Rock Hall is a GII Listed building in Moses Gate Country Park, Farnworth, near Bolton. It has been empty since 2014 and is deteriorating. Banana Enterprise Network and Bolton Council have secured development funding form the National Lottery Heritage Fund to prepare detailed plans for its restoration, and use as a focal point for the community and the park. Ste has been commissioned as independent evaluator to the project, working with the team to ensure that their decisions are based on good evidence, and to prepare the evaluation plan for the delivery phase of the project. 

Groundwork Greater Manchester, in partnership with City of Trees and Mersey Rivers Trust, secured £1.3m from the Green Recovery Challenge Fund to improve woodlands and green open spaces across the area, helping local people engage with the natural environment. They commissioned us to evaluate the project, over 16 months. We developed an evaluation plan setting out a methodology involving desk research, interviews, workshops and site visits, in planned phases, providing the client with formative lessons and progress reports, along with the final report setting out a summative evaluation of the whole project. 

Powered by Hip Hop is the new brand for award winning community hip hop group, UC Crew.  We developed a new business plan to guide their expansion from a primarily local to a regional organisation, over the period 2021-25, using the momentum provided by Breaking being a Demonstration Sport at the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

LCR Cares was Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram's  charitable emergency Covid response fund, that raised and distributed more than £2m to essential community causes from April-December 2020. We were retained to provide project management and communications support, working with the Community Foundation for Merseyside and Lancashire, and Combined Authority staff.

November 2018 marked 100 years since the Armistice that ended the fighting in the First World War.  Ste was commissioned to act as a Battlefield Guide on a four day trip to Ypres / Ieper in Belgium.  This involved researching and delivering a series of talks about events there, and acting as specialist guide and historian to a coach party of 40 the people.

Museum Development North West, North East and Yorkshire & the Humber, commissioned us to carry out this project, in preparation for them coming together as Museum Development North. It involved surveying and interviews with museums across the three regions to find out about their experience of and preparations for emergencies that posed a risk to their collections and buildings. The results informed planning for the MD North support programme, funded by Arts Council England. 

The Walton Hall Conservatory Range project involved the restoration of historic buildings and the development of socially conscious end uses, through a partnership between Warrington Borough Council, Myerscough College and the Walton Lea Partnership, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The evaluation project involved delivering research, analysis and reports to an established methodology, consistent with evaluation guidance. The methodology included desk research, interviews and surveys, with both qualitative and quantitative aspects. The evaluation was completed successfully in late 2022.

We worked with the Torus Corporate team to review their family of strategies and operational plans, to help them enhance their capacity to deliver their new Corporate Plan. We provided an updated strategy framework and a user-friendly guide to producing updated strategies.

St Helens Council is keen to help its communities to celebrate their heritage, and to boost the visitor economy,  The land that makes up the modern Borough developed from villages and townships into an industrial powerhouse, thanks to the abundance of coal and men and women with the ingenuity to exploit it.  A number of internationally important 'firsts' took place there, including: the creation of the Sankey Canal (England's first industrial canal) from the 1750s; the Rainhill Locomotive Trials in 1829, before the opening of the world’s first inter-city railway line in 1830; and the invention of the 'float glass' technique by Sir Alistair Pilkington in 1959.
 

The Council commissioned us to develop a new heritage strategy and delivery plan, based on thorough research and public consultation.  The project was completed in June 2019.  

November 2018 marked 100 years since the Armistice that ended the fighting in the First World War.  Ste was commissioned to act as a Battlefield Guide on a four day trip to Ypres / Ieper in Belgium.  This involved researching and delivering a series of talks about events there, and acting as specialist guide and historian to a coach party of 40 the people.

We worked with the Torus Corporate team to review their suite of policies and procedures, and the procedure for developing them. We provided a new framework and a user-friendly guide to to developing them in future.

The Good Business Festival was staged in the Liverpool City Region from 22-24 March 2022, following supporting events over the previous 18 months. It brought together business leaders and experts to explore how ethical business can be a force for good, in more than 50 sessions across eight venues. We were commissioned by Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to manage the contract with its delivery partners, Culture Liverpool and Hemingway Design, and to deliver an evaluation project. The event was delivered successfully and within budget despite the many challenges posed by the pandemic.

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Video of lots of the content is available here.

Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram is committed to raising the profile of workplace mental health, as a social and economic issue. We were commissioned to work with business and health partners to gather open access sources of mental health support and to promote them to businesses and individual workers through a communications campaign. This culminated in a special online event held in November 2021, with almost 100 attendees and thousands of subsequent views. 

Ashton is a thriving golf club with 800 Members. Its Board is keen to base its decisions for the future on solid evidence. We conducted a thorough survey of the Members, examining every aspect of the club's activities. It attracted more than 300 participants, and generated a wealth of valuable data. We provided interim and final reports to the Board, including detailed analysis. The survey is ran again in 2019.

The Sankey Canal Partnership is made of Halton, St. Helens and Warrington Councils, the Canal & River Trust and the Sankey Canal Restoration Society. It aims to develop the historic canal corridor as a visitor and leisure destination, and is developing a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to part-fund the work. We conducted research and consultation to inform the bid, involving the following elements: an online survey and promotional campaign that attracted more than 400 participants; interviews with stakeholders about; desk research about other relevant heritage landscape projects; and a site visit to the Greenfield Valley in North Wales. We provided a report giving the results of the consultation work and conclusions from the other research, with clear recommendations about the shape and scope of the bid, and priorities for audience development.