Creative People and Places, Bridgwater – June 2023

Jacqueline Ewers, Tech Champion for Email Marketing and Roberta Beattie, Tech Champion for Digital Accessibility

It’s quite an amazing experience to be surrounded by a group of creative and excited people, who are all motivated to learn how to deliver exceptional, inclusive cultural, and creative experiences to their audiences, and that’s exactly what happened this week in Bridgwater.

The Digital Culture Network had the pleasure of attending this year’s Creative People and Places (CPP) annual gathering, where our Tech Champions Jacqueline Ewers, and Roberta Beattie got to meet the amazing CPP representatives and tell them all about the free support, training, and advice available to them through our services.

The event was spread over two days that included a jam-packed schedule full of interesting talks and sessions. Some of the organisations were brand new, but some had previously been part of the project and were able to share some of the work they had done in previous years.

If you’re not familiar with the Creative People and Places projects, you can find out about them all here.

Organisations were excited to hear about how we could support them with their digital ambitions and gain more reach through their digital activities. Common themes were help with getting to grips with social media, improving or creating new websites, gathering data and analytics, and learning how they could act on the data they are collecting, and getting help with creating a comprehensive digital strategy.

Here are a few of the latest projects that were shared:

Right Up Our Street shared details of the St James Estate Balby Bridge project in Doncaster. Officially the estate doesn’t really have a name, but it is a big housing estate built on a plot of land that’s effectively cut off and isolated by busy main roads.

The challenges they faced were engagement of the local community, changing the narrative and perspectives around the estate locally, and building meaningful relationships with the residents. It was incredibly exciting to see the work they had done to bring culture and a sense of belonging to the people there.

You can find out more about the St James Estate Balby Bridge project here.

Ideas Test shared their experiments in engaging the unengaged, with their sensory lunches. It gave locals the chance to try some interesting food, whilst experiencing a range of activities to stimulate all their senses.

They also talked about their Highway of Dreams project, which was all about capturing ordinary peoples’ dreams and displaying them as geolocated audio stories to be experienced on a bus journey down the A2. Local residents had a hotline to call to record their dreams, and through an app, the stories were triggered when you drove past the location that they were dreamed in.

You can find out more about the Highway of Dreams project here.

East Durham Creates shared their experiences of improving access to culture through their events, sessions, and projects including their Arts Cafe. They are doing amazing work to engage local people in creative activities and grow arts provision in ways that are sustainable and can last. Their ambition is to attract more people to choose, create and take part in brilliant art experiences in the places where they live.

You can find out more about East Durham Creates here.

In all, it was a brilliant event, and it was great to tell people all about the Digital Culture Network, and how we can support them to achieve their digital goals over the coming years to reach more audiences and grow awareness of the great work they are delivering to people all over the country.

If you are a creative, cultural, or heritage organisation or individual, and would like to take advantage of our free support, head on over to our Ask a Tech Champion page to book your Free 1-2-1 Support!