Hay Together Meeting (or "Blimey! Table One Have Done a Lot!")

About forty people turned up at the Parish Hall to find out more about Hay Together on Wednesday night.
It's not a single issue group - it's far more long term and over-arching than that. The idea is that Hay Together can give a communal voice to all the many and varied groups in Hay, which will give them more influence with outside organisations than smaller groups on their own.
At present the steering group consists of Johnny Kramer, who has the B&B on the Bridge; Sophia Bird, belly dancer; Gareth Davies, footballer and coach; Nick Hankinson, who runs CRAP, the sensible car parking group; Rodney Mace, chair of U3A and on the committee of the film festival; Liz Meres, who's interested in affordable housing; Gareth Ratcliffe our County Councillor, and Ellie Spencer, Town Councillor, who's involved with the WI, Cubs and Dial-a-Ride.

There was a short presentation first, to show how the idea of Hay Together came about. First, there was the big meeting about the school and development plans that led to the creation of Plan B.
Then there was a book - The Big Society by local MP Jesse Norman, which talks about a "new kind of association, based on affection". Whatever anyone might think about the way the phrase 'Big Society' has been used by the government, it seems there are some good ideas in the book.
The third thing was the Localism Act of 2011, which applies to England rather than Wales, but includes some interesting ideas that can be used in Wales, such as the idea of community rights, neighbourhood planning and Local Development plans, and empowering communities to take back power which has been taken away from local level by the government, supermarkets, banks and so on.

As usual, when new groups start, there are always some people who say; "it's been tried before," or "it'll only be a talking shop". But the Community Fair at the Castle last September showed that it was possible to bring people together, and show them all the different things that Hay has to offer in one place at one time. Thirty local groups paid £20 each to come to the Fair. Josie Pearson was there, meeting her fans just after her triumph at the Paralympics. There was also storytelling, and people collaborated to make murals, one of which is on show at the Library now.
One of the things that generated a lot of interest was a sign board where people could post sticky notes saying what they liked about Hay, and what they didn't like about Hay. (One of the top "Don't Like"s was dog mess!)
Hay Together want to make a study of Hay's commercial health and as a tourist and Festival destination. Where do the tourists come from? Why do they come? Would they visit again? This information would be very useful to enable people in Hay to advertise the town in the most effective way. Johnny Kramer said that one goal would be to have a permanent office, perhaps in the newly refurbished Castle, where anyone could come in and find out what was going on, share information and access services.
The most important thing they want to do, though, is to put together a Community Plan - a document to say what the people of Hay want their town to be like. It should involve everyone who lives here, include local knowledge and take into account existing interests and motivations, so that there aren't a lot of different groups all pulling in different directions. Johnny said that the motto should be "An even better Hay for the benefit of everyone."
So, the group has to be democratic, make better use of the available resources, and be able to work with Councils and other outside bodies.

Then the room was divided up into four groups, each of which was given a different topic to think about, with the ideas to be shared at the end. I was in the group which was thinking about working with other organisations. There is so much going on in Hay that people miss because they just don't know about it. So we thought it was important to have a complete list of all the groups in Hay and what they do - Community Support have something along those lines, but no-one was sure how complete it was, and some hadn't known that it existed.
There was a meeting of the Tourism Group on Monday (and some people didn't know that this group existed!) where they suggested that the different Festivals that go on in Hay should get together to get group insurance to cover all of them, and also share equipment, instead of each group doing everything themselves and duplicating a lot of effort.
Another thought was that there should be a calendar of events, listing everything that goes on in Hay in one place - such as a community notice board in a prominent place, like the one for Cusop.

Then it was time to share our findings. For our group, there was an extra suggestion that there should be a competition to design a new noticeboard - and find a central location for it.
The group that was thinking about promoting Hay to the wider world had gone back to first principles and thought about how and why Hay should be promoted. They thought of Cotswold towns that were over-run with tourists to the detriment of local life, and thought that they didn't want to see that in Hay - there should be some control of development, and it shouldn't just be about making more money. Making enough money was acknowledged to be important, but Hay has a lot of other things going for it. Hay's individuality is it's strength. They also thought about the problems of parking - and public transport, and that Hay should be seen as a welcoming place (with less enthusiastic parking wardens!)

Table one was considering democratic participation. A group like Hay Together has to be flexible enough to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. It should be welcoming and accessible (not just for the sort of people who always join committees). It should have a collaborative approach. Rhona Muirhead drew a diagram! Rather than the traditional top-down pyramid approach, it should be a round, interconnected network.
They also wondered whether it should have a different name, like Assembly, or Forum.

The last table to speak was thinking about local skills and encouraging participation. They'd like to see another community event like the fair, with more for children to do. They thought that achievements (such as recent action on dog mess) should be celebrated. Local tradesmen should be used for jobs, and WyeLocal could be asked to publish a noticeboard of local people with skills. There are a lot of talented people in Hay, with all sorts of different skills. They also said that we should publicise what we haven't been able to achieve, and ask for help.

The steering group are looking for new members with communication skills, and knowledge of how to get funding, financial management and creative skills.

The next meeting of Hay Together will be at the Granary on Thursday 21st February, at 1pm.

"Living together, working together, stronger together," were the parting words.