- Are you an organisation with links and reach in your local community and have an interest in helping older people create new forms of media?

- Can you think out of the box and find creative novel solutions to promoting bespoke, credible content to tightly targeted audiences?

- Are you passionate about ensuring that marginalised voices get heard, allowing seldom seen groups to connect and communicate?

Our Subculture programme seeks to fund the creation and development of media projects themed around older people’s specific hobbies, activities and/or experiences.

It is vital that these projects combine diversity of outlook as well as diversity of experience and that the initiatives which this work creates should be sustainable by the older people who have developed them.

We are particularly looking for areas of interest not necessarily representative of a larger audience, but for which there are high levels of involvement and interaction on the part of select enthusiasts, followers or supporters. 

In this way, we aim to understand exactly what community media could look like if it is to reflect the real pastimes and preoccupations of older people in Greater Manchester and to genuinely help them to feel less socially isolated.

At the same time we are setting out to better understand how best to support people over 50 to create media projects, and the barriers which currently prevent them from doing so.

We want the provider to develop work which gives us a sense of what new community media might look like for older people in Greater Manchester. We are particularly interested in the use of different media approaches that help to encourage enthusiasts to create imaginative and original products. For example, there has been a long tradition of using zines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine (a fanzine or self-published themed magazine with a small circulation).

More recently podcasts have become a popular means for people to self-publish audio shows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast. These are just two approaches, for purposes of illustration and are not exclusive.

The work must be undertaken in at least three of the eight local authority districts in which Ambition for Ageing is operating: Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Tameside and Wigan (not Trafford or Stockport).

We welcome bids from partnerships where such an approach can provide clear additional value.

Contract length and value

The contract period is December 2018 to March 2020.

We will contract with the two providers who achieve the highest scoring bids, assuming there are no conflicts of interest.

Each provider will receive £50,000 over the 16 months of the contract.

Final deadline for submissions

12 noon, Wednesday 10 October 2018

Upcoming bidder event

GMCVO recommends that organisations interested in applying for this work attend the bidding engagement event. This will give prospective applicants the opportunity to learn more about the project principles, the delivery model and the approach GMCVO is looking for.

The event will take place at Manchester Art Gallery Lecture Room, Mosley St, Manchester M2 3JL – Monday 17 September 2018, 1pm - 4.00pm.

To book your place please click here

Full details of the guidance event for potential bidders can also be found on the Events section of the GMCVO website

To find out more

If you are interested in finding out more about bidding for this work, please go to our GMCVO website and register on the bidding portal