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How SURF came about

In the Autumn of 2003 a series of information sessions and meetings were organised around Blackpool to tell people about the Neighbourhood Renewal Action Plan and encourage them to attend an initial conference. Over 50 people attended and agreed to form a planning group to start developing a Community Empowerment Network in Blackpool.

Over the following 12 months a lot of hard work was done by local activists to plan and lay the foundations for the Network. This involved discussing and proposing:
  • what the aims and objectives should be
  • the structure of the Network
  • how membership is to be decided
  • how the Network should relate to other organisations in Blackpool

A core group of up to 60 people were closely involved in these discussions. It was important though to keep other people informed and for them to be able to make a contribution to the decisions being made. This was so the emerging Network was as representative as possible of groups and organisations in Blackpool. A conference was held in March to share the work of the planning group with a wider audience.

Following this, an Implementation Group was formed to ensure that agreements reached were put into action. They named the Network and began the process of implementing other decisions. A number of task groups were formed to carry out more detailed work around communication and membership, capacity building, finance and monitoring and premises.

All the work in these groups was done by smaller numbers of people who were accountable back for their work to the Implementation Group. In all, there were more than 150 people and organisations on the Network database and of these over 60 were regularly involved.