Preston Community Network relaunches with new website and determination to help improve city life

Preston Community Network (PCN) is celebrating gaining £120,000 funding from the National Lottery's Community Fund.

New manager Jack Bamber says this funding is enabling the Network to extend its role in the city as a key enabler to help community groups and not for profit enterprises make a real and ongoing difference to their communities.

He says individuals with bright ideas for projects can also benefit from the help the PCN can offer - with a range of advice about anything from applying for and accessing grants and funding sources, to creating a constitution and ensuring any new initiatives meet safeguarding requirements.

The cash from the Reaching Communities Fund is being awarded over a three year period. Its first fruits include a rebranding, new website and social media presence which Jack hopes will help alert residents to the advice and information available on their doorstep.

Jack, 31, said: "We've started off building a website that's really user friendly."

He says the new digital service for Preston communities will provide a trove of knowledge and help and remove stumbling blocks to new projects.

He continued: "Even knowing the legal structure to select for your group is quite difficult when starting up. We can (provide) support with that. We can support with policies, we can support with templates. If you want to put on a pop-up event you could come to PCN."

The network could, for example, he said, help with advice about what insurance will be required for a pop-up event, where to seek funding, how to spread the word effectively about such events and sharing requests to see if other groups can loan equipment.

He cited a recent example of how PCN can help: "We were approached by a group of residents who had found out an old youth centre was up for auction by Lancashire County Council. They were an unconstituted group."

Their aim is to return the hall to community use and PCN has advised on the creation of the Friends of Tulketh Hall CIC (community interest company). Jack said many different local interests had been brought together: "The hall been removed from sale and been added to the register of buildings of community interest ... It's about the strength of the different voices around that table."

Adding a building to a register does not, he acknowledges, mean the group automatically can take it over, but it is a step towards exploring that possibility and seeing what needs to be done to create a persuasive offer.

For Jack the new post makes a welcome return to his home city. The former pupil of Fulwood High School, who also attended Preston and Newman College in the city before studying event management at UCLan for two years, has previously worked for the NHS and Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre.

Jack also previously did some work for the city's Lancashire Encounter Festival and said: "I wanted to come back and do good stuff in my home town."

Jack has a Board of three trustees Janet Cullingford of I-CANN (advocacy network) , Zafar Coupland of Sahara in Preston and Judith Pearson of Preston's Citizens Advice service.

Post lockdown the service will be based at Sahara on Fishwick Parade. Jack said “It’s really quite humbling to be working alongside member organisations like Sahara, Preston District Citizen’s Advice, Lancashire LGBT, Preston Black History Group, and so many others.

“It’s inspiring to be providing proactive support for these groups, along with new grassroots start-ups, to work in new ‘digitally capable’ ways"

PCN was originally set up in 2002 in partnership with Preston City and Lancashire County Council to provide "a voice and an infrastructure for Preston’s community and voluntary sector."

It has 33 member organisations and Jack hopes to increase that number to 100 over the next few years.

There have been conversations over the past 18 months with its member groups about the hopes for the relaunch and the community's needs. A clear steer was about the future value of sharing best practice and pooling knowledge and resources.

City based designer Jack Knight provided the design expertise for the website and rebrand.

Jack Bamber said: “Jack (Knight) and I both felt it was important to imbue the site with a truly Prestonian identity. The new logo is and fonts are all in traditional Preston colours like Ribble slate blue and, of course, lilywhite. The use of comic-strip style speech balloons underlines the key theme of conversation.”

Lilywhite is a reference to the nickname of the Preston North End team.

The PCN remit is wide. It pledges: "We support Prestonians of all ages, faiths and ethnicities to connect, discuss and solve issues locally...We are an infrastructure support organisation, supporting our members to bring about social action and bring about positive change,"

PCN says it also helps " funders and local authorities to connect with the communities that need to be reached" and will enable its members to become local champions for health.

* Resources PCN members can access include: templated policy documents, advice on topics including brand development, engagement, governance and information on funding streams. Membership also provides access to training courses, seminars and other events.

To register on the new Preston Community Network website see here or at https://www.prestoncn.org/

PCN can also be followed on Twitter at @PrestonComNet or emailed at [email protected]

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