As someone who lives in the vibrant city of Brighton, I value the importance of having a social space, a place where you can meet up with friends easily and enjoy the atmosphere and the diversity that this city has to offer. However, in the area of Queens Park there are not many areas that offer such thing, which is why I am proud to be part of this project, of saving the Cuthbert pub. I personally think it is something that should not be overlooked. As a volunteer, I have found it both exciting and fun, to have worked on this project despite facing a few challenges along the way. I have learnt a lot about community development and community work and have met a lot of really lovely and passionate people. I hope that the community will be able to take over the Cuthbert pub and turn it into a fun space, where people can come in and have a catch up with their friends, or enjoy a family meal with their children.
Alice Vernat-Davies
Environmental Media student at University of Brighton
Volunteered with The Bungaroosh as part of the Community Media Engagement module
We had a morning and afternoon session of door knocking today in Evelyn Terrace and Olivier Close (streets that are next to Cuthbert Road where the Cuthbert Pub is). Ian and I started in the morning and spoke to around 12 people with great ideas for the Bungaroosh, such as a recording studio, a community cafe and garden, council drop ins, health and wellbeing activities, a place to eat with the family, and many more!
We finished our morning session speaking to a lovely lady called Sue, who is the director of a social enterprise called Healthy Living Solutions. She told us about her great work with different communities in Essex and she had great ideas around health and wellbeing activities for the Bungaroosh.
At 1 pm one of our new Volunteer Community Organisers, who is also a International Development student at Sussex University, joined us for door knocking. We had great fun and we met a lady who has lived 83 years in the area…YES 83 Years!
We are going to be door knocking again tomorrow from 10 am to 12 pm and 1 pm to 3 pm and Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm if you want to join us 🙂
We will be organising some consultation events as well for the end of April, May and June this year.
We want to gather ideas from as many people as possible, in order to make The Bungaroosh a true reflection of what the community wants and needs.
My name is Valentina and I’m a Community Organiser working for Brighton Students’ Union. I met the Bungaroosh group over 10 months ago when I was training as a Community Organiser with the government’s Community Organisers’ Programme ran by a national charity called Locality.
This is our story
It’s part of my role to have individual conversations with people at their doorstep, their living room, on the street or wherever people want to stop to have a chat. For a few months I had been listening from 5 different people, in different ways, that there was a need for a space at the top of the hill of their area where they could gather, where children could share with the elderly, an affordable place where people from all walks of life could sit down to chat and have a cup of tea, a place made of everyone and for everyone.
Vanessa, who is part of the core group that started this project, mentioned she had discussed this idea with 2 of her neighbours, Sarah and Mae. I asked her to introduce us and after listening to them individually I thought it was time to bring all these people together to have an informal conversation about this so desired space.
Our first meeting was in the Hanover Pub. It was funny, because there were no lights in the room that night for a while and we had candles instead. I think that helped us break the ice quite a bit!
First meeting with The Bungaroosh group at The Hanover Pub
That night we talked about ideas for this ‘community space’, why it was needed, the skills that each of us could bring in and Vanessa mentioned she even had thought already about a name: The Bungaroosh.
What’s Bungaroosh?
“Is a composite building material used almost exclusively in the English seaside resort of Brighton between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, when it grew from a fishing village into a large town…It can incorporate any of a wide variety of substances and materials”
The vision for The Bungaroosh is to be an inclusive space where diverse people in the community come together to meet, to share, to learn from each other, made of everyone and for everyone.
Cabinet Office Grant – Community Organisers’ Mobilisation Fund
The Community Organisers’ Company, which is an independent legacy body for the Community Organisers’ Programme, has been awarded £500 000 to support Community Organisers who are working with residents in projects that are using Community Rights (Localism Act 2011).
The Bungaroosh is one of the 27 projects around the country that has been awarded £14,200 to develop their idea. The purpose of these grants is to support communities to learn more about the use of Community Rights and to feedback policy about how communities are using these rights and how they could use them more.
This grant will allow us to go out in the community and listen ideas of what people want to see in The Bungaroosh, find people who would like to get involved, discover what skills people like you (who is reading this post) can offer. It’s about working collaboratively and building something together that hopefully will stay in our community for generations.
If this is something that appeals to you, remember we are here to listen and the door is more than open for you to join this great adventure. Strength comes in numbers 🙂
Bungaroosh 