Older People's Community Event - November 2022

World Book Night brings people from all backgrounds together for one reason – to inspire others to read more. Organisations and individuals hold events up and down the country to celebrate the difference that reading makes to our lives. Organisations can volunteer to hand out books from an annual list to people who don’t read for pleasure or own books.

Knowledge Services made an application to receive free fiction books as part of the World Book Night campaign. We received 80 copies of a book called The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.

The book has many public health themes such as bereavement, homelessness, financial loss and walking to improve physical and mental wellbeing. We teamed up with the public health team to ensure these books were delivered at a local Older People's Community Event where the books were distributed to Dudley residents alongside leaflets advertising the Dudley Credit Union and the Park Active sessions. Our thanks to Public Health colleagues who attended the event and ensured residents received the books.

Randomised Coffee Trial - October 2022

Knowledge Services held a Coffee Trial in 2022 under the tagline 'You, a brew and someone new'. We placed an emphasis on encouraging colleagues from across the Council to take part and this year, with Covid restrictions now lifted, we gave participants the opportunity to meet either in person or via MS Teams. Many participants chose to meet in person.

We had 16 participants this year from a wide range of Council departments including from the Red House Glass Cone, Youth Justice, Tourism and Dudley Council Plus. This meant that the pairings could be quite diverse.

Feedback from participants

"Brilliant. It was a great hour out to chat with someone who I actually already knew and
we got to know each other much better and felt very relaxed and 'heard'"

"It was a very easy meeting both online initially and then in person getting to meet a
colleague across the Council who I wouldn't normally have met, as our work does not
normally have any connections. We have arranged to meet up again and have already
exchanged information that may assist from a work perspective in the future. The
benefit is we got along very well and hope to meet up again, so it is a worthwhile trial
from my perspective"

"It was great to meet my random person - it felt a bit like a blind date! It was good to find
out what they do for their job - I had heard of their role before though I wasn't sure of
what it entailed, so to learn the detail was good. I believe that she is someone who I will
be able to contact in the future for work purposes"

Randomised Coffee Trial - 2021

To help colleagues to continue to network and connect Knowledge Services held a Randomised Coffee Trial in July 2021. Due to the ongoing covid-19 restrictions we held this years event virtually with participants from across the council taking part remotely through Microsoft Teams. Participants were paired up with another member of staff working in the council and arranged a mutually convenient time to meet via MS Teams to find out more about the type of work they do and to form useful personal and professional links. The event was very positively received and we have included some of the comments from staff below.

Feedback from participants

"Brilliant. Was easy to arrange, met on MS Teams. Had a lovely chat. spoke about lockdown experiences, shared concerns around working remotely, our work roles, future plans, families etc. Felt motivated and positive afterwards. It was lovely to chat on a social level, felt connected. Will take part again. Highly recommend it"

"It was great. I learnt lots about the person I met and about the job they do. We discussed how we could potentially support each others roles. We are meeting again soon for a catch up. It was great to speak to someone different. Since we have been working from home we don't have many opportunities to meet new people"

"It was really nice to speak to someone outside of your team/department, especially whilst we are all working at home at the moment and we don't get to meet new people. The connection made would definitely be useful in the future and feel that I can approach that person better now following the meeting"

"Easy to arrange and great to chat to someone different . The person works in the area I do the accounts for though I'd never met her before - if I need to speak in future the ice is already broken"