Changemakers: Enriching the community through arts and creativity
To mark ten years of Local Trust, our Changemakers series highlights the stories of some of the remarkable people delivering Big Local. Here George Hill, chair of Kingswood and Hazel Leys Big Local, shares how they've focused on arts and culture to bring positive change to the community.
Ten years ago, the National Lottery Community Fund embarked on a big, bold experiment, to put money directly into the hands of communities who had previously ‘missed out’ – leading to the creation of 150 Big Local partnerships. A decade later, in the face of austerity, a global pandemic, and a cost of living crisis, many of these partnerships act as an immediate lifeline to local residents, whilst also creating long-term change.
George’s story
Born in Greenock in Scotland, George Hill has been a resident of the Kingswood and Hazel Leys (KHL) estates in Northamptonshire for the last 20 years. His route to the Big Local programme began when he volunteered to coach table tennis at the local Neighbourhood Centre. One day, he noticed a meeting taking place of the Kingswood Neighbourhood Association. He sat in and duly signed up to the campaign for better housing. When the conversation around Big Local started, he was one of the first to get involved.
George has been the chairperson of KHL Big Local since it began in 2012. “It isn’t a hierarchical group,” he says of the partnership. “We make a lot of consensus-based decisions. There has been real development within the group both collectively and individually.” After turning 60 last July, George decided to quit his job and concentrate on making art, some of which he creates in the KHL Community Workshop, which he cites as one of KHL Big Local’s crowning achievements.
To walk around and see people enjoying themselves is great. I really believe that we are stronger together than we are alone.”
Q: The latest plan for KHL Big Local highlighted the high levels of childhood poverty in Kingswood and Hazel Leys. What did the community identify as its key needs?
George: There’s always been poverty in this area but I’d say it’s got worse as more people have got dragged into the net with what’s going on now economically and politically. Food poverty is a big issue and KHL Big Local is working with a cooperative to help people. We engage with Citizens Advice to offer benefits advice and help residents to get back on track. That has been a wonderful, life-changing experience for a lot of people in Kingswood and Hazel Leys. They can see advisers in their own community rather than having to go into town.
We’ve been working with Home-Start on intervention work with preschool children. Poverty, the lack of a vehicle, the lack of educational attainment – these things all exist here. I know that Big Local is not a fixit. What the community identified is that it wants to be able to have a bit of fun. It might be music on one day or art on another. They want to make their lives a bit better and that’s what we try to do with Big Local.
Q: How have you delivered that fun and which initiatives have made you most proud?
George: Once a year we hold an event called the Field Day Festival, which is a celebration of community. All sorts of organisations come together and we have music, dance, food, activities. It’s a big event but it puts a smile on my face because I’m involved in the organisation. To walk around and see people enjoying themselves is great. I really believe that we are stronger together than we are alone.
Q: Tell us a bit about the KHL Community Workshop.
George: Around six years ago, myself and Brian Dunn, who was a dear, dear friend who died recently, had conversations about a book called ‘Men and Sheds’. I had a shed and a wee garden, as did Brian. As a partnership, we’d just had a big conversation about building a new centre but decided instead to use the Neighbourhood Centres within the community and keep those going.
Brian was a hippy like me. We agreed to take the idea of creating a shed or workspace in the community back to the partnership. We had identified a site next to the bowling green and people were enthusiastic so we started to talk to colleagues in the council and look for money to kick things off. We put a substantial amount of money in at the start but it’s an investment that brought in other investment. It’s not just KHL Big Local money, it’s county council, local council, Northamptonshire Community Foundation, lottery money and so on.
The building was initially called The Shed but we felt the name had very male connotations. It’s for men, women and everyone in between. It’s for everybody within Kingswood, Hazel Leys and beyond. It opened in the late summer of 2022 and we now have a facility where creativity happens – woodwork, 3D printing, sewing, artist collaborations. There’s a wood shop and a multi-use room where we’ve done masterclasses in pottery, lace making, sculpture and sewing. We’re turning one of the other rooms into a darkroom.
We pay practitioners to facilitate the masterclasses and we got funding from Creative Civic Change, which supported 15 communities across England to commission and lead creative and arts-based initiatives to create social change. There’s love happening in that building. It’s a perfect example of trials and tribulations, creative collaboration, conversations and communication.
The arts are not just for the elite. The arts are for everyone. Failure to include everyone in the arts diminishes us all.”
Q: How did you come to be one of the 15 communities funded by Creative Civic Change?
George: We looked at the brief and saw that they were looking for collaboration, so the conversation began. I knew arts organisations within the community – Made in Corby, Corby Community Arts, the Core Theatre. We had a KHL Big Local meeting, put in an expression of interest and ended up being one of the 15 areas to get the £120,000 of funding. It was a collective of four organisations, including KHL Big Local.
We produced a poetry book during lockdown with poems and pictures by members of the community, which was delivered to every home in our area and some further afield. We did museum visits and commissioned four community murals. Graffwerk, an arts group from Leicester, contracted artists to work with local people. Two of the murals are in Hazel Leys and two are in Kingswood. Identifying locations for them was an opportunity to engage with people living near to them. We brought in people to do the stuff that we didn’t have the skills to do, such as open mic poetry nights with Par Creatives in Cornwall.
Q: As a creative person, it must be very satisfying to see creativity happen on a daily basis in your area?
George: I believe in giving people the opportunity to participate in creative activities. Enable it, resource it, support it, encourage it, be inspired by it. The arts are not just for the elite. The arts are for everyone. Failure to include everyone in the arts diminishes us all.
Q: How important has it been to learn how to work in partnership, whether that’s bringing in the expertise of outside agencies or sourcing funding?
George: If we can’t do it, we’ll get help and we’ll learn through taking a different approach. I’m not a professional community development worker. What I am is somebody who has had to negotiate a lot of stuff throughout my life. I’m prepared to use those skills. I’m willing to give things a try. What we have learned as a partnership is when your capacity grows, your confidence grows. And when your confidence grows, your capacity grows. It’s been a learning experience and journey. Every day is an opportunity to learn something.
Q: What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced?
George: Engagement is the big one. We’ll always face that challenge because of the circumstances that people are living in. If you’re relatively wealthy and got a bit of time on your hands, and you’re not busting your ass 12 hours a day, then maybe you’ve got time to attend a meeting and give a little bit back and maybe get something in return. My father always taught me that by giving you will receive. The dynamic within the group over the years has been another challenge because people grow, people change and people want to take things in different directions. That’s the reality of being in a group.
The money we have received as Big Local is not our money and we’ve got a responsibility to do the best that we possibly can with it. I can honestly say that we’ve put stuff on and sometimes people haven’t been bothered with it but I think that people look at our partnership group and see people who are trying their best for the community. I want to stay with it because it’s a wonderful journey. The challenges and the opportunities are all part of the journey. I’m a big advocate of community decision-making so I absolutely love the fact that people in our community have the opportunity to make decisions on major things.
Interview by Dan Davies.
Listen to George and co-host Heather Peak Morison travel around the country talking to the people behind Creative Civic Change on the Don’t Get Any Ideas podcast.
Find out more about Creative Civic Change and the 15 communities that took part in the programme.
