everyone gets with being asked for their perspective; we’re all being asked, ‘can you fill in this questionnaire, so you can go on our database!’
We’ll the project I’m involved with is over half-way through and so far, I’ve not asked anyone to fill in a form! But I’m on the brink of it here. The thing is, there’s so much activity going on across the region; masses of it in fact. Whilst some of it describes itself explicitly as arts and health; there’s so much more going on out there that has an impact on our health, but would never call itself that. You know the kind of thing that I mean; it might be a project in a school around the PSHE agenda, or else some creative writing taking place in a drop-in centre.
Now, I’m really keen that when the Invest to Save: Arts in Health project is done and dusted, that it has some kind of legacy; and one of the roles I’ve got is to develop a North West Arts and Health Virtual Network and the last thing I want to do, is recreate the wheel. If I’m involved with a project like this I want it to reflect the needs, aspiration and vision of those of us working in the field across the region. So, I want to hear from you as to what a regional website should be about. Is it about job opportunities, funding, and evaluation; or is it about showcasing best practice – and if it is, who defines what best practice is?
The website is going to be hosted by the North West Public Health Observatory, but will have its own unique identity. There’s already a webpage there, but it’s not the most exciting thing you’ve ever seen. http://www.nwph.net/arts/pages/user_index_new.aspx
It gives you the opportunity to upload details of your project, but we want something a bit more interactive than that; that looks good, is clear to navigate around and that’s useful to us all.
So, no forms then, but a request for you to say what it is that would be useful to you when it comes to web resources. And if you’ve been involved in one of the Networking Events and want to feedback on it, please feel free to post a comment here.
Go on; be proactive, stick your neck out and tell the world what you think!
Thanks
Clive Parkinson
Posted on July 24th, 2006
July 24th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Hi Clive
A regional website would be useful to keep us all in touch with what’s happening each month, if there are conferences, seminars or training courses that could be good to attend, and exhibitions that are coming up. An opportunities section comprising things like jobs, a chance to submit papers (for conferences) and articles (for journals), training opportunities, funding opportunities, and what about a section where people hoping to gain experience or change jobs could place their CV?
Practice examples could perhaps be along the lines of case studies so they are easy and quick to read, and present the best features of projects.
I’d like to see other people’s evaluation and research, and maybe they would like to see ours?
Also what about a problems corner? People could put a problem up and see if there is expertise in the arts and health community to help them solve it - just some quick thoughts anyway.
August 8th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Hi Clive, Great blog! Re a regional website, a prime factor IMO is to get visitors whose prime intention is ‘take’ info to actually contribute as well. I guess you’d need an inspirational yet accessible range of methods to make contributing easier - such as a blog or a forum/chat board as just a couple of ideas. Ideally a few approaches would be available to suit the diverse audience viewing. Maybe the way forward is to look to professional site builders - at least for guidance - to create a dynamic space which compliments and drives the content.
Good luck!