Wolverhampton Make a Shift

Make a Shift was a 2 day-long event organised in Wolverhampton by the Wolverhampton City Council and the FutureGov. It was held in the Light House on 21 and 22 Sep.

Light House / Wolverhampton

The idea was to change Wolverhampton to a better and more entertaining place.

At the moment people describe this town as a small, bored, dark, empty place. But they don’t want a ghost-town after 5pm any more. People who live in Wolverhampton want more places to be open after 5pm to hang out with their families and friends. Therefore, this event has given an opportunity to help changing empty buildings into something interesting and entertaining that the community really need and want.

Make a Shift and the City Council have given people a chance to do something for their town.

Everyone could submit online their ideas and vote for the others. Also everyone was invited to the event and could take part in many conference panels and discussions. The aim of this event was also to bring community together and give them a voice as well as to discuss the best ideas and make it really happen.

Finally from many ideas four have been stood out and discussed during the event workshops:

• Free Ogranic Gardens
• Gap Fillers
• Scibble and Scribe: Community form filling service
• Wolvopedia: Make Wolverhampton a Wikipedia city

Although I was working in the group of Gap Fillers I really like Andy’s Mabbett idea of Wolvopedia.

Wolvopedia is supposed to be some kind of virtual Wolverhampton.

The aim is to tag main buildings with QR codes which will send the reader do the website with all information about particular place such as museum, Lady Wulfrun or Bantock House. The information itself is supposed to be written and edited by the citizens. – It is going to work like Wikipedia where the reader can add, edit and translate the article into other languages.

Wolverhampton wouldn’t be the first place guided by Wikipedia.

The QRpedia project has already been introduced in the British Museum in London but the World’s first Wikipedia City became Gibraltar.

This project could bring many changes to Wolverhampton which for many years has been considered as the fifth worst city on the planet to live at. I agree this article is a bit old but I don’t think there is anything different… well apart from few more places being closed…

I believe Wolvopedia can be the first step of Making a Shift in Wolverhampton.