Northern Silver Screen

Northern Silver Screen is a short film competition for which we invite our Members to submit relevant projects to be included.

 

The concept behind the Northern Silver Screen is to use film as a succinct & engaging media for sharing information within the Consortium's membership and stakeholders - we have even used some of the films in our APPG meetings! 

 

We have now hosted our successful Northern Silver Screen initiative five times and you can find our more about this year's competition and previous years themes below.

Northern Silver Screen 2012

View the final shortlisted films

The 2012 Northern Silver Screen competition saw a collaboration with The Prince's Trust to create a collection of films which demonstrate the work being undertaken within the NHC membership in relation to young people.

 

The Northern Silver Screen showcases and celebrates some of the most innovative and life-transforming work carried out by NHC members within the communities they serve. The NHC decided to focus this year's competition on young people as they have been the focus of some intense and often very negative scrutiny over the past few years - a situation which has been heightened with the riots of 2011. However, many NHC Members are carrying out imaginative and pioneering work aimed at helping young people to get a better start in life, and offering them hope and the opportunity to make a valued contribution to society. 
 
The competition was broken down into three categories: 
 
1. Engagement
Communities are at their most successful and sustainable when we involve people in the decisions that affect them. That might be about tackling problems in their neighbourhoods, or planning the development of services. It's important that young people are actively involved in this process. NHC Members are undertaking lots of work to engage with young people to ensure their unique needs are understood and met.  The category asked for examples of engagement relating to:

• Social media and technology
• Crime and anti social behaviour prevention
• Child poverty prevention   

2. Education
This category showcased how NHC Members are working to provide support and guidance for children and young people on the positive opportunities available to them. NHC Members work hard to ensure that children of customers are included in their activities and asked Members to provide examples of the work they were doing around:

• Early year's intervention
• Truancy
• Welfare & lifestyle choices  

3. Employment
NHC Members have seen and felt the harsh impact of the economic crunch and the resulting unemployment in the heart of their communities. Keen to ensure that children and young people don't lose hope and aspirations from a declining job market, NHC Members are working to present different perspectives, different opportunities and different routes to employment.  Members provided submissions based on:

• Young enterprise schemes
• Work experience
• Creating new opportunities 

We had over 50 entries for this year's competition, all of which were extremely interesting, and we would like to thank each member who made a submission. The high number of entries made the short listing process extremely difficult, however  the shortlisted organisations were;

 

Community Engagement	Education	Employment
Cestria	City West Housing Trust	Bolton at Home
City West Housing Trust	Helena Partnerships	Erimus
South Liverpool Housing	Plus Dane	LHT
South Yorkshire Housing	Weaver Vale Housing Trust	Together Housing
Wirral Partnership Homes	Wulvern Housing	Trafford Housing Trust

The Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) were delighted to host the awards dinner for the fifth annual Northern Silver Screen competition on Thursday 29th November as part of the Northern Housing Summit Conference. 

The winners in each category were announced by the evening's host, Simon Fanshawe.  

 

The winners!

 

Youth engagement	Lets get Digital	South Yorkshire Housing Association	View film
Youth education	WOTEVA	Weaver Vale Housing Trust	View film
Youth employment	THT Apprentice 2012	Trafford Housing Trust	View film
Overall Winner	THT Apprentice 2012	Trafford Housing Trust	View film

Chief Executive of the Northern Housing Consortium, Jo Boaden commented, "I would like to congratulate the category winners and thank each of the organisations who have made submissions to the competition.  All of the films are a positive reminder of the hard work being undertaken by the housing sector in areas which are away from the traditional housing management role, but are never the less important in developing and sustaining communities.  The films showcase foresight, guts and determination in embracing the power and importance of including children and young people in their planning for tomorrow, today."

 

Much has been made of what Big Society actually represents, whether it is realistic as a concept, and how successful it can really be in tackling deep-roooted social problems. From a housing perspective, there has been a huge amount of discussion about why this is being promoted as something new, with many housing providers feeling that Big Society is something that they have been routinely delivering for several years.
We looked for examples of work that are truly innovative and inspiring, and that can demonstrate having made a real difference to people's lives. The winners in each category were:

• Best example of a social enterprise -  Together Housing Group
• Best example of community activism - Harvest Housing
• Best example of a multi-agency approach - City of Bradford Council

To view all the Northern Silver Screen films, please click here.

About previous competitions....

Northern Silver Screen I
The first initiative was designed to demonstrate current examples of excellent housing and community initiatives.The films brought together under the Consortium's four work themes to cover a wide variety of topics ranging from a scheme for young mothers to a green travel policy.

Northern Silver Screen II
The competition focused upon age friendly communities and age inclusive communities in support of our project 'Age Friendly Communities in the North: People and Place 2020'.

Northern Silver Screen III

The films submitted demonstrated innovation and good practice within the categories of Low Carbon, Localism and Big Society.