Wednesday, 12 January 2011

These are the people you need to know

Here's a tidy post from my friend Liz Ixer over on Harringay Online, rehashing this o.p. and suggesting seven ways to make your neighbourhood a better place. Liz makes the principles locally pertinent and weaves-in the role of the neighbourhood online network.

I see lists like this quite often, this one has the virtue of simple practicality and relative brevity. The headings are:

  1.    Plant something
  2.    Pick up litter
  3.    Get to know your neighbours
  4.    Find out who your government/local representatives are
  5.    If you see something, say something
  6.    Shop locally
  7.    Go for a walk.

And credit to the original poster, Sarah Goodyear, who makes this point under the heading 'Get to know your neighbours':

'If anything bad happens - a blackout, a flood, or worse - these are the people you need to know. It starts with hello.'

 

12 Jan 2011 15:59:07 | Neighbourhood relations

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
Stop press: government offers 'rant' funding There's a rather vague Cabinet Office news release today about funding opportunities in European Year of Volunteering. The further information section includes this exquisite sentence: 'rant funding is available for 5 civil society organisations or consortia of organisations'. Well, times are hard, and proof-readers an unthinkable luxury: or is it just that our government has taken pity on the hard-working voluntary sector whose people deserve a chance to let off steam and have a good moan? Or perhaps there's an impish official at work (in the Office for Civil Society? Stroll on). Enjoy it before they use some of the available funds to engage an Editorial Consultant to make the correction.
PREVIOUS POST
Searching for a culturally unifying notion Along comes a recession, and maybe the political advantage goes to the first to come up with a compelling and uniting conceptual framework. Except, 'big society' hasn't quite engrossed or convinced enough of us. OK keep thinking. Here's a new collection of papers (via Will Davies) about associational democracy, asking questions about approaches to governance and economics that can 'increase the flow of information, accountability, trust, inclusion, choice, as well as enable individual empowerment and freedom.' And noting in passing that part of the problem is that 'we have become too constrained by an individualised, abstract and largely economistic set of beliefs and practices. So how can we become more collaborative and human, to improve our wellbeing, increase the effectiveness of what we do and manage the processes and tensions of both desired as well as unavoidable change?' (More useful stuff about la vie associative and associationalism on the Infed site here). I wonder whether searching for some all-encompassing culturally unifying ensign is ever again likely to be fruitful. Where it seems to work in its own terms ('God Bless America') its consequences seem, er, questionable at best. Big society won't be the last ever attempt of its kind, because we humans don't give up so easily, but it could be that western civilisation has outgrown that sort of large-scale cohesion. Ah of course, what we need is a culturally integrating notion that accommodates the sense of cultural disintegeration (or diversity, if you prefer). 'Small society' could be a good starting point. Let's see what happens.

Kevin Harris

Search

My Other Accounts

Recent Comments