Who should be in the group#
To participate, you will need to have six people who want to be involved, plus the active interest of the building’s owners or management. This group should be varied and represent the range of people who have an interest in the building.
Depending on your circumstances, this might include:
people who manage the property and know about things like maintenance and heating
people who hire one or more of the spaces
people in a position to know the user community as a whole
people who know the local community well and are well-networked
people involved in making decisions on behalf of the organisation
people who might struggle to use your facilities, for instance, because of disability
people responsible for thinking about the organisation’s response to the climate crisis
Your choice will depend on local circumstances. As long as your building has at least six people who care enough about what happens to it in the future to take part and the owners or managers are receptive to change, the programme is for you.
We also highly recommend that you find an volunteer engineer to be in your group and our session guides assume you will have someone playing this role. If you are unsure whether someone is an engineer, ask them! Most engineers will have a university degree in engineering or have been an engineering apprentice, but there are others who have learned what they know by other routes, occasionally without ever even being employed as an engineer, and they are welcome on our programme. The engineer doesn’t need to know about heating or buildings. It’s their general engineering skills that are important. Past groups have told us how grateful they have been for what their engineers have brought to the group, especially if they aren’t someone already involved in the organisation so they can bring fresh eyes to the building.