Questions and answers

If the answer to your question about the project isn't on this page, please contact us using one of the methods below.

What is the Thatcham Vision project?

The project is developing a picture of the future of Thatcham which will influence decisions about the town and drive actions aimed at achieving improvements.  (Click here to go to our interviews page where you can listen to the project management team talking to John Stratford from Kick FM about the Vision.)

What is the point of the project?

Never before have people in Thatcham been asked to think about what their town should be like in the future, so decisions have been taken without the benefit of an overall picture of where the town should be headed.  That has to change.

Is this being run by the council?

No – the project is receiving lots of support from the local councils and councillors, but the project is led by local residents via a steering committee. 

What kinds of topics will the vision cover?

It’s likely to cover everything from the provision of services like doctor’s surgeries and schools through to transport, shopping and making the most of our natural environment and heritage.  Visit our  Hot Topics page to find out more.

How can I do that?

By getting involved.  There are lots of ways in which you can do that.  The simplest thing you could do would be to talk to us, when you see members of the vision team around and about.  Or you can visit the ‘Ideas’ page for more information about the questions which we’re asking and ways of thinking about them.

What else is there to do?

We need volunteer helpers to assist with many aspects of the project, from helping us to run a variety of exercises with people in Thatcham through to analysing what’s going on elsewhere, developing this website, typing-up the views and information we collect and so on.  There’s a lot to do.  Whether you can spare just a couple of hours or would like to get involved more heavily, we’d be delighted to hear from you.  See below for details of how you can contact us.

I hear that you have a ‘Blog’ and a ‘Wiki’.  What are they?

The blog (short for weblog) and the wiki are two separate websites which are linked to this one but do different jobs for us.  

You can think of this site as our online brochure, the blog as a newsletter and the wiki as a reference book.  

This site explains what the project involves, how we are working and what we need from you to make this a success.  

The blog (or weblog) contains news items, links to and comments on similar projects elsewhere and general reflections on issues which are relevant to the vision.

We are using the wiki - a special kind of website which visitors can change themselves - to publish the results of our consultation exercises, capture the results of the thinking which is being done by the Hot Topic Teams and, very shortly, publish statistics and other information which is relevant to the project.  The wiki, then, is a record of work in progress on the Vision and it will start growing rapidly early in 2006. Using the wiki in this way enables anyone who is interested to see what's going on and also provides an excellent collaborative working tool for those involved in the project.

One of the reasons we're using blogs and wikis, as well as this site, is that they are very easy to update and amend.  For example, it's possible to add an item to the blog just by sending an email - the software that runs the blog picks up the email and posts the title and the content automatically.  The wiki (the lowercase initial is intentional, by the way) can also be updated and developed online using an ordinary web browser.  It's also worth noting that the blog and the wiki are both provided free.  If you'd like to start your own, visit www.blogger.com and www.wikicities.com respectively.

(For those who are interested, we're actually using eight separate websites to support the project at present : if you'd like details drop us a line.)

If you have any other questions you'd like us to answer, please email them to us via the link below.