We would be very interested to hear your comments on this ‘blog’ as a way of sharing the notes and learning from the two day conference. Pleas let us know how you have found it helpful, or if you have had any problems using the site or finding information. We will try and respond to suggestions or comments as appropriate, or bear them in mind when designing future blog-sites like this.
Thank you for your comments.
Tags: Adur, Community Development, Worthing
I think thiis is excellent and how that we can all learn how to use it as an on-going tool. In this way our liaison will be on-going and will take place in between meetings. This is my definition on an “active network” – the measure is what takes place between meetings, and the more fluid the dialogue the better.
Hence people should add to this site whenever the mood takes them, and whilst the ideas are fresh in their minds.
Hi all,
I agree with Adrian, this web way of compiling an Event Report as it continues to be a ‘living’ thing.
I trust the CDSE contribution was a stimulus to develop this network and indeed work across Adur & Worthing.
More event being prepared so look forward to meeting some or all of you soon.
John Stevens
CDSE Co-ordinator
How about something on here about the work Southlanders are doing and their coming event?
Adur Voluntary Action are wanting to publish a guide to Living in Adur for residents and newcomers, but we need people to help us. Any ideas anyone>
See The Deckchair Guide to Brighton (http://www.queensparkbooks.org.uk/courses/inprint.html?p=3) couldn’t we produce something a tiny bit like this for Adur?
A further suggestion: could people give some thought to making a list of all the distinct Adur communities?
By communities, I mean groups of people who share a particular common bond, and who meet in person or electronically, pursuing their interest and activities, or supporting one another as a group. Whilst clubs and societies fit into this, I am particularlly interested in local and less formal networks.
Te website is a good idea and I hope that all groups will use this resource
I can think of six distinct community development initiatives linked to localities that are taking place in Adur now or starting up:
Leconfield Project and work around there
Southlanders’ projects
Fishersgate developments
Chesham House (Lancing) developments
Mash Barn work
Shoreham Harbour proposed development
Please add to this list! Everything that is happening should feature on this site.
It’s the place, stupid!
The time is overdue for a big conversation about the future for Adur’s voluntary organisations, community associations and the whole patchwork of life that can make our small towns vibrant and interesting places. We’re a long, narrow, strung-out kinda place, without one focus, and parcelled up by roads, railways, and the natural dividers of South Downs and Sea. Some would say, a sandwich between Brighton and Worthing – but the filling makes us a great place – a part of Sussex, with our own history and individuality.
There are people who feel its backward-looking, narrow, Little Englandish, not cost-effective or even xenophobic to point to our rootedness in places. I heard it described at one “infrastructure development” meeting I attended as “playing the local card”, as if it were all one big game. On the contrary: to belong somewhere (and to be aware of this) is likely to strengthen people’s respect for community distinctness everywhere. We all have a right to belong, and the structure of our local government reflects this, as do our networks of small businesses and voluntary associations.
So what’s going wrong? In short, government’s money is not where its mouth is, the EU is adding to the problem, and doesn’t the banking crisis just say it all? Whilst we hear routine platitudes about the importance of “civil society” and “local engagement”, the latent pull is towards bigger organisations, short-term initiatives, and intense competition for funding. And it’s not just government: many big national, regional and some local charities are into the game. The name of the game? If it was poker, I’d feel I had a chance! But its chase the contracts, mouth the words, move on fast and stuff the place.
Local voluntary groups, by contrast, are often rooted in time, culture, sense of locality and what I call “folk history”. This means that they know their places, have long memories and the capacity to learn from experience. They are close to local needs, and can work to meet these opportunistically and over time: if one resource dries up, we can work together to open up others, ducking and diving but knowing what our long-term goals are. Sounds different, does it not, to the government style: chuck money at a perceived political problem, make people fight each other against long odds to win a small share of a small pot, pull out after a couple of years (leaving it to the local authorities to pick up the tab from within the Council Tax revenue, which they are not expected to increase)? Hmm… there must be a better way.
There is. Our message to the local public sector is – think holistically, think creatively, work with local people. Look for opportunities within UK and EU law to achieve this. Plan broadly for added value, and expect to find a varied local picture, different ways of getting where we want. And don’t keep pigeon holing everything – use more verbs and fewer nouns, so we talk about processes. The nonsense-on-stilts obsession with performance measurement, the rigmarole of “outputs” and “outcomes” needs to be balanced by much more sensistive – and yes, political – awareness of the processes that are taking place in our communities. We need to tolerate diversity, and only impose uniformity when there is no other way.
I failed recently to win two grants. The first was because AVA is technically a Council for Voluntary Service (although that’s only one part of our role). Duh. The second – get this – was to provide support to offenders experiencing mental ill health. It so happens that we prefer mixed groups, and to offer services to the local community, so we don’t label anyone, trying to place those experiencing exclusion within generic groups. Sorry AVA, responded my user-friendly funder (as they go), if you want our support they need to be diagnosed, labelled, badged, treated and churned out as output statistics. Double-duh.
Seriously, the biggest barrier to a good Adur Volunteer Centre is the monopolistic ownership of the brand by Volunteering England, and the mind-knumbing,controlling bureaucracy of accreditation. “There is no wealth”, wrote Ruskin, “but life”. Volunteering and voluntary action are freely chosen parts of the lives of people active in local communities. Volunteering England – get a life!
And there is so much confusion around “public service delievery”, “not-for-profit”, “social enterprise”, “voluntary action”, “community development” and “voluntary sector capacity building”. The “voluntary sector” is only one part of the local community. Voluntary action in civil society is about moe than service delivery. The provision of an externally managed and controlled “local service” in someone else’s locality usually does little for local community development or for development of the voluntary sector. Neither does it normally do much for the local economy: at worst, it siphons out both cash and community engagement. A social enterprise can mean something or (almost) nothing, in so far as it relates to the local community.
So these are some reasons why in AVA, we start with real people and communities, and end up there too. Our priorities are for community (not “VCS”) development, and for voluntary action and volunteering (not “public service provision”). Yes, we recognise that everything overlaps, but this is our baseline, here is our starting point.
Yet there is hope. Here in Adur and Worthing, the local authorities are talking about community development and how we can work together to make a reality of it. That’s great, there’s a lot of good will, and we’re getting skilled outside help from Community Development (SE) and Planning Aid. Health Promotion getting a higher proflile from the Primary Care Trust, and there are honest efforts to draw communities into the dialogue. The discussion channels are open with the local and health authorities about how voluntary action can best be supported. The voluntary sector is talking across the County, Trustees meeting (often for almost the first time) and sharing thoughts. It’s hard learning, we’ve lost some, and everyone’s short of resources. But there’s a chance to build a new model that breaks the moulds and says (and does) something important about West Sussex and its communities. A chance really to invest in our places – because no-one else can be guaranteed to do so, and because the present system is just as likely to disinvest.
But we need to wise up, peer around the blinkers, and move fast to counter the rapid rapid siphoning away of the life blood of local voluntary action. It’s the place, stupid.
Adrian Barritt
Adur Voluntary Action
July 2009
Would it be possible to integrate a page like this into our own website, so that people can post things onto it? Our could this page become our “community development” page, with a link from our site?
OK we’ve done it now, see http://www.adurvoluntaryaction.org and click on “blog” . Thanks Dhara for the wordpress link