By Pepper Parr
February 21st, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Part two of a three part series on Bateman engagement taking place
Denise Beard: Manager of Community Development.
During her lengthy outline of what had been done in terms of engagement Denise Beard, Manager Manager of Community Development made mention of a pilot program that would take place at Tansley Woods. “We want to investigate this notion of community coming together a little more. The idea of using the open community space at Tansley where people could come together really resonated with us.
“There is some space up there within the community center to really open and turn it into a space where people can connect and socialize – using the rooms that might be available if nothing’s programmed. Can we open them up to allow community to use those spaces?
The notion of social anchor, a phrase coined by Beard and her team, was something she said the community really took to – they were both loud and clear about having places where people can connect and socialize. Can we open them up to allow community to use those spaces and see what happens?
Maybe a communal kitchen where people could bring their food and then eat together and break bread together as it were.
There is space at Tansley Wood that isn’t being used all that much – could be a pilot site for Bateman program development.
“We’re looking to try to do things like that at Tansley to assess over the next couple of years what that might look like at Robert Bateman..The objective is to help guide us in the design of that space moving forward.
We’ll be striving to see just what a social anchor pilot at Tansley Woods would look like. The people we spoke to were intrigued and our team is eager to see how that takes off and hopefully we can learn how to meet the community demand we expect to see in the in the future at Bateman.
The second thing that I wanted to ask about is more of a question. It’s just been so much conversation, not so much thank goodness this winter because it’s been a little bit warmer and we haven’t had too many critically cold nights. But the idea of a warming center or possibility of overnight shelter on cold nights has that been built in at all to this idea of the pilot social anchor at Tansley and or potentially Bateman down the road.
There are three large rooms that would serve as pilot sites.
An opportunity for people to use the showers at Tansley if people had to stay overnight.
Mayor Meed Ward thought it was a brilliant idea and Council seemed to go along with it.
Beard now has a bit of a runway she can use to get back to some of the people she talked with and take the idea a little further.
Interesting approach – let’s see where they take it.
Related news story:
Engagement on Bateman programs is taking place.
Way before the Russian incursion into Ukraine I had been watching a series of ‘YouTube’ videos of a loan vlogger travelling through the old Soviet Satelight States looking for old Soviet architecture and talking to the people who remembered life under the old soviet regime, surprisingly to me was the longing for those days gone by chief amongst them were having a job and the sense of belonging, and the social spaces that the Soviet regime had built in every community where the people could gather; admittedly the vlogger focused on the border communities not the ones closest to Western Europe. Don’t mind me my spidey senses are always on high alert.
Not to take credit from anyone with a good idea, but regarding, “The notion of social anchor, a phrase coined by Beard and her team,”.
“Social anchor theory (SAT) states that, within any given community context, there are social institutions that serve to anchor social networks, thereby contextualizing the community and its networks. In this re-conceptualization, social anchors are defined as any institution that supports the development and maintenance of social capital and networks at the community level and provides an attachment for the collective identity of that community.”
Source: Aaron W. Clopton, Bryan Finch
Published 1 January 2011
Sociology
Community Development
Good catch Joe. Perhaps the faulty attribution is simply the result of Bryan Finch not being nearly as attractive as Ms. Beard.
Editor’s note: It was my mistake and that is the only comment I am going to add.
Thanks, Joe. Wikipedia: A series of experiments were conducted to investigate anchoring bias in groups and possible solutions to avoid or mitigate anchoring. The first experiment established that groups are indeed influenced by anchors while the other two experiments highlighted methods to overcome group anchoring bias. Utilized methods include the use of process accountability and motivation through competition instead of cooperation to reduce the influence of anchors within groups.
David: When I read the article I knew I didn’t like the concept and my first comment regarding the USSR and my gut instinct told me to be wary of, the influence of idealistic anchors spreading a pre-conceived message throughout a group within a social setting. Go to the pub instead.