Notwestminster
Local Democracy for Everyone

Come and help build a better local democracy

What is a Maker Day?

A Local Democracy Maker Day is a chance to collaborate with others who care about democracy on issues that we choose together. Our focus at this Maker Day will be on responding to some of our Design Challenges for Local Democracy, including sharing ideas for making the 2016 local elections more open.

We want to turn our discussions around local democracy and digital into some practical tools that we can all use to make democracy work better for us – and we hope you’ll be part of it. You don’t need any previous experience to join in - we’ll be learning from each other as we go along.

Please come and take part in this practical day to help build a better local democracy. We’ll talk about the issues and use data that’s already available to quickly prototype something based on our shared ideas.

Who is it for?

• Digital makers
• Local government officers
• Councillors and candidates
• Community activists
• Hyperlocals
• Open data advocates
• Voters of today and tomorrow
  
  

What will we be working on?

We want to hear your ideas about which of our design challenges you’re interested in working on. We plan to pick three challenges from these options, based on your feedback: Design Challenges for Local Democracy

There are lots of challenges to choose from, including how to involve young people, how to make sure voters have the information they want, and how to create better connections between local decision makers and the people who are affected by those decisions.

Feel free to tweet us @LDBytes or email notwestminster@gmail.com

If you took part in our 2015 Maker Day, you’re also welcome to use the day as an opportunity to continue working on your ideas, or to show how things have developed since. Please get in touch if you’d like to talk it over.

What we did at our 2015 Local Democracy Maker Day

About us

We are Local Democracy Bytes and the wider #notwestminster gang. We believe in bringing together people who have an interest in local democracy – and who are up for the challenge of making it work better for all of us.

We held our first Local Democracy Maker Day in Leeds in September 2015 (as part of LocalGovCamp), in partnership with our friends at LocalGov Digital Makers and Democracy Club.

It was such a useful and energising day that we’ve decided to keep things going with this 2016 Maker Day, which is part of our two-day Notwestminster event.

What else is on at Notwestminster?

This year’s Notwestminster is a two day event, including a Local Democracy Maker Day and PechaKucha Night on the Friday and participant-led workshops, lightning talks and discussions on the Saturday. On both days you can get advice about making the most of digital technology, join us for a few drinks and be part of creative activities with a distinctly democratic flavour.

Notwestminster main event - Saturday 13th February 2016

PechaKucha Night - Friday 12th February 2016

Welcome to Huddersfield

We’re not in Westminster any more

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