"I’ve enjoyed being part of something that has the chance to make a real impact"

Our Estate Safety Officer, Mark Garnham, tells us about his experience with our trailblazing community incubator project, All In.

“When I heard that there was an opportunity to join a team to help tackle a local social issue, it really chimed with the parts of my job that I enjoyed the most. I hoped that by joining the All In programme I could expand on the tools I had to help empower communities to create change for the better.

Once selected and a part of the programme, we soon found out that the canvas for the solution was completely blank. It was solely down to us to create something to help tackle social isolation in the Witham area.

We spoke to many service providers and community members to better understand the problem of social isolation: who was most affected, what services already existed and where the gaps were. We soon discovered that it was young people who were mainly affected in Witham.

Next, we developed ideas through workshops with community members which was enjoyable as it was the first step towards creating something special. When we finally had the concept of our new idea at the end of this phase, it was a great feeling.

We worked alongside young people to get their insight on our ideas and what could make it even better. We branded the initiative 'Popcorn’, mapped out the user experience and launched the idea into the community with a big event at Rivenhall Golf Club earlier this year. It was great to be able to finally launch Popcorn and get the reaction of the community.

We invited a small group of young people to take part in a six-week pilot. To see the young people go through a programme which connected them with others, gave them an opportunity to talk about things important to them and grow in confidence was so exciting. To hear them talk about how it enabled them to feel more confident, to speak with others easier, to gain employment, engage in courses or to volunteer in some way was remarkable.

Throughout the pilot, we worked hard to understand how we could futureproof ‘Popcorn’. We spoke to similar organisations, established key partnerships and then decided who would be taking the service into the future. We created a high-quality funding proposal that needed to convince a panel that Popcorn was truly needed in Witham and therefore to kindly invest in it.

Finally, in April, we celebrated the past year at the All In Ideas Festival at Firstsite in Colchester. The event gave us the opportunity to showcase Popcorn to the communities that had helped create them. Although there were nerves in the lead up, our presentation on stage to an audience of 300 people went down well. The level of emotion created by having everyone share their experiences was incredible – our young Popcorners even came along to speak too!

On reflection, I have had a wonderful year. It hasn’t been an easy year, but anything worthwhile in life is often not. Most of all I’ve enjoyed being part of something that has the chance to make a real impact to the people where I live and the fact it was challenging has made it even more fulfilling.

Now my secondment is over, I have returned to my role as Estate Safety Officer. Going forward I’ll continue to support Popcorn as a volunteer and I’m so excited to join them in reaching new milestones. Equally, I am excited to see how the skills I’ve gained can be used to develop my service area within Estates. People care a lot about the places in which they live, and we must listen carefully to what they have to say about improving them. Watch this space!!

For anyone thinking about pushing themselves and wanting to make a real difference then I would whole heartedly tell them to put themselves forward for any future opportunities to join the Community Incubator programme.”

Click here to find out more about the future of Popcorn.