Their inspiration led them to think that something might be done for Hillfields, but that ‘Built on Ribbons’ wasn’t the angle to take. Instead, the group felt that tackling the poor reputation Hillfields suffers from would be more suitable. Moreover, one of them said that the Imagine project needs some physical outputs. This intrigued me.
Our concentration has been on supporting organisations in what they need, and tailoring what we need to this, so that increased community capacity located within the voluntary group leads to better outputs and outcomes for us.
For example, digitising the history group’s images will help them maintain an archive and develop their group, whilst the inclusion of newly-digitised images in the timeline works for our research purposes. Also, improving the interviewing skill of radio presenters through support from me (as an ex-radio producer) produces competent broadcasters to develop the broadcast community at Hillz FM whilst also records interviews for this research.
The ephemerality of internet and voice led the history group to want to create the book. Their own physical archive of leaflets and documents represents an earlier age of Hillfields history, and very little else exists, so perhaps their need to produce something physical is to be understood.
To this end we have contacted Culture Coventry to apply for a grant for the publication. The group will apply, with my support, should Culture Coventry give us encouragement. We will see.