My neighbourhood of Edinburgh West End is rather unusual. For years it has been seen as a place to shop and work, rather than a place to live. There have always been residents, of course! However, many of the glorious Georgian terraced buildings are losing their commercial tenants (lawyers and finance firms mainly) who are going to modern office space. Developers snap up the building and convert it into apartments, so the number is residents is increasing – we estimate about 8000 at the moment which is at the top end for a neighbourhood community.

When we arrived here in 2017 we found a mixed picture. There is LOTS happening – super independent shops, restaurants, bars, cafes, art galleries, even a cathedral! But none of it was aimed at, or provided for, local residents. The pandemic caused chaos for the shops and hospitality venues (they were closed, and even when they reopened there were no workers and few shoppers). However, it did allow the residents to see each other clearly for the first time – there was nobody else around! That led to the formation of a West End Residents & Businesses Facebook group, which now has close to 2500 members.

Once there is that kind of communication and connection, it becomes possible to start to do things. We’ve had residents get-togethers, street clean-ups, art gallery visits, even a community Janes Walk in 2022. I had wondered from time to time about some kind of ‘West End Weekend’ to get the locals and businesses interacting. At the end of summer 2022 I was having a coffee with Michael Apter of Paper Tiger, one of our lovely businesses, and raised the subject. He could see the possibilities right away, and we quickly started to refine it. We could ask businesses to make a modest ‘special offer’ for residents, and we give the residents stickers to wear; they could access the offers and also talk to each other!

Michael suggested making it a week rather than a weekend. I drafted up a one-pager on the idea and he gathered a few keen businesses together to sound them out. Over two years of pandemic difficulties meant that they were keen to get something going and start to wave the West End flog again. Anna Lagerqvist Christopherson offered The Green Room bar as a meeting place, and my fellow Facebook group admin Paul Hancock joined in. Someone proposed calling it the West End Coorie (Coorie is a Scots word meaning ‘to snuggle or nestle’ – a bit like the Danish ‘hygge’ and a good thing to do as winter draws in!). We agreed the basis of the event and 21-27 November for the date, and I made efforts to contact as many businesses as possible with our proposal in early October 2022.

Another aspect was to re-launch and re-energise the existing (but dormant) Edinburgh West End website and social media. Michael identified some residual money from a previous initiative, and we decided to use this to get someone engaged on social media. Katie Llewellin joined the team and played a marvellous role in getting around the businesses, while I handled the admin (keeping all the details together) and website. We designed a simple logo and ordered window stickers for the businesses and coat stickers for the residents.

We also decided to take a pragmatic view on events. I play with Shunpike Social Club street band, and getting them along was an easy decision (we perform outdoors so little infrastructure required!). We also set up Meet The Neighbours events at two cafes on different days (thank you The Green Room and Flatbread Turkish Bakery!). There were quite a few events happening that week anyway, and we asked them if we could promote them as part of the Coorie – most were very happy.

So we had candlelight concerts in the cathedral, jazz, a pub quiz. a Beaujolais Nouveau tasting and more – just by connecting what was already going on. Some of our businesses decided to hold their own events – the RIAS Architects Bookshop had a Coorie Christmas evening with mulled wine, and Union Gallery held a competition to ‘Find Archie’. Rogue Flowers held a festive wreath making workshop (with afternoon tea from their neighbours Fox & Co) which quickly sold out.

In the end we had 54 businesses participating and 17 events under the Coorie banner. You can see all the details on the Coorie webpage. We gave out hundreds of stickers, and invited anyone to be an ‘honorary Westender’ for the week (opening it up to all). I am still gathering feedback. The overall view seems to be that it was good to get the businesses working together, giving the West End something to shout about. We could have more people participating, but those residents who did get involved enjoyed it. We had a massive increase in Facebook, Twitter and Instagram engagement, and featured all the businesses involved both to residents and workers/visitors.

It’s useful to look at what led us to this particular event.

• We used the assets we had – a lot of interesting and keen local businesses, the Facebook group to get the word out, events that were happening anyway.
• We invented a name (the ‘Coorie’), which has local Scottish connections and is a bit distinctive.
• We based everything on want to build connections locally (rather than simply building custom for the businesses),
• We did our best to include everyone who wanted in – all the participating businesses volunteered to join us.
• The whole thing is based around the ‘soft power’ of invitation and engagement.
• We used the Skills and talents available – I can drive a simple WordPress webpage and use mail merge on Gmail (to contact the businesses), Katie was a whizz with social media as well as having great local connections, Michael and Anna were at the forefront of business activity and Paul runs the Facebook group.
• And of course we were mostly connecting what was already there – the key thread in Cormac Russell and John McKnight’s new book The Connected Community (which also features Village In The City!).

