Speaker 2 (00:00.248)
Hello everyone and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. I'm your host Maria and today I'm speaking with Molly Cleaver, Community Engagement Manager at Reading University. Molly, welcome to the podcast. How are

I'm good, thanks, I'm excited to be here.

Well, I'm excited to be here. We're at Reading University, aren't we today?

Yeah, part of White Knight's campus.

So it's quite warm, but fortunately as we were saying, it's not as hot as it has been, which is a blessing.

Speaker 1 (00:24.48)
Yes, and we're not going to complain because when it rains we'll also complain.

Okay.

So with that, could you please give a short introduction to yourself and your background?

So I'm originally from the East Midlands, town just outside of Peterborough, and I came to Reading as a student. So back in 2016 to 2019, I studied my undergrad here in English Literature, and I had no plan of what I wanted to do. So when I got here, I found out you could run to be an officer at the Students' Union. I decided that's what I wanted to do. So I ran to be an officer, one by...

four votes, it was very close. So I was president 2019 to 2020, which is very interesting because that was the year the pandemic hit us. And then still didn't know what I wanted to do when I finished that. And a job came up to be a junior project manager in the commercial team at the university. So I did that for two years. Got some amazing experience in project management, but I don't really care about making money. Sorry, my previous line manager. My current job, community engagement manager, that popped up.

Speaker 1 (01:34.446)
I'd done some shadowing with my predecessor because it was something that I was really interested in, really excited me. And I've done this for about three years now and I'm still here.

As we were saying before, I think you're doing a fabulous job so far. What do you actually do for your job? What's your typical week look like, would you say?

Yeah, so my job's to lead the community engagement team. We're a small but mighty team of three. We've got a community engagement officer and a nape of complaints officer who are absolutely amazing. And our role is to really bring value to the local area about why it's beneficial to have a university in your area. The way that we do that is building partnerships with key stakeholders. And that could be anyone from

local residents, resident groups, the council, local councillors, the police, charities, local businesses, you name it, that's who we connect with. And our approach in doing that is to respond to local need and interest and then see how the university's expertise and resources can help respond to that need and interest. We also do a lot of work around managing

student transition into private accommodation. It's a huge change. And also the relationships with their neighbours. You can imagine that there are different lifestyles that come out of living next door to each other. And it's also about creating a strong welcome on campus. part of the local community, so as much as it is about getting off campus, out of our bubble, it's also welcoming people here.

Speaker 1 (03:21.674)
I don't think I have a typical week. think every week looks different, which is why I love this job. It keeps it exciting. I wouldn't want a job that is the same every single week. And to give you a snapshot of last week, we've been doing a whole load of program of activity for Refugee Week. So I was in Windsor on Thursday, helping to organize a trip for students to go to Windsor Castle. I went to the Reading Safer Neighborhood Forum.

which is led by the council and is really focused on keeping people safe and reading. We've been looking into potential apps that can help students find good quality private accommodation and help landlords and letting agents find students. So we met with a couple of app providers to hear from them. We've been focusing on planning for the centenary and I've got an exciting project they've been working on that I can talk a bit about later.

We were running a walk that was in some of our green spaces in Schimfield. We were prepping for school Meadows Day and we had the university open day on Friday. That is probably a small part of what my week entailed last week. So every, every single week is completely different and full to the brim with different things and meeting new people, which is why I love it so much.

It's very fascinating, very diverse. Do you have a goal you're working towards for integrating the university with the community?

Yeah, so when I started three years ago, we created a three-year action plan. We created that with local residents, hearing about their priorities of how they would like the university to engage with the community. And at the heart of that is really engagement that's consistent and meaningful with an ambition of doing that across the Thames Valley. I would say at the moment, we're quite...

Speaker 1 (05:17.378)
Reading and Woking and Focus, I think we've grown from where we were a few years ago where there was perhaps more so Reading Focus. So it's moving in the right direction, but that long-term ambition is consistently engaging across the Thames Valley. We talk a lot about being a university for Reading, and I think that really sits at the heart of our commitment to being an engaged university. And the sector talks a lot about, what is a university's civic responsibility?

and we come from the local community, we do have a responsibility to engage and to support and to be an active neighbour. So outlined in the plan, there's three simple objectives, which is about increasing our visibility and people's understanding of the university, building sustained partnerships and networks and increasing our positive impact across diverse communities.

We intentionally kept it simple and within that plan, don't get me wrong, I love a strategy, but they can be a little bit shiny. So we're really detailed in how we're going to achieve that rather than just saying nice things and not backing them up with action.

I think that's a very good approach. You said it has to be feasible, something you can carry out effectively and achieve your goals. I imagine that for the goals, everything you want to do, there are quite a lot of challenges with integrating, especially with people who are maybe set in their ways or integrate in diverse communities. What challenges have you faced?

