Background of Area | Project Overview | Community Meeting | The Way Forward | ALL MULTIMEDIA

Our community meeting took place on Thursday, 15 October at House of Pirates. After distributing to most residences in each area our attendance was just over twenty people. We served pizza and Coca-Cola and screened the sound slides and documentary while posters and the written stories were presented on the walls. There were more students than residents, however most of the feedback came from the latter. On arrival, people were asked to write down contact information in a book and given a pamphlet containing the parts of the stories and useful emergency contact information. These were well received and people enjoyed having something to take away with them.

Feedback included a concern from one couple that the story about crime affecting students more did not reflect their experience, having had multiple house robberies. When we responded by saying that we had difficulty finding willing sources, they suggested possible ways to reach more people, such as distributing pamphlets at the start and asking for willing people to contact us. 

Another man discussed the use of being a vigilante and how people need to look out for each other in a community. This was a response to our story about the value of community and the need to consolidate high walls and it. The idea of setting up a blog was applauded in light of this. One lady reflected on the venue and suggested that people may have been put off by House of Pirates as it could be considered a “club” more than a restaurant. We explained that we had tried to use DSG, but could not and she agreed that the area was very residential and without many suitable locations.

Overall there was more positive feedback than negative to the project as a whole, and negative feedback was given in a constructive way so that we could use it to better similar future initiatives.