Could it be better? Yes, certainly. We hope to do Coorie week again next year; now the idea is out there and with a longer run-up, it could certainly engage more people. We need to think about the balance of building connection between the locals and inviting in those who would enjoy what the West End has to offer. And more events would be a good way of building contact even more.

A final word to Emma, who emailed in in during the week.  “Hi I’m participating in the Coorie week I think it’s a fantastic idea and just want to congratulate you guys on the overall organisation of such a fantastic community building event.”

Here’s a video of Shunpike Social Club dancing with our audience as the sun goes down on a cold Saturday afternoon. I wrote some new words to one of our songs, now called Coorie Calypso: Coorie, Coorie, now you’re in the West End. Coorie, Coorie, everyone here is your friend!

This is the continuing story of my efforts to help build my own Village In The City, in the West End area of Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital.  You can catch up with parts one, two and three if you like.  We join the story towards the end of summer 2021.  You may recall in part 3 that we had our first community get-together at the new outdoor cafe outside St Mary’s Cathedral.  This was only ever going to be a summer venture, and we decided to host another get-together on the final day of operation for this year.  I contacted both the cafe people and the cathedral in advance. We were pleased to welcome Vice Provost Marian who had been instrumental in organising the cafe in the first place, along with Stathis and his brothers who had been actually running the place, organising Greek delights and delicious brownies with coffee and hot chocolate.  Around thirty Westenders came out on a sunny if windy day to get together, and  to give Marian, Stathis and co a big round fo applause for all their hard work.  I spent some time chatting to Provost John, who basically runs the cathedral, about using their hall for community events.  He was very keen to support us, so that’s something to follow up on.

As the autumn has set in we have moved attention to indoor events.  These have of course been impossible during the COVID period but know that  vaccination rates are high it seems like more of an active possibility.  Anna from the Green Room, one of our bars in William Street, organised a businesses get-together and networking event which was a great success. Around 20 people came along, from both customer-facing businesses like shops and Wellbeing studios and also more back-office businesses including accounts and consultants, all from a couple of hundred metres around.  Paul and I went along to wave the flag for our Facebook group, which is also very well supported by businesses.  Anna plans to host both business and residents get-togethers in the coming months which is excellent news!

Last weekend we made quite a good step forward with our first street clean-up sessions. Paul obtained graffiti cleaning kits, litter pickers and bin bag holders from the council, and we set to in two groups at opposite ends of the West End, with around half a dozen in each group. In a couple of hours we had litter-picked and graffiti cleaned along the whole of Atholl and Coates Crescents, which is a very public place with many bus stops, post boxes and telephone cabinets for local ‘artists’ to write on. We also, of course, enjoyed meeting our neighbours as part of the process (some for the first time), chatting about life in the West End and generally enjoying being out and about. Lots of passers-by gave us encouraging cheers too! All in all a very worthwhile morning.

I’ve been thinking about what has helped to make these events successful.  Here are a few tips:

• Timing is important.  There are times when it feels right to do something, and times when it seems like a rush.  I generally favour waiting for the right moment – when people are keen, when the weather is good, when there seems to be a ‘following wind’ for what we’re doing.
• Welcome the people who DO show up! It may be frustrating that there aren’t more of them, but you really can’t blame the ones who do appear for the others who don’t. Be very appreciative, interested in them, take the chance to ask questions, and generally enjoy being with them for an hour or two.
• Make it social as well as ‘functional’. In all these events we made sure that there was a chance for a coffee and chat or a drink and a blether (as we say here in Scotland).
• Having a small first event is probably a good starting point for a bigger next event.  After posting pictures of our cleaning on Facebook, quite a few people said they would come next time.  “Why didn’t you ****ing come this time?” is one not-very-useful response to that.  However, now they’ve seen that these things actually happen rather than just being a good idea, there is more momentum.  Our first coffee gathering had about a dozen, the second had over thirty. Good progress.

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Hello there! My name is Mark McKergow, and I started Village In The City in June 2020 to improve my own life, and to help you improve your life too.  My experience in the COVID019 pandemic lockdown was of an immediate connection with neighbours in a new way.  In our street here in Edinburgh’s West End an email list and Whatsapp group sprang up with lots of people joining in, offering news and support and so on. We waved to each other on the doorstep during the NHS clapping. I even gave short saxophone performances (at the suggestion of our neighbours) on Sunday evenings and people came out to listen.

