Next month in Birmingham is a two day training event to help active citizens wield more power in their communities. Organised by Friends of the Earth “Power Up” will cost you £60 and should help you:

Talk tactics and share strategies with the experts
Meetgovernment agencies and other community support organisations
Get practical tips for shaping your [...]

Thanks to Sunny at Pickled Politics for this quote from Peter Horrocks, the head of BBC News at the BBC:
So, the days of middle-of-the-road, balancing left and right, impartiality are dead. Instead I believe we need to consider adopting what I like to think of as a much wider “radical impartiality” – the need to [...]

Congratulations to Sunderland for winning the government’s digital challenge, pocketing £3.5 million to develop a number of community wide digital schemes, including a video conferencing network for voluntary groups in the city, community e-champions (essential in my view to remove the fear and confusion barrier over new technology) and an emphasis on networking and empowering [...]

Jenni Rowley and Selina Okunnu of the Northfield Young People’s Forum talk to us about how power is shifting towards the young in Birmingham. From April 2007 the forum, run by 11 to 19 year olds, will have up to £80,000 to offer as grants to the young people of this south [...]

 

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More proof that citizens journalism is finding it’s feet here in the West Midlands comes with  the campaign to protect Black Patch Park in Sandwell. Simon Baddeley has written about the park for the independent website The Stirrer, keeps this wiki page up to date and now adds this to youtube:

technorati tags: nptechuk youtube black patch [...]

Number 2 on the netsquared, squidoo, getactive list of the 59 smartest online organisations was Greenpeace. It has gradually been chipping away at Apple with classic guerilla tactics – using their opponents weight to their own advantage. Greenpeace is encouraging supporters to use the creative power of their macs to imagine, produce and [...]

I was in Barcelona recently and found myself puzzling over something. Almost all of the graffiti was on the shutters of shops – not the stone or brickwork. It appears as though the ‘taggers” (also see this on Birmingham tagging and youtube) have decided not to spray the buildings themselves. If this [...]

Just a quick pointer to the 59 smartest online organisations. Great for inspiration for charities looking to make better use of a range of internet tools.

Celeste over at studio 501c tells us to encourage just this sort of list making in our own organisations.
If you’re interested in using the web more effectively, ask different [...]