Revoe Blackpool
Revoe Blackpool
Welcome to the Revoe Blackpool 'Our Bigger Story' website. This is part of the multi media evaluation of 15 Big Local areas in England. The website is an opportunity to follow what is changing in Revoe Blackpool as a result of Big Local over a ten year period.
The aim of the website is to share the learning from everything that is happening in Revoe Blackpool with other Big Local areas and highlight what works in communities with a wider audience of practitioners and policy makers.

Timeline
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It's been such a busy week down at the Revolution Hub we've only just got round to choosing a winner for our Annual Pumpkin Carving Competition, all the entries were SPOOKTASTIC. We hope you've now all enjoyed bonfire night too and seeing the Blackpool sky light up. We've had toffee apples and sparklers (in separate gardens this year and not the community garden)
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Practicing hands and feet to improve using careful observation to plan your drawings.
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Revoelution Youth Online Art Skills 2; on line arts activities for children and young people from Revoe Big Local
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Revoelution may not be working as usual but can find up to date information in our Windows, also information in Polish and Romanian
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Join us on a signs of spring sensory nature walk. We meet at Revoe Hub every Tuesday from 9.30am. Hope to see you there.
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We are so excited to bring our 50 things in Spring event to Revoe Community Garden! The Rangers will be delivering fun activities alongside.. * Active Blackpool * Fylde Coast Hindu Society. * Park School Brass Band * Grundy Art Gallery * Baby Rover and much more...
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This film updates what is happening in Revoe Big Local " the Revoelution. In the words of Big Local partnership members, local residents, workers and Councillors, it records the new community centre development, emerging work with young people and the Revoelutions work to improve the environment in and around Central Drive: one of the most deprived communities in England.
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This years annual Fun Day was even bigger and better than the previous years! The New Revoe Residents Association work exceptionally hard alongside the local councillors and the Revoe-lution Choir to bring together a fantastic family fun day with each child receiving a book of vouchers which allows them to use all the activities and get a free hot dog and ice cream! There was entertainment all day with the choir master Emma keeping everyone laughing and dancing. We were so proud to be part of and support such a successful and valuable event in our area! Looking forward to next year!
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This year, instead of holding an Annual General Meeting or Annual Review Meeting we decided to hold a Community Celebration, where members of the community, partnership and established groups could come together and see what we have been up to and share their experiences and ideas. It was held at a local working men's club where we had ice breaker activities, mood boards to share our story, some reflection on areas of main concern and then it was time to enjoy a buffet and a raffle and some music as a community!
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With the deadline creeping ever closer we arranged an "away day' at a local hotel complex where partnership members, staff, our LTO and Rep all came together to reflect on what we have achieved over the past 18 months with Plan B and start to unpick where we will be going with our last plan up until 2026. It was an intense but fun day, with a great deal to discuss and think about. We are planning to have another away session in a few months once we have undertaken further consultation.
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The original event was postponed due to poor weather and lack of venue, but the replacement event may have also been on the receiving end of awful weather, this time we had Ibbison Court ready to put to good use. The rain may of meant we didn't get as many passing participants BUT it meant that those who came, stayed! We had a great mix of ages and families come along with young people giving dance demos from a local dance company called Skool of Street, we had a vast range of music as well as circus skills workshops and even a game of limbo! It had a real sense of coming together and provided a safe and relaxed space for the people of Revoe to enjoy.
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With funding from the Community Chest scheme, we were able to support the Park Rangers in their second annual Flower Festival. This saw representatives from Parents Forum, Betterstart and Revoelution, it also had pom-pom making, flower arranging, print making, yoga, sing-alongs, face painting, flower crown making and Alan from Urban Organics was there making stone baked pizzas outside! It was a fantastic start to the summer holidays!
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Just before the schools break for up the six weeks of summer we are out and about delivering our summer newsletter to every household in the area! Our admin has worked very hard in collecting as much information from as many groups in the area to be able to deliver a full picture of the provisions on around the summer holidays.
In this film Revoe Big Local partners, workers and representatives from the Locally Trusted Organisation (Blackpool FC Community Trust) reflect on the changes in Revoe; change in the environment, changing the difficult issue in Revoe.