Many people told me that their experience was similar – contact in a new way, mutual support, recognition (even at a distance).  As the lockdown began to ease I found myself wondering about how to extend and build on this connection.  What is the next level up from a street?  A village! It seems to me that much more of our lives will be lived locally in the near future.  Many people are working from home. Getting on public transport involves risk. We have been exercising, walking, shopping locally. So how can we build more connection in our immediate areas? Build a Village In The City.

This is the first in a series of blogs where I will be sharing my own experiences of village building here in my own part of town.  I want to share the learnings, show how I am going about it (and working with others in the process) and show our growing collection of Village In The City tools in action.  The first few weeks have been very interesting…

Edinburgh’s West End, where I live, is a very interesting place. It has been a commercial centre for many years, with beautiful and rather grand Georgian and Victorian terraces mainly used as offices for professional firms. In and around this, there have always been residential occupiers; Scots have been living in staired apartments for centuries, unlike our English neighbours. Recently there has been a trend to firms leaving for more modern office accommodation and their places being taken by residents. My own place is just like this – vacated in 2014, redeveloped and we arrived from ‘down South’ (England) in 2017.

Perhaps because of this commercial history, there didn’t seem to be much in the way of community activity among the residents, at least in our small patch. There are lovely little independent shops and cafes, many of which cater to office workers, and the place is well-known in the city.  So, my first activity was to scan the landscape to see what I could find – the motto being to ‘find what’s working’ and build on it.  I used the six elements of a Village In The City from the Manifesto to help me look around:

• Inclusivity – not much visible on the surface, I had no idea who lives here
• Meeting places – nothing much obvious. We have a cathedral which has an accessible open space and may also have a hall. There are some nice pubs and cafes but not sure about meeting spaces
• Connection – again, not much to be seen. There was however a residents Facebook group with 19 members
• Hosts – nothing obvious. Hosts are people who bring folk together. This is one area where I have something to offer – I have explored the role and function of good hosts as a leadership metaphor and written two books about it
• Inclusive gatherings – in the three years we’ve been here, I haven’t seen anything like this. The traders have a Business Improvement District (BID) group which had a classic car weekend last year. They have also developed some nice resources about famous ‘West Enders’, maps of the area etc.
• Identity – this is one aspect where we are well off! The West End is known through the city for interesting shops, great connections (we have a tram stop named West End so every visitor from the airport passes through), diplomatic activity (the German, Japanese, Russian and many other consulates are right here).

Having had an initial scan, I set out to connect with people who might be interested.  I join the Facebook group, bringing membership to 20, and make a cheery introduction. The admin, Paul, is clearly working hard with news of re-opening shops and other local developments.  I must follow up with him.

I also talk to a couple of local traders.  I have bought art from Paul (another Paul) from Gallery TEN, and happen upon him tidying up as the lockdown starts to loosen.  He is keen to get things moving, and tells me that a lot of the local footfall is driven by some smart hairdressers. People drive in, have a coffee, browse the shops, get some lunch… I also email Michael at Paper Tiger, who I met when I bought stuff at the start of lockdown which he delivered personally(!).  We meet socially distanced on a bench. He too sees the benefit of getting more community and connection with local residents.  It seems Paul the Facebook has also been in touch. We muse about how to reach out to people and he suggests a leaflet through every door. (Part of the art of village building is listening for good ideas!)

Having made a couple of contributions to the Facebook group I reach out to Paul the admin and we have a phone chat.  He is (hurrah!) very keen indeed to build the group and get more people involved. He is up for doing a leaflet too! He drafts some text and I get a graphic design friend to make it look attractive (see image). Paul arranges printing at a local copy shop (good to support local businesses!).  More people have been joining the group anyway, and we hope this will build things further.

Paul also starts putting posters on lamp-posts around the area.  He does this very carefully, noting the location of each one so we can retrieve them at a later date rather than leaving them to rot. Michael has offered to display a poster in Paper Tiger, and Roots deli/café are also keen.  This is a great way of connecting with both workers and residents.  I offer to do a share of the leafleting in my corner of the West End.

It seems to be working… the Facebook group has passed 200 members this week! Paul and Fraser are very active in running it, Fraser is working on a website to get the Facebook posts out to those who don’t use the platform, we have strict membership criteria (you have to live or work here). Many businesses are joining – they too can see the benefit of connecting with residents (who are here much of the time) as well as workers (who probably aren’t) and tourists (vanished).  This may require a careful eye – we don’t want the group becoming an advertising channel.

There are even more exciting developments appearing… I will bring more news as we go along. Watch out for the next instalment.  Sign up for information at

http://villageinthecity.net.

Mark McKergow is an author, speaker and leadership development consultant based in Edinburgh’s West End.  He started the Village In The City project in June 2020.  Find out more about Mark’s other work at http://sfwork.com.