Holiday Gift Guide

We Make Places has created a Holiday Gift guide containing presents with a purpose. As a proud social enterprise, we want to support similar small businesses, social enterprises and charities in the Liverpool city region so we have created a Holiday Gift Guide containing presents with a purpose. Even better than this date happens to #GivingTuesday! Give this a read and see how you can give back this Christmas.

Whose land is it anyway?

Liverpool City Region wants' to create a 'framework for responsible stewardship of land...to make this the fairest & most socially inclusive city region in the country' and yet it just destroyed a community space created & maintained by it's citizens.

Sort Out Your Own Front Yard…..

Steven talks about isolating, online teaching and how he found the performer in himself by creating a Street Bingo event close to home - the ideal test-bed for our new Social Emergency Plan programme

Thinking About Community Engagement in Lockdown

In our 4th blog from the team, meet Lizzie and hear her thoughts on Community Engagement during Lockdown.

Lizzie also has news to share.........

Growing Together

Our 5th team member Michelle has been focused on delivering support to young people during lockdown.

Read about this and her many fundraising projects for the migrant community who have no access to government support during this time

Staying Home when it’s Not Your Original Home

In our 3rd blog reflecting on #Lockdown2020, our team member Betty talks about how living in a different country from her family is presenting more emotional challenges during #Lockdown2020 than it usual does

Levelling the Cooker

The 2nd in our series of blogs from our team during #Lockdown2020.

Our team member Andrew Small talks about his lockdown survival techniques of fixing, painting, portfolio sharing and auto didacticism

The Grief & Joy of Lockdown

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week the We Make Places team have been reflecting on their time in Lockdown and how it relates to our practice.

This introductory blog from our CEO Kate Stewart explores the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross 7 Stages of Grief and change curve. Read how it's affected her, the team and our future work in communities

A Social Emergency

This is a challenging time for us all, both societally and individually.

As a social enterprise we've had to split priorities between ensuring our staff team are safe & well and also concern for the vulnerable individuals & communities we support.

So we've declared a SOCIAL EMERGENCY - read about how we are responding

Spreading joy with Urban Workbench in Sutton Way

Our nomadic learning hub & CNC manufacturing project, Urban Workbench, has been keeping busy in Sutton Way!

Urban Workbench Learning Programmes

Our Urban Workbench learning programme has been going from strength to strength recently - read about feedback from our participants and its positive impact on beneficiaries.

Our community engagement work recognised nationally

We Make Places have been recognised in a Special Report published by Local Authority Building & Maintenance Magazine for the unique community engagement and placemaking work we're currently delivering on behalf of ForHousing and Cheshire West & Chester Council in Sutton Way, Ellesmere Port.

Friends of the Flyover – Renewable Energy Scheme

Whilst the outcome from the structural investigations into the Churchill Way flyovers is awaited, we gave an update to a local newspaper about the proposals that the Friends of the Flyover have been working on for the space and what the uncertain future may hold.

Our CEO Kate Stewart said “We Make Places have always advocated for shared use of The Flyover and for its alternative use as public space if traffic is taken off The Flyover completely. The original Friends of the Flyover proposal was a response to a Council vision to redirect traffic away from the structure. Recent discoveries as part of the council’s statutory PTSI process have led to the current closure whilst more structural investigations take place.

It’s

#IWantSpace

Join our conversation about pubic space, how it gets used, who owns it & who pays for it and how we can make it better. Join the #IWantSPACE conversation on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as well as this blog and help write a Citizens Manifesto for Public Space

Labels, Labels, Labels – thoughts from our CEO on creativity

Labels, labels, labels – something I have struggled with most of my life: a daughter, a wife, never a student, a stage manager, an entrepreneur, a producer, another wife, a mother, a patient, a different kind of daughter and usually… the boss! Lots of these are pretty lonely and unforgiving roles and I guess as a result, for years I have struggled with my self-identity beyond these labels. Maybe because none of them have felt chosen and maybe because they have all felt too limiting and I hope I am a much more multi-faceted person than any of them allow.

So, what is a Creative Producer and is this what I am? And would applying to be part of a 3-year programme which defines a group of people be helpful to me at this point in my life?

After years of shying away from any complements relating to my creativity – feeling much more comfortable to recognise measurable and provable skills – around my 50th birthday I decided to start accepting people’s definition of me as a creative, inspiring, even pioneering person.  I resolved to try and explore this definition more so that I could ‘grow into’ it and maybe start to realise my full potential. So my first venture was to apply for a ‘creative lab’ in Rio – that experience and the follow-on project started to help me see what others saw in my work. (read more about Rio Visivel in our previous blog)

But still, applying for the