In June 2019 Our Bigger Story hosted a 2 day event for all the case study areas. During this time, each of the OBS areas mapped their journey. Here are a few photos.
Since the last summer Revoelution's community development worker, Becky, has been working alongside Hamlett Films with support from Local Trust to produce a communications project exploring themes that grew out of the Coastal Communities Clusters. She was exploring the theme of transience within the community and wanted to collect stories from residents and workers in the area, capturing why they came here, why they stayed or if they will stay? The project went live today (15/3/19)via Instagram and the full project can be found there under 'people of revoe'. Please go give a follow and a like!
In this film Revoe Big Local partners, workers and representatives from the Locally Trusted Organisation (Blackpool FC Community Trust) reflect on what motivates local residents to get, and stay, involved in Revoe Big Local and how to keep the energy flowing.
Opening caption: In this film Revoe Big Local partners, workers and representatives from the Locally Trusted Organisation (Blackpool FC Community Trust) reflect on who has power and influence locally and how connections are made.
In this film Revoe Big Local partners, workers and representatives from the Locally Trusted Organisation (Blackpool FC Community Trust) reflect on tackling the difficult issues confronting the community in revoe " in particular how to address the issues of drug and alcohol misuse.
In this film Revoe Big Local partners, workers and representatives from the Locally Trusted Organisation (Blackpool FC Community Trust) reflect on ways of changing how people think and feel about Revoe.
Following the hugely successful World Cafe held in September we were then faced with the task of collating the evidence and finding solutions! Simon Lawton, our project coordinator, took this task on and attached is the end result. We are meeting with relevant parties in the New Year to discuss the possibility participatory budgeting working alongside the Lancashire Constabulary and Mutual Gain to tackle the deep rooted issues regarding substance misuse within our area.
Our Winter Newsletter is ready to go out! So much going on in Revoe over the festive period from a Voluntary Arts Open Conversations Consultation to a Christmas Tree Switch On to adult Ukulele classes to parkour sessions with the young people to mixed media workshops to our Winter Festival! We are also recruiting a youth worker and on the hunt for volunteers!
Following a summer where we worked closely with many community artists and organisations we were invited to be involved in the Lightpool Parade! This involved using lanterns from our Winter Festival, a lot of glow sticks, lumidogs (we ran a workshop so you could decorate your pets!) and some lovely young people and their parents as well as our Chair and staff! The parade celebrates the illuminations and runs over half term. Our community development worker also took part in RUSH, which was a multimedia dance production with 120 community members form all over Blackpool who took part over 2 months to produce an amazing show looking at austerity and it's impact on Blackpool and it's people.
Over the last few months, through community chest and consultation, we saw the potential that art based activities provided for the area and were keen to see this grow. We managed to gather a group of local community artists ranging from traditional to movement to dance to music, who were hungry to meet and explore options. It was felt that creating an art's base on Central Drive would be an ideal way to tackle a few of the issues raised through the plan, with this in mind we set about applying for the Creating Civic Change bid, the video was part of our submission. Unfortunately we were not successful BUT keen to keep this idea going and have been applying elsewhere for the relevant funds so watch this space!
Mutual Gain, Lancashire Police, Blackpool Council, Revoe Learning Academy and Revoelution came together to support and facilitate a second World Cafe event in Revoe. The first successful one was held last September, however the momentum seemed to slow down and further action was not picked up as well as it could of been. This time, all the partners involved were keen to make sure this did not happen again and that we were able to get to a stage where solutions and schemes are in place with participatory budgeting as an overall goal. Through a great deal of promotion and hard work we had over 80 residents attend the World Cafe, spending over 2 hours discussing issues around drug and substance misuse in the Revoe area.
So over the summer we worked with John Morrow, a local community artist and musician who did guerrilla drumming around Revoe to engage passerbys! From this he approached the local pub and they agreed to let us use the back room to do free music workshops. These are run every Thursday and have been an eclectic mix of music, rhythm, movement and poetry and have been inclusive of all ages from 11 to 79! They have been a breath of fresh air introducing accessible creativity to the residents where the patrons wander in and get involved!
