Beyond the local youth offer

In general, the data we are collecting and publishing via plings tends towards the local activities and events, that sit neatly underneath a local youth offer.  So – a youth club, sports centre, arts project, music workshop, dance group – tend to sit well within the local area that they operate within.  In terms of then publishing these positive activities our model of “what’s on near me?” works well.

But – we know that this is not the whole story.

Recently we have begun to talk to a few activity providers and projects that organise events and schemes that are of interest to a much wider population of young people.  Over the coming weeks we will start to publish more detail and interviews with these organisations, but to kick off, here are some thoughts.

Trip to the theatre

West End

Mousetrap theatre projects contacted us with details of their scheme for ultra cheap tickets for West End theatre, dance and opera productions and talks – aimed specifically at young people.  We’ve entered one such event into Plings, which sits it underneath Westminister.  Obviously, the catchment area for an event in central London is far beyond a local youth offer (could even extend to people from Manchester!) – so this starts an interesting issue as to where these activities “sit”.

Going away

Over the summer holidays, the Youth Hostel Association will be running a series of adventure camps for young people – called Doit4Real.  The very nature of these activities mean that those attending will not always live in the areas adjacent to the camps – so how would we promote these to “local” young people?

A festival of activities

Festivals

Coming up in October and November (phew!) will be the Juice Festival, NewcastleGateshead’s Festival for Children and Young People.  We’d imagine the programme and activities will be exciting and diverse, meaning that people would want to travel in from further afield – especially given the excellent Metro system locally.  So – where would the activities best sit from this?

Gone Fishing

At Substance, we also have  a major project researching into the social and community benefits of Angling.  Again, this “pasttime” is not always something that is organised within a local authority area..

How far is local?

Whilst we can most probably see some solutions at the presentation level for these issues – adverts, buttons, Facebook Fan Pages, widgets, etc – our interest is more around the relationship these activities have with the local.  Of course, this is then tied to issues such as transport, travel and resources – but the question remains “how far is your local youth offer stretching?“

Location, location, location

What’s on where you live! Finding activities nearby is the key offer of most positive activity websites. But working with geographical locations isn’t as simple as it may seem – as we’re currently exploring on the blog.

In addition to the challenge of knowing which geographical area an activity falls into – there is the challenge of young people living within multiple geographies

When we were planning the development of a Social Network Site application for Plings (more news on that soon) we used a user-centred design process which involved splitting into groups and coming up with imagined profiles (‘characters’) of young people who might engage with Plings. As it turned out – two of the three young people we imagined lived across multiple areas.

In one case, we were thinking about young people who live between two homes – perhaps because their parents have separated. Weekdays and weekends may be lived in entirely different areas of the country, or at least across local authority borders.

In the second case, we reflected upon young people who may live in one town – but hang out in another. Catching the train from Nuneaton into Leicester every weekend perhaps, in order to find something to do; or a young person who lives in Liphook, but attends school in Havant, and so spends most weekend in Petersfield, roughly mid-way between, in order to meet up with friends.

The more we’ve thought about cases like this – the more have come up – from the 16 year old who lives in one town, but works in another, to the 18 year old heading away to University, but still wanting to find things to do during the University holiday both at home and in their University town.

When you consider cases like this, the proposition ‘Find activities near where you live’ turns out not to be quite the right one. And if all the data is fragmented by local authority boundaries it gets tricky to provide young people with a clear view of all the possible positive activities open to them across the multiple, and far from neat, geographies they live within.

If you’re involved in a positive activities information service – what geographical questions do you ask those seeking information?

Serving the local community

I was in Cosham this morning, as part of some work we are doing with Portsmouth City Council.

The aim was for us to walk around area and try to find any evidence on noticeboards and such of PLING type activities. Cosham has a really nice high street, with lots of small shops and “traditionally local” shops like Woolworths, Wimpy and a Post Office! It really was interesting to find a wealth of information in newsagents, pet shops, barbers and other notice boards (the library). There were not too many PLING type activities advertised, but the whole aspect did make me think about how we should look at working in these spaces to deliver PLING information. Advertising in this window:

costs, I was told, 50 pence per week….

This has reminded me of a couple of interesting articles from the Trendwatchers people:

The (Still) Made Here article talks about local shopping and such, whilst the Ready to Know article talks about how we want to get the relevant information delivered to us in the right ways.

All food for thought – Ill get writing out those PLINGS window cards!