John Atkinson, Community Action Development Officer at MVDA took Paul Streets, the CEO of Lloyds Bank Foundation on a whistlestop tour of Middlesbrough in March.
Paul has been a driving force behind LocalMotion, a 10-year programme supporting System Change activities in 6 towns across England and Wales including Middlesbrough with the backing of 6 major funders. Paul was in Middlesbrough to get a sense of the town, its brilliant people and inventive Voluntary and Community Organisations.
John describes the visit:
"We waved to Adrian at 2B on our way to the Exchange to speak with Freestyle Community Projects and some of the people who use the venue before nipping over to MIMA to hear about some exciting developments at the gallery.
"We continued the tour, spending time with some of the women who have been supported by Switch and heard about Bini’s work at the International Centre before the conversation opened up with input from Sara from Hemlington Linx, Nik from Community Campus 87 and Julie from National Lottery Community Fund. Participants returned to MIMA for a tasty lunch. Sue from the Hope Foundation and Mark from You’ve Got This joined us at MIMA to join in conversations about life in the Sector and in the Boro, generally.
"Watch out for more news about LocalMotion developments over the next few weeks. The first two ideas the Middlesbrough folk have said they wanted to work on are Doughnut Economics & the Preston Model and Community Engagement & Wellbeing – you will be invited to come along and get involved."
For further information and to get involved, email john.atkinson@mvdauk.org.uk.
John Atkinson
MVDA
Community Action and Development Officer at MVDA.