Sunday

If the hat fits -and the t-shirt- and the money



A Draft set of Equality Principles that could benefit from your input:
  1. I endeavour to uphold  "your needs are as important as mine."*
  2. I endeavour to uphold that your time is as valuable as mine; which is a principle that underlies the practice of timebanking.
  3. I seek to develop the skill of recognising skills in others and nurturing them.
  4. I seek to share and to learn.
  5. I recognise that I am proud about some things that I believe I can do better than others.
  6. I strive to express my strengths in ways that lead into "constructive dialogue", rather than away from it.
What do you think about these equality statements?

*Old website : yourneedsequaltomine.wordpress.com


Here now is my Community Development Portfolio (which helped secure me a close second place out of 5 candidates for the Neighbourhood Enablers Team co-ordinator post (for which I didn't even apply, until I was asked to by those due to do the interviewing).

If you are keener to see a diverse group of people explaining how they got involved with the Community Development work led by Paul Crosland, this film shows the amazing synergy that began with the launch of "Hastings & St Leonards Action for Happiness". Mark Williamson, the national CEO of Action for Happiness visited us as "a leading local group" in September 2011; the circle process being facilitated by Paul Crosland in what has been hailed as "an exemplary style": And here's the Hastings Trust Mission, Vision and Strategy that I love and constructively question how it is being put into place:

Our Vision

Our vision is for Hastings to be a place of connected, creative and sustainable communities that people are proud to be a part of.
Our Mission


Our mission is to identify and create opportunities for people to work together,
improving the quality of local lives now and for the future.
We aim to deliver this through the following areas of activity:
A Asset acquisition, protection and development
• To provide a more secure financial future for [our] communities.
• To provide affordable, accessible and appropriate accommodation to enable more socially focussed organisations to operate for the good of the future regeneration of our communities.
• To contribute to the urban regeneration of the area through the improvement and redevelopment of underutilised properties.

B Routes out of poverty and worklessness
• To enable the community economic development of the area through provision of appropriate support and assistance which enables local people to become economically active and less reliant on state assistance, thereby improving quality of community and individual life.

C Community development and quality of life – arts, culture, heritage and environment
• To enable local people to have greater control over the fortunes of their communities, to work together for the common good, and to improve quality of community and individual life.
• To provide the right environment for environmental, cultural, heritage and arts development thereby enhancing the regeneration of the area, improving the local economy and improving quality of individual and community life.

All of which are underpinned by:

D Secure financial position, management team and governance
• To ensure that [we have the structures to] provide long term support to enable the social, economic and environmental regeneration of Hastings, St Leonards.

E Campaigning, lobbying and partnership working
• To ensure that [we] and the wider third sector, locally, regionally and nationally, is better equipped to provide all of the above for the common good, to enhance social, economic, cultural and environmental regeneration and thereby improve quality of individual and community life.


The key St Leonards Community Building Structure that I offer through the St Leonards Sharing Consortium is this set of objectives, which await your input.

Tuesday

Hastings & St Leonards Observer published letters and articles


For reference in Hastings & St Leonards, here are the Community Development pieces published  there so far:
And for those also interested in Community Development in India: 


Monday

A summer of fundraising for Pilgrims Hospices in the wake of my mum's death


Please go to the  fundraising page for Pilgrims Hospice which I have set up in memorium of my mum.
I hope to prove* that skilled use of blogging, twitter and YouTube is a valuable way to raise funds


*Part of my working life is as a freelance Social Media Consultant with Freelending CIC; who in turn pay Mediation Support Ltd, of which I am the sole director. In the last few months this Social Media work has been commissioned by Timebanking UK and by The Centre for Peaceful Solutions.

If you can see that your concerns might benefit from some tweaking of the social media you generate, then come to a workshop at the Southwater Area Community Centre or at your place on request. No money payable; I will value your skills equally to mine and trade an hour for an hour through "St Leonards Sharing" timebank.