Medrwn Môn is the County Voluntary Council for Ynys Môn. They provide advice and support to voluntary organisations and community groups in Ynys Môn and enable them to play a full and active role in developing their communities.  

Over the past decade they have changed their working practices to involve communities and individuals, in line with the aims and principles of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act 2015. 

Place Shaping 

Medrwn Môn’s approach comes through in their Place Shaping project. They conducted asset-based place shaping consultations with communities. The aim was to understand how communities looked at the present time in terms of buildings, green spaces, skills and knowledge, community groups and public services. Priorities for the local areas were also identified so that the communities had an explicit and recorded understanding of what needed to be done in the area. The intent was to provide a direction, but also so that the communities were better placed to articulate their needs to other bodies and services and provide better feedback and responses to changes in services and provision. 

The format of the consultation was to ask what worked, and what didn’t work in the communities, before going on to ask what the participants thought needed to change. 

The results were shared widely with service providers for the community, and a digest was published on Medrwn Môn’s website. 

Their case studies show how they have engaged with communities and community councils to give citizens a voice and can be seen by following this link to the Medrwn Môn website. 

For example:  

In the Bro’r Llynnoedd Alliance area (previously the Llifon Alliance- changes in boundaries have affected the electoral ward names), particularly the community of Valley, the main concerns centred on traffic and traffic management. Cyngor Môn and North Wales Police were invited to hear and understand the community’s concerns, and a forward plan was agreed. The community felt empowered for having been involved, and as part of delivering aspects of the action plan such as volunteering for the Speed Safety Project. 

At the Seiriol Alliance in the southeast of the island, local employment opportunities came through strongly in the initial place shaping consultation. As a small community organisation, the weren’t able to provide large scale employment opportunities, but they could be creative and resourceful. The Alliance worked in partnership with Canolfan Beaumaris to secure funding for an Intergenerational Development officer and a Local Asset Co-ordinator. They also worked to improve the conditions of home care workers by setting up a worker’s co-operative to provide care in their own communities using a framework created by the Alliance, Canolfan Beaumaris and Cyngor Môn. The document governing the co-operative agreement is one of the first in Wales and was launched by Vaughan Gethin. The news report covering thie launch of the co-operative agreement can be accessed by following this link. 

The Crigyll Alliance’s priorities can be seen through the local projects that received seed funding. The projects included promoting the local nursery provision by purchasing art resources. Funding was also given to wellbeing projects during the cost of living crisis where hampers were created for the most vulnerable in the community, and the local children were treated to a Christmas spirit event in collaboration with a local restaurant. This group have also set up a community bus scheme to back fill the loss in provision due to the cuts in service by Transport for Wales. Using the template of the agreement between Seiriol Alliance and the Canolfan, the Crigyll Alliance now employs a bus driver for 16 hours a week in partnership with Iorwerth Armas Bryngwran and the Bryngwran Good Turn Scheme.