Yeah, I think the university is ever-growing and changing. And when you look at our neighbours around campus, some of them have lived there for decades. And, you know, they've moved here and they connect with the character and the identity of the area. So when that can be a threat from students moving in, who largely, you know, contribute really positively and they want to find sense of belonging.

Speaker 1 (07:25.72)
when they're here, that can be really difficult because everything that you know, that you've come to love could potentially disappear. That's not what we want to achieve, but when that's your perception, that can certainly be a challenge. Equally, people's perceptions of universities in general, universities can often be seen as quite exclusive and...

an elitist, if you've never been to university before, you may not feel that this is a place for you. There are many residents who think the university is only there for staff and students. So trying to get over some of those barriers, trusting relationships also take a lot of time to create and maintain. So I would say for probably the first two years of this job was a lot of focus on building those relationships, which is still there.

but you start to feel this nice turning point where people really begin to trust you and want to work with you rather than you going out all the time. There's also the challenge of if we've got it wrong in the past and we've broken a relationship and broken trust, that takes even more time to build back up. And if you're not the one who's broken that relationship, that can be quite challenging to repair. I think to do this job,

To do this job specifically, I think you have to put your heart in it. I genuinely care about the people that I work with. And I completely understand when a resident comes to you or an organization comes to you and they're quite angry and upset. But there were some times where you might have someone go, you don't care about us. And my resilience has definitely got better that you know in that moment they're looking for someone.

to speak to, they want to have their voice heard to be listened, but it's difficult not to take that personally. And when I don't work a typical nine to five, you take it home with you. So then having that boundary between work and your personal life becomes quite blurred. So that's definitely something I've learned to deal with better, but there are times of the year where, yeah, you definitely.

Speaker 1 (09:49.026)
you definitely take that home with you.

Awesome, really interesting challenges there. I totally agree on the relationship side. I think relationships notoriously hard to build up. And I feel sometimes this is where businesses come a cropper because businesses, as you said before, with money, very focused on money now and relationships do take time. But I think you need to put that time in because when you get those relationships going, they sort of, it uncovers so many opportunities. So looking at opportunities, what have you felt the different opportunities are that you've uncovered?

Yes, I think our biggest learning is it's great if we come up with ideas to engage with the community. But what's even better and far more successful and meaningful is connecting with local organisations and residents who are trusted in their communities to work together. Ultimately, the local community knows what

the need and interests are, we shouldn't be coming in and assuming what that is, even if we assume correctly, because we're doing it in isolation and it's likely to not be particularly successful. So I guess that's why every day is different, because you don't know what's gonna come out of a meeting, what's gonna come out of walking down the street and bumping into someone or a phone call or an email where someone

comes to you and is like, actually, I have this really great idea and I would love to explore working on it together. And for anyone that knows me, I'm really bad at saying no. So normally there's a way of us finding a way to make it work because it's exciting and it's important. I also recognize that particularly post-COVID, local charities and grassroots organizations, it's tough out there. Resources are stretched, funding is even more limited.

Speaker 1 (11:47.828)
and there is even more support that is needed from the local community. So while we can join up and work together is only going to make everyone's life a little bit easier. So some of the exciting stuff that we've been working on recently, we have our community festival, which we've just done the third year of that in May. That's amazing because we can't do it without local organisations.

So as much as it's about inviting the community to campus and having them experience the festival, it's also about local organisations coming along, having a stall, running an activity, promoting their business, coming and performing, running a workshop. We had about 8,000 people attend this year. If it was the university alone, we wouldn't be able to cater to all those people. And actually the turnout would have

probably been less because those organisations bring people with them. So to watch that grow has been absolutely amazing. A big project coming up is around our centenary, which is next year. We're turning 100 years old. There was a grant fund that the university opened towards the end of last year. And I really wanted to think about how do we connect our alumni and our community and in some cases reconnect if that connection has been lost.

As you said, measuring events, measuring complaints, it's very clear that you've considered this and especially with the impact report. I think the impact report is very good because the complaints and things you can measure on an ongoing basis, but an impact report gives a really nice overview and captures activities and things that you maybe can't measure, but it's still like more qualitative than quantitative. So well done. think you've given some really interesting insights there. Is there anything that you'd like to leave our listeners with today?

to our centenary celebrations because they are a part of our history. And we formed a team and decided we wanted to do that through memories. So actually we launched yesterday, Tuesday the 24th of June, to start by inviting people to share their memories with us, share your memories of the university. And they will be used to help shape a whole series of wild and wonderful activities in 2026.

Speaker 1 (13:41.912)
That's been really cool because we've got to work with the friends of the university. We're working with South Street Theatre and hopefully we're working with Jelly as well. Loads of different partners to actually bring this to life and give it some meaning. And all the memories will then be preserved in our archive. So everyone's voices will be heard and will be valued and those memories can be passed on for generations to come. So that's really exciting too. And then a whole load of other...

