Updates
We finally managed to bring a parklet to the streets of Liverpool. It didn't happen in the way we envisaged, but I am so proud of our team for persevering, and for overcoming so many unforseen obstacles along the way. The future is looking bright for sPark It! As our original crowdfund supporters, we'd love to invite you all along to our Transition Liverpool gathering next weekend. Come down and meet the team, engage with some amazing speakers, and help us build a stronger network for community climate action in the Liverpool City Region. The event is free to attend, with a free lunch, and activities for kids. We hope you can make it. See the Eventbrite link for more: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/transition-liverpool-gathering-october-2023-tickets-676547109617?aff=oddtdtcreator
Today's the day. The builders are on site, outside of Mann Island, installing our first parklet as I type. Our wonderful new website is up and running. It gives a flavour of the huge amount of work we've done over the past three years, as we worked towards this point. We hope that you like it. Please take a look: www.spark-it.org.uk Keep an eye out on our socials @tt_liverpool and in the local press for coverage. Will post photos as things go along!
When we decided to launch this little crowdfunder, nearly three years ago, we had no idea that the project would prove so challenging. And yet, here we are! We're very glad to say that, thanks to the tireless work and boundless enthusiasm of our small team of volunteers, we will actually be able to install a parklet installation in one of the most high-profile locations in Liverpool. And it's coming at the end of the month. In the next couple of weeks we will be posting on our social media @tt_liverpool, launching a new website, and sharing further details. We also cannot thank you enough - our original crowdfunders, for giving us the opportunity to make this a reality. Watch this space. Love, The sPark It team x
It's taken a while, we know, but we finally have something in the flesh! https://twitter.com/TT_Liverpool/status/1506649692825952260?t=ZagN3mGydmiCxzsL6dFMKA&s=19 We're working with the council to figure out how best to get this project out on the streets, but in the meantime it is so exciting to see our design in real life. Thanks as always for being the people who made this happen x
Hello everybody, we have a very exciting update for you... We are well on the way to getting a physical pop-up on the street. As noted in our previous update, we had been forced to rethink our vision due to Covid, and so we created our website, a virtual street, and ran a schools design competition. A lot of this was done for free by our amazingly skilled volunteers, and so we were able to deliver all of that within the £3000 portion of our crowdfunder that came from Transition: Bounce Forward/National Lottery Community Fund. We reported on this expenditure direct to the National Lottery in October 2021. This means that all of the funds donated by you, our individual supporters, and from the Mayoral Inclusive Growth Fund, can still be used to to create something in the real world, and we're well on the way to getting it done. We have a design, we have a location, we have a manufacturer, and we are meeting with local councillors in the next few weeks. Stay tuned. Love, The sPark It Team x
Hello everyone, we hope you're doing as well as can be expected in these crazy times. Just wanted to let you know how the project is coming along. We've had to make some changes to sPark It due to covid restrictions, but we think that this has led to a more impactful project which has even bigger potential than our initial plan. As you know, we originally wanted to hold a popup street festival in Liverpool City Centre. It takes a long time to properly plan such an event, and to do it properly we wanted a six month preparation period. Sadly, this would have meant committing to the event by February at the latest, and we just weren't confident that the summer would find us Covid-free. We made the decision that it would not be appropriate or responsible to go ahead, and we're happy that we did - we're not out of the woods yet and sPark It does not want to be potentially responsible for spreading this virus any further. The essence of sPark It is to fire imagination, and to get people thinking about how they would like public space to be used, and so we decided that if we couldn't do a street festival in the real world, we'd do one online. We focused on creating the best website we possibly could, and we're very happy to say that this went live on Friday. Please go and take a look at www.spark-it.org.uk On the site you can learn about what we've been up to. We've created a virtual street called TwoPenny Lane, which we will be using to build popups on. These popups are coming from a school design competition we also launched last week - pupils from across the Liverpool City Region have been invited to submit their designs. As well as this, we are working with environmental scientists to create a book all about urban planting, we are developing an educational package to work with schools, we are running a second phase of the design competition for the general public, and we are doing a small number of real-life popups. Please go on over to take a look at the site. We'll keep you all updated with our progress. Love and bossness, The sPark It Team x
Brilliant news, thanks everyone!
