The quality of Barbryn’s work is excellent, both in terms of the end product and the team’s interpersonal skills when working with diverse
communities. We demand a great deal from them and their response is always flexible, professional and friendly.
: background Greets Green Partnership is delivering a £56 million, 10 year regeneration programme under the Government’s New Deal for Communities (NDC)
initiative. It is currently funding more than 100 projects throughout the area and its success relies on local residents taking part in the projects.
Barbryn won a competitive tender to produce a community magazine to encourage more people to get involved.
: solution
Rather than disregarding what had gone before, Barbryn decided to evolve the existing Greets Green magazine into a more newsy, community led publication which strongly features local residents and the benefits they are gaining from the Partnership’s projects.
Barbryn took on the complete production of the bi-monthly, 24 page magazine to make it hassle-free for the busy Partnership staff.
Each issue, the Barbryn team identifies potential stories, undertakes all the interviews, writes all the stories, generates all the photography, produces the artwork, handles the printing and manages the magazine’s distribution.
Barbryn has developed relationships with many local organisations in Greets Green, such as the Police and the Primary Care Trust, to generate in depth features about key issues which impact on people’s lives. It also encourages the many community groups to share information about their work to develop a real community spirit in Greets Green
:achievements
A whole host of unprompted positive feedback has been received about the new magazine. Residents are often waiting for their issue to arrive
and participation in many of the Partnership’s projects is at an all time high. Following a magazine feature about free child safety equipment, more than 90 residents applied, and a local over 60s group was inundated with calls to join their waiting list following a magazine article.