Other smaller projects, we have a Santa run that's run by the Rotary Club that happens on White Nights campus every year in December. You get to see about 300 Santas running around campus, raising money for charity. We recently did, as I mentioned, Refugee Week. We work with Refugee Support Group and Sanctuary Strikers and Barks and Bucks FA. ran a football tournament. been that for about the last five years.

I could go on, I could go on all day about the wonderful collaboration that we have with local groups.

Molly you're doing such a great job. Thank you so much for your time today and yes anyone listening if you've got any ideas then please get in touch with Molly.

Speaker 1 (15:07.456)
Yeah, so I guess it's important not to be mistaken that it's not just my team that working on community engagement, it's a commitment across the university. I think what's difficult is that that's not always visible, but actually there are so many colleagues who care greatly about how we engage with the local community and how we connect students with the local community because

them reaching out beyond campus is such an important part of their experience. And I'm going to apologise in advance because I will not be able to mention everyone, but a sample of what we do. we have a team of community led researchers. They focus around participatory action research. So they go out into the community, they train up local people who then complete research.

with their communities who are trusted by them. It's hugely exciting that Dr. Alice Mpofu-Coles, who is now our Mayor of Reading, she's done a huge amount of work on the Oxford Road, listening to people, hearing stories from residents who are often unheard and unseen, and really bringing those stories and those people to life.

So there's a huge amount of work in that area. We also have our school outreach and widening participation team. They go out into local schools. They talk about raising aspirations, what it's like to go to university. And that happens up and down across the country. But obviously with a real focus on our local schools. That's paired really nicely with the Institute of Education, who obviously training students every year to be teachers who then complete their placements.

in local schools. We also have, independently in different schools across the university, academics who are keen to give up their time to give talks, to share their expertise. There will be things every day that I find out that are happening and they also think about how community engagement can be woven into modules and assessment outcomes. So for example Dr. Swetha Ghosh in

Speaker 1 (17:27.522)
Film theatre and television does a community filmmaking module where students get to produce a film with a local organisation. So they get experience of having a client and working on a project based on what the client would like to get out of the film. But then the local organisation benefits from working with students but also getting a film that helps promote what they do and tells perhaps a story of some of the people that they work with.

That's just to name a few. We obviously have our, if you walk onto campus, you'll see the Museum of English Royal Life, the Coal Museum, the Euromuseum, all of our cafes and bars, all of these front-facing people are also playing a really important role to engage with our community.

Speaker 1 (18:42.018)
Yes, it's really difficult and we're not on our own there. When I talk to my equivalent colleagues across the sector, trying to measure community engagement is really challenging. A way that we can do it in terms of relationships between students and neighbours is that we track our complaints. Sometimes complaints rising actually equate to, you know, my team becoming more known.

But actually what we've seen is they've been held pretty consistently. There's been a slight drop this year. So that's a positive sign. So that's one way, but that's a very specific part of our engagement. think another element is our turnout at events. So when we hold public lectures, when we hold the community festival, when we hold the community forum, the turnout of people coming along and engaging with us, that's a useful way to measure.

I think universities by their nature look to KPIs as a way to measure success in terms of our strategy. Again, that's really difficult to do with relationships and especially how long relationships take to build. So I think a lot of it comes down to the trust that people, senior leads at the university have in me.

of how we feel it's going on the ground and that's why it's so important to get out into the community. And I think I said earlier, you kind of started to feel this turning point maybe about a year ago of you not always having to go out to people, but actually people start coming to you and they start thinking of the university and they will introduce you to other people in their network. again, very difficult to measure, but I would say that

that's a really positive indication that people see value of the university in the area and trust that we're going to listen. And if there is a concern that that concern is going to be dealt with or at least addressed. So yes, it is quite challenging. I don't think I have a neat answer. We're producing an impact report that will sort of capture some of the activities. So that will potentially be a good way to be able to track.

Speaker 1 (21:02.922)
our growth, the National Civic Impact Accelerator. They've also created some resources that sort of help you to sense where you are in terms of your civic engagement, but that then needs to be taken down into the context of your area and brought to life through the activity that you're doing.

Speaker 1 (21:54.616)
think it's a really simple message that we are here for you, that we're constantly listening and we're improving what we do and we don't always get it right. And a really important part of our approach to engagement is transparency, that when something hasn't gone right, that we learn from that and we acknowledge that and we explain why it might not have gone right.

Our role is to fundamentally make the local area a better place to live. And we are doing more and more to get off the bubble of campus, out into the community and welcome people here. And we just love to talk to you. So if you're listening right now and you have an idea, you have a concern, you just want to learn more about the university, that's what we're here for. Come and talk to us.

I spend what feels like quite a bit of my life sat in front of teams. Let's take you around campus or show me your local area. Let's have a coffee and just remember that we're here for you and we really want to work together.