💚Green Spark Pod - Growth - The Living Gift

You were given life - live it!!

Sparkly Village

The village owned by the village 🌿✨

Click for draft guide

Bringing back

The Village✨

Do you already live in a village you believe is sparkly?

Please get in touch

Just as the Spark Pods help us reconnect with what always been within us - The Sparkly Village is nothing new.

Everything we need is already in every village - we need to connect with other and share skills/time/wisdom with our community to live

‘a good life’

for all generations.

This page is currently my brain dump. Feel free to contribute.

What makes a village, a village?

A library/information hub - books/gadgets/workshops/knowledge/fireplace/storytime

Kitchen(s) food demos, friendly baking, meals, gammon rolls, food education, hospitality roles

Allotments - space to grow - village crops/all generations involved

Community tea room(s) - space to connect/meet/chat/share cake/run groups

A village orchard - a map showing where fruit trees/bushes are for free picking

A village fridge - residents place items in there with short BB dates for other people to come reverse for ten minutes, then collect

A village store cupboard - requests made, or anything anyone has an abundance of

Seed Library - a store for the villages seeds/bulbs/tubers etc

Transport Buddies - lift requests

Sparkly Bus - a free bus owned, maintained and used, by all the rural, isolated villages in Oxfordshire - they decide location/routes etc - allowing the villagers too access other amenities and places of beauty.

Repair Cafe - tool swap - team of fixers

Breakfast/after school childcare

The peace field - alpacas, fluffy donkeys, chickens and two naughty goats - streets will take it in turns to feed chickens (given a list of what they can eat) and collect the eggs

The solar panels gold railway to transport residents/school children from the village pub, to the schools, allotment and local farm.

Health Hub - a community non medical health care team - linked with the local Medical Practices - run by ‘Champions’ trained by the medical practices.

A village shop - to be run by residents - donations online - to pay for more everyday stock (CostCo)

A village pantry - full on no perishable cupboard food

Emergency team - working with military to risk assess the village

Villager roles - there is a role for everyone who wants one

Food + Growing

• • Diggers - free trees from the woodland trust

  • Growers - a team that grow seasonal produce to be shared at the village shop for residents - or taken to homes of residents who can not get out.

  • Gardeners - a team that go around helping out with others gardens or doing odd jobs for vulnerable residents

  • Seed savers - An accessible space for the village seed collections to be stored

  • Foragers- led by skilled residents

  • Gatherers

  • Bakers - preordered share or spare with baked goods

  • Cooks - workshops/demostrations/meals/parties

  • Herbalists - a village map of where different herbs are grown in abundance

  • Animal keepers - donkeys/alpacas/chickens/goats

  • Hot Gammon Roll team

  Making + Mending

  • Builders

  • Carpenters

  • Tool makers

  • Potters

  • Weavers

  • Sewers

  • Makers

  • Menders

  • Fixers

  Keeping Things Going

  • Fire makers - team led by experts who can and light fires of residents unable to do their own easily

  • Water carriers - long term plan when we have a well or community water supply

  • Wood gatherers

  • Watchers

  • Messengers

  • Traders

  • Record keepers

  • Map makers

  Caring + Healing

  • Carers

  • Healers

  • Midwives

  • Listeners

  • Protectors

  • People who keep someone company - different generation meets and groupings beta with older generations

  Story + Joy - - resident volunteers or outside guests

  • Storytellers

  • Singers

  • Musicians

  • Dancers

  • Entertainers

  Teaching + Guiding

  • Teachers

  • Guides

  • Elders

  • People who pass on skills

  • People who remember how things were done

  Welcoming + Belonging

  • Welcomers

  • Hosts

  • Connectors

  • People who notice who is missing - risk of isolation monitoring team

  • People who bring others in

  Learning + Noticing - passing information to trusted adults/correct team - wooden post or window sign to physically alert other residents

  • I have a job ‘digital’ or wooden post

  • I need company

  • I need assistance

  • I have a request

  • I have feedback

  • I am unhappy

Communication/connection

• Sparkly Villages will have;

• a voice from each generation, (younger generations - babies/primary aged children/big kids/youths will have a trusted adult companion).

• a voice from each road/close/section of the village -

  I call these volunteers The Cockerels - they feedback/pass on messages either via WhatsApp or in person - helping the community be more inclusive

• more connected neighbourhood watch involvement

• have a concerns and celebrations ‘post box’ both accessible digitally and a proper post box or volunteer letter box.

• concerns monthly meets - accessible both online and in person

• celebrations monthly meets -as above

• have an ideas forum

• have a crazy ideas forum

• business links

• schools links

• community groups (existing/growing and trialling)

• a village newsletter - with contributions from every generation + co-sy.org

  All our children are Sparkly

For the children…’The Arkys’ (play on the Word Sparkly)

The Villagers (from all generations) and The Arkys work together, collaborating ideas, helping to build a safe joyful environment for all to enjoy.

Learning new skills, feeling like they belong, having purpose.

Connecting, growing and building self awareness - knowing who they are, and celebrating their many strengths.

Sparkly Children - Main Stream Offer;

Some village children who are experiencing ‘explosive sparkle’ may benefit attending a six week ‘reset and reconnect’ experience in the village;

‘Spark Pods and The Gifts - reset and reconnect Journey’

This will be focussing on the gifts - what all humans have - even if sometimes it does not feel like it!

awareness, joy, calm, growth, courage and strength -

whilst connecting with the Villagers from every generations - learning wisdom, new employable/life/social skills and connecting.

Family Led Education;

I would love a chat to explore ideas further and collaborate new ideas

What is the aim?

• I want to hear from anyone, local, or afar, who sees what I see.

• I want this journey to be documented - it is a simple idea, probably already existing in your community - it is just about connecting the sparkle.

• sustainable - communities use the hub and contribute, supporting each other and the Arkys.

• Earth friendly - aware and appreciative of nature and living things - eg Wasp Project

• Wellbeing boosting - ensure the space is safe for all that use it, allowing people to thrive

• A space for groups to meet to help reduce isolation and promote relations with neighbours

• Educational - Arkys will learn real life skills, communication, growth, creativity - all projects will be led by the Arkys, supported by Villagers.

• Skills such as baking, gardening, sculpting, event planning, activity organising, peer on peer support/led activities

• Everything the Arkys learn will follow the model learn - teach - feedback

  Built by Sparkly Children, supported by the Villagers

The Arkys will be helping to design and build The Clover Project.

If you feel you can contribute your skills/expertise/advice/ideas and would like to help with this community project,

please email me

hello@sparklypeople.com

Or if you just love the idea and want to feedback

✨🌿