Imagine Democracy – You Decide!

Groups and individuals were invited to develop ideas that re-imagine and re-energise local democracy through activism, campaigning, creative expression or building public awareness. A public pitch was held on Saturday 30 March 2019 as part of the Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics. Each ‘pitch’ had a maximum of three minutes to present their idea in any format with creativity encouraged.

Fair, Legal, Feasible and Non-party political

• Maghera Park Action Group – Make a drone video with community members to help lobby elected representatives to save the Park.
• The 343 – Weekly mental health arts and crafts drop-in
• Sailortown Regeneration – Campaign video for St. Joseph’s Church regeneration
• Collaboration for Change – Citizen collaboration and idea generation workshop
• Here NI – Voter registration and education event for LGBT+ Community
• VIEW Digital – Participatory Journalism Event to discuss ideas for a future issue of the magazine
• PB in Schools – Garvagh Forest School Youth PB event

1. Make sure that there is a dedicated point(s) of contact so that people who are interested in submitting an idea can talk to someone and progress their idea to a PB bid
2. Keep the PB Criteria and Bid Forms as straight forward as possible so that you can encourage rather than exclude prospective ideas
3. Consider having a host- we were delighted to have Barra Best a well-known local weather presenter who introduced the PB pitchers, made the event fun and entertaining and kept everything running like clockwork