Again following a sucessful community chest application, the Revoe Park Rangers were able to put on a Flower Festival at the end of the Summer for the whole family! With flower arranging, willow bending, face painting, interactive art, yarn bombing as well as cakes and brews, it was a spectacular event! Set in the community gardens they were able to share their successful growing with everything sprouting from runner beans to watermelons!
The annual New Revoe Residents Association Fun Day was even more successful than last year! We part funded the event through community chest and went on the day to help on the day as well as promote Revoelution's upcoming events and services. It was a fantastic day and we were grateful to be part of it! Looking forward to next year's!
One of the young people who attended the Annual Review Meeting suggested running a littler picking club. We helped them to get established, choose a day and time, provided equipment and supported them with an adult to supervise. The Community Clean Up Club started meeting weekly to do litter picks but it soon grew into gardening to maintain flower boxes as well as painting to tidy up the area. They are continuing past the summer and have worked really hard to help make Revoe a better place.
Art Explorers kicked off Plan B's first round of Community Chest. We found we had a real artistic response which caused us to start an Arts Group for Revoelution which involved lots of local artists and residents, which we are looking to grow. Art Explorers was a great start to the program, working with Sam Simpson looking at local artists for inspiration as well as movement and dance!
On a beautiful sunny day in June, Revoelution took to the streets of Revoe with a handful of junior doctors and pharmacist from the local pharmacy, to speak to residents where they were about access to health services and health concerns in the area. The doctors and pharmacist were amazing! We spoke to over 50 people and found that most people were content with the healthcare available despite no actual doctors or dentists being present in the Revoe boundary. We also found that drug and substance misuse was the single biggest concern!
With our new Admin in post we were able to put a smashing newsletter out with a full summer timetable in the centre! We had some fantastic feedback from the community and included as much information from partners and other agencies delivering in the area to ensure all residents were able to access a wide range of activities.
The Annual Review Meeting was held in May, due to staffing issues, we were finally in a position to deliver the review. The build up to it was busy, with newsletter prep and delivery, where Revoelution staff personally delivered the newsletters, speaking with residents and business owners as we went round. We were offered the use of the Community Centre next door to the Hub and were ready to look back at what we had achieved over the next year as well as look forward and hopefully meet some new faces and potential partnership members. Unfortunately it was not as well as attended as we would of liked but it was great to see the dedicated faces and spend some time together over hotpot and a brew or two!
February saw the Revoelution partner up with Blackpool Football Club Community Trust as our new LTO. This is the first time they have been an LTO but it is a great fit for us. The football stadium is slightly outside our boundaries but is a very visible part of our landscape so it seems a natural progression to have them as our LTO and work more closely with them. It also saw the launch of Plan B so it is exciting times ahead and lots of changes, hopefully all for the positive!
We finally held our Winter Festival at the end of January due to a last minute cancellation with the venue in November, when it was originally expected! We ran lantern workshops with the school, RLA, and local craft group running up to the festival, where the young people designed, made and decorated their own lanterns, with the help of Mel from Electric Sunshine Project. We had a parade on the evening, with music from Samba band Poco Loco, and it was amazing watching folks come out from their homes to watch as we went by! The festival itself was non-stop with music, dance, crafts, face painting and festival looks, food and cake! We really saw the community come together for this, and look forward to making it an annual event!
We worked with Prince's trust to brighten up the alley way that leads to the primary school. They did basic litter removal as well as design bold wall paintings and use welcoming phrases in the varying languages spoken by the children who attend. The young people worked hard and the end result was brilliant. We celebrated with a little party after it was all finished and then later supported the team by attending their graduation from the program.
Not only did we have a fun day with His Provision on the 16th of Aug, we then helped at the New Revoe Residents Association fun day on the 19th! It was a week for sunshine, gazebos, face painting, bag printing, scout demos, dance and music, donkey rides, popcorn and ice cream and most importantly it was a week full of families enjoying themselves together!
