Delicious food from cooks Alain, Naseem, Mirela and Rosie went down at treat. Colin and Wendy put together a fascinating presentation which celebrated the Sneinton community's track record in protecting and enhancing the neighbourhood, from resisting a location of the "fourth Trent crossing" that would have created a flyover crossing parts of Sneinton, to digging out the Hermitage Caves, proposing the Greenway nature walk, commissioning the Sneinton Dragon and ensuring the future of Sneinton Market. 

Following on from the inspiration of past successful action, Tom used a projected interactive Google Map to build a picture of people's favourite spots in Sneinton, and where they could see improvements being made. A number of comments were also collected in response to the question 'What makes Sneinton special now and for the future?' This snapshot of Sneinton's unique qualities will be an important part of developing the Neighbourhood Design Vision, which will help to preserve the good things we already have while improving and developing for the future.

Talking of the future, Farida ran two 'visioning' sessions in a specially decked-out side room, where soft cushions and chairs and glowing lights created a relaxing atmosphere for people to imagine a positive future for their street, their regular journey through the area, and a place that they frequently visit. Using an imaginary time machine to whisk us into the year 2020, Farida helped us to imagine how great the neighbourhood could be. 

She also pointed out that many of the things we imagined would require careful design of our streets and buildings- for example if we imagined more people stopping on the street to chat to their neighbours, this would mean providing comfortable places to rest and shelter, like porches on houses. Imagining sunshine and warmth would mean careful design of buildings to make sure that there were sheltered south-facing spaces without overshadowing from tall buildings.

The ideas collected from all these activities will now be used by the Sneinton Vision team to develop a draft Neighbourhood Design Vision, which will be put out for further consultation and comment in early 2012. Given the excellent comments and ideas received so far it promises to be a strong statement about the future that Sneinton wants to help create.