What is a ... community regeneration officer

What’s your day-to-day job?

My job is to work with residents and residents’ associations to get funding for any projects they want to do, which can be pretty varied. They might want grants to take people living in sheltered accommodation on day trips, for public green spaces or to give community groups access to computers.

It’s a threefold job: first, going out and talking to residents, finding out what they want to do; second, working up the bids and applying for projects; and finally, seeing the projects through – spending the money.

In recent months we’ve had grants from the lottery, the Countryside Agency, the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and Age Concern – a real variety.

Why did you choose this job?

I’ve never worked for a housing association before and it wasn’t really the housing aspect that interested me.

I’d worked for the Inland Revenue and local authorities on projects that were essentially monitoring other projects; I was on the other side of what I do now, checking how money for community projects was spent. I wanted to get involved in the actual projects, to be more hands-on and this certainly is.

Has it been what you expected?

This was a new post when I got here, so I’ve been able to mould it the way I like it. There wasn’t any kind of line to follow. It was a case of “run with it, see what happens”.

Is it stressful?

I recently took 20 kids on an adventure activity weekend. It took a good couple of days to recover

It can be very hard work and very strange hours, particularly when I’m working on the actual projects. For example, I recently took group of children away on a residential adventure activity weekend – 20 screaming kids for a weekend. It took me a good couple of days to recover from that.

What’s the best thing about the job?

It must be when you get that final nod of approval that you’ve been granted some money. You work with a group, they get an idea, then you get confirmation you can actually do the project.

… and the worst?

The flip side of the best thing: when you’ve done the work but you find out that you’re not going to get the funding.

What kind of person do you need to be?

You’ve got to be fairly easy-going and you’ve got to be able to get on with lots of people.

That’s what I like: meeting people from different areas and backgrounds, from children on the estates to elderly residents of sheltered homes. It’s a really wide range on a daily basis. If you’re the sort of person who likes to meet new people and really gets job satisfaction from that, it could be the job for you.

Quite often the people you’re working with are initially a bit dubious, then you win them over and they’re coming back for more. Finally they’re running off with their own ideas, getting stuff done off their own bat. That’s when you know you’ve done a good job.