Working with Groundworks and the newly appointed Community Development Worker, Revoelution set about completing an alley way clean up with local residents alongside an anti fly- poster competition with the young people of the area. The day of the actual clean up was an absolute wash out with torrential rain yet we still had one very dedicated volunteer come and support us and we got the job done! The poster campaign was run alongside locally run community youth groups as well as the local primary Revoe Learning Academy. We then joined in with Better Start for a community day to get the posters judged by local councillors. We then went back to schools and groups to hand out certificates to the winning posters!
Working with Groundworks and the newly appointed Community Development Worker, Revoelution set about completing an alley way clean up with local residents alongside an anti fly- poster competition with the young people of the area. The day of the actual clean up was an absolute wash out with torrential rain yet we still had one very dedicated volunteer come and support us and we got the job done! The poster campaign was run alongside locally run community youth groups as well as the local primary Revoe Learning Academy. We then joined in with Better Start for a community day to get the posters judged by local councillors. We then went back to schools and groups to hand out certificates to the winning posters!
It was decided that the partnership members of Revoelution would all venture to Borwick Hall for the weekend to spend some time getting to know each other better, bond as a group and explore what we have achieved in preparation for our plan review and getting plan B underway. The team spent the weekend partaking in team building exercises as well as workshops. It was thoroughly enjoyed by the partnership and we left feeling stronger than ever!
On Saturday the 8th of April we held our AGM at Revoe Learning Academy. We decided to theme it around Easter and had a fantastic turn out. However, some of the formal elements of the Annual General Meeting were lost in the 'family fun day' atmosphere.
Revoelution decided to take the Autumn assemblies to the streets. We chose 4 streets to attend over 4 nights and took a truck with Christmas music, mince pies and hot chocolate to engage with residents and build momentum for the winter assembly.
Revoe's Big Local Plan was approved in January 2016. In this film members of the partnership and Revoe staff talk about progress made since then.
As a part of our environment projects, Revoelution provided 10 winter hanging baskets to residents. Our partners ,Urban Organics, not only provided the baskets with plants but also fixed them to the wall.
The Blackpool Revoe Big Local Plan was submitted to Local Trust in December 2015 and agreed in January 2016. The Plan builds on the earlier, detailed, community consultation and profile (2014) and outlines Revoe's ambitions across five themes.
This film records Blackpool Revoe's community consultation on the partnerships Big Local Plan. It explains what Big Local is all about, how residents can influence the plan, the activities that the partnership intends to support.
Revoelution and New Revoe Residents Association hosted a Big Lunch to get community members together. This was a perfect opportunity to add to our community research.
Revoelution and New Revoe Residents Association hosted a Big Lunch to get community members together, this was a perfect opportunity to add to our community research.
Here are the partners from the Revoelution putting together parts of the final Development Plan which was submitted to the Local Trust in December 2015. This helped identify our themes of community safety, wellbeing, business development, environmental im
As the Revoelution Big Local Plan slowly developed we held and Autumn Fair at Ibbison Court tio keep local residents informed and aware of the Big Local
To involve children and young people and to brighten up Revoe the Residents Association held a Big Local Graffiti Battle. These pictures are a record of what happened that day.
After being based in a shop on Central Drive, our local high street, for some time. It was time to move to pastures new.With Blackpool Coastal Housing's support we moved across to Ibbison Court at wardens house, where we are still based. (July 2016)
In the children's summer holidays Bugs To Butterflies has free play days with bouncy castles for all the children.
Here is a simple "post it" consultation the steering group did with ideas of what the community members would like to see in Revoe.
Angie Buss from the Revoe Big Local talks at the Local Trust Spring Event about the importance of developing a local hub for access to information and advice for local residents.
The Blackpool Revoe Big Local Community Profile, as well as providing information on the local population, identifies key challenges facing the local community. The Profile informed the Revoe Plan which was approved in January 2016.
Revoelution gathered together local stakeholders who may help to progress Local Trust and Revoelutions vision.
Following the initial open day in February 2013 the Big Local in Revoe (Revoelution) formed a Steering Group to develop the local plan. These pictures are of our first meeting at our original home on Central Drive.
These photographs are of the first open day letting the community know what Revoelution Big Local and Local Trust is all about while gathering some much needed opinions and ideas