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12 articles
A growing number of Nottinghamshire's community and professional organisations have done something radical: they've fundamentally changed how they work. Not tweaked the rota or added a new committee role, but genuinely redesigned their operating model from the ground up. Here's what they did, what failed, and what's actually stuck.
Grants are getting harder to come by, and the groups that relied on them are having to think differently. Across Nottinghamshire, community organisations are getting creative — launching social enterprises, swapping skills, and building income streams that nobody taught them to build. Here's what sustainable community funding actually looks like on the ground.
Being the person everyone turns to sounds like a privilege — and in many ways it is. But for the community group leaders and network founders who hold Nottinghamshire together, it can also be an isolating, quietly exhausting place to be. This is an honest conversation about what that actually feels like, and what we might do about it.
Behind every thriving local group in Nottinghamshire is an organiser who hasn't had a proper weekend off in months. We spoke to the people quietly holding communities together — and heard how close many of them are to walking away for good.
Across Nottinghamshire, community groups are quietly struggling to find people willing to step up and run events. The experienced organisers who once held everything together are burning out or stepping back — and the pipeline of replacements is worryingly thin.
Across Nottinghamshire, a generation of under-30s are discovering that giving their time to local groups pays back in ways nobody warned them about. From running scouts in Gedling to coordinating food banks in Beeston, young volunteers are picking up skills, contacts, and confidence that employers are genuinely clamouring for.
Across Nottinghamshire, buildings that once sat half-empty or fell into quiet neglect are finding remarkable second acts. From market halls to former factories, local people and organisations are transforming civic infrastructure into buzzing co-working spots, maker spaces, and social enterprise hubs. It's a quiet revolution happening right under our noses — and it's changing what community actually means in the East Midlands.
Forget Facebook and WhatsApp — Nottinghamshire's clubs, charities, and volunteer groups are quietly building impressive digital setups to keep things ticking. We looked at what's actually working on the ground, and what still needs a rethink.
Across Nottinghamshire, a new kind of community is taking root — one built around shared obsessions rather than shared postcodes. From foraging walks in Hucknall to linocut evenings in Arnold, passion-led groups are pulling people together in ways that formal organisations often can't. We spoke to the founders behind some of these grassroots collectives to find out what's really going on.
From WhatsApp groups to Zoom AGMs, Nottinghamshire's community organisations are finding clever ways to stay connected in a world that rarely slows down. We look at how local groups are blending the best of the old and new — and what it really takes to make it work.
Behind every thriving community initiative, sports club, or local business network in Nottinghamshire, there's usually someone who never sought the limelight. We sat down with a handful of those remarkable individuals to find out what drives them — and what the county would look like without them.
Across Nottinghamshire, something quietly significant is happening at street level. From the Lace Market's creative revival to grassroots movements reshaping towns like Arnold and Newark, local communities are taking ownership of their own identities — and the results are worth paying attention to.