From Halifax to healthy facts...

Another mega-mixed bag of Community Linking this week. Most prominent in my mind is the meeting I've just had with StreetInvest, a Twickenham based international charity. I heard how three brave and inspirational (read: lovely but slightly barmy) chaps intend to do a trans-Canadian bike ride in 13 days as a fundraiser. That’s nearly 300 miles a day. Many of us in the room were struggling to comprehend the feat, let alone consider the commitment to training to achieve it. Good luck to them (apparently everyone says this, sounding a little sceptical!). I'm sure this blog will feature news of their progress in the future, especially as the charity want to work locally with organisations in the borough.

We didn't meet Richard this week.

An eon before this (well, Monday) I met with a resident who I felt exemplified the kind of person we'd like to meet more often. She has a great idea, an overflowing caldera of passion, and I feel she has hit on something that will do well in the borough. Elsewhere she would be called a 'social entrepreneur' - a Richard Branson-esque figure where profit is community benefits, and everyone is a shareholder.

For the remainder of the post, I hand over to Mamta Khanna, for her account of some training she undertook this week:

We did meet Mamta though...

I was privileged to participate in Richmond’s LiveWell Community Health Champion training run by Richmond CVS and the Hounslow and Richmond Community Health Trust. I say privileged because I was struck by the commitment from my co-participants: all regular people who, out of an interest in reaching out to others within their community, were committed to building their knowledge and skills.  

We explored public health and came to what I consider the core of the training: understanding and addressing health inequities. Richmond, one of the richest boroughs in London, has children living in poverty. Life expectancy in certain village areas in the borough is less than in the more affluent areas. What has Community Links got to do with health, specifically health inequality?  This definition gave me clarity:

“The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organised efforts of society.” (Definition of Public Health, Sir Acheson, 1988)

Improving public health is about society organising its efforts to bring good to all within it. If that isn’t community linking, then what is? Responding to health inequities requires science empowered by the art of encouraging change within people. Community Links practices this art and can be part of the solution to address inequity: engaging people and groups, igniting their connections with where they live and with those around them, and encouraging them to reach out to opportunities to improve their health and overall well-being. I am excited about working with the Health Champion volunteers to link up residents to opportunities.

Thanks Mamta! Hearing about Mamta’s experience made me re-read an article from the Evening Standard, on the Government’s ‘nudge unit’, or Behavioural Insights Team. I love the idea of this, although I know some people find it uncomfortable as it can be seen as manipulative. I don’t think we’re talking the same league here for Community Links (or perhaps we are...? Comments below...), but through our brokerage and linkages, we can support small, positive adjustments and improvements to local activity, through positive methods. From this, I think we all have benefits to gain. 

By the way, is that ANOTHER biscuit you are reaching for....?

A vision of the future...?

“The future is not an inheritance, it is an opportunity and an obligation.” Bill Clinton

Perhaps it’s a little brave (and embarrassingly cliché) to use a politician’s quote to start this post, but I was really attracted by the opportunity and obligation that ‘Teflon Bill’ refers to here. It is particularly relevant to our activities this week. The team has been a part of some great examples of local people and groups making the most of opportunities to improve their areas for future generations.

Prince Charles approves...

I have been attending the Prince Charles endorsed Enquiry by Design Ham Close visioning events. There is a huge opportunity for Ham on the table through our Uplift programme, so it’s worth spending time on getting it right. I’d describe the process as being a little slow ,but very authentic. ‘Slow’ may sound critical, but (and I do love a terrible analogy) for me it was like instant vs. fresh brewed coffee - both are coffee, but one is simply better. 

What I mean is that, whilst slower, taking this participatory approach gets a better result for the community. Whatever the outcome from the process, it has been thorough and I've heard some really interesting things about Ham's history, present concerns and ideas for the future. The outcomes will be grounded (no coffee pun intended) in grassroots, local input.

Lynette has been involved in similar things in Barnes. She told me it was great to see so many local residents turn up to support the Barnes Ponder Community Meeting on Monday evening.  Lots of great ideas were formed on how to take the Ponder outcomes forward, including suggestions of having a sensory garden in one of the parks.  She’s really looking forward to working with Emma and the Barnes Town Team, the Barnes Community Association and local residents to turn their ideas in a reality.

I’ll finish with a suggestion for any people involved in community engagement to read a blog post from Kate Goodall. Quite amusing, and top tips to remember when we are asking people what they want. It can be a dangerous, and misleading question! 

http://kategoodall.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/cogitation-cogitation-cogitation/

(Thanks to Tom in our comms team for the link to this… I’ve always thought it was a cog.)

What exactly is volunteering...?!

This seemingly simple question often pops in to my mind, especially when the Community Links Team are out and about, talking to the myriad people doing good things around the borough. Once again I found myself pondering this after talking with ArtsRichmond this morning. There are many interpretations and definitions; Google nails it down quite well with "working for an organization without being paid."

However, it is this sense of 'work' that often gets the term in to trouble. The evocative image of gap year students building schools in Africa resonates with most people as volunteering, and certainly has 'work' at its core. 

However, what about those people that give up hours of their life to run groups, activities and events for others because it's something they just enjoy doing? This has a sense of work though, as there are duties, responsibilities, often timescales to meet etc..

The real dilemma comes when we think about the people that attend these groups and activities. As a Community Link Officer, I might invite residents to come along to a public session to discussion solutions for a community issue. Unpaid, yet they are giving up their time to provide their knowledge and understanding to help achieve a goal. Yet, how many people see that as a form of volunteering? Volunteering England have a broader, yet more detailed definition which starts to capture this:

any activity that involves spending time, unpaid, doing something that aims to benefit the environment or someone . . . other than . . . close relatives. Central to this definition is the fact that volunteering must be a choice freely made by each individual. This can include formal activity undertaken through public, private and voluntary organisations as well as informal community participation.

So, I guess we could start to include lobbying and campaigning as volunteering. No final answers today it seems!

2014 came crawling in, wet and windy.

It was a slow, wet, windy week last week - colleagues returning from their Christmas break, groups and organisations getting to grips with the year ahead.

We stumbled across a familiar issue - finding decent sized, affordable rooms for community groups and charities to use. We were asked by SWLEN if we knew of any spaces they might use for a 1st Aid training session they have scheduled, on a weekend. Quite a challenge in our borough - which is bountiful with talent and enthusiasm, but finding places to let that flourish is difficult. Ham Library's new space and Whitton Youth Centre are excellent examples of what we could do with more of. Perhaps we need to speak nicely to local businesses about what spaces they may have that are not being used on weekends that the community might be able to make use of?

I had a bit of a Twitter 'moment' on the Monday. With all the terrible flooding and constant wet weather it's quite timely that the Council is currently running a consultation on it's flood defence strategy. I was going to tweet a link to it... but when is the right time? People are definitely thinking about such things, but to be asked what they think of such things when family and friends are at risk of flooding seems insensitive. Moments before tweeting, I decided against it. Perhaps this blog post will serve to highlight the survey in a more tactful way?

Thursday and Friday were busier - we supported two stakeholder invovlement events for Whitton and Heathfield, and Kew. All part of the next stage of Village Planning. Some interesting conversations around some now familiar concerns. This includes 'what to do for young people'? Hopefully answers to this question can be found in the coming months.

New Years Resolutions, Repetitions and Revolutions

And we're off! 

Richmond Upon Thames' Community Links team are now blogging. We wanted to be able to let people know about our work in a new way, and we hope any readers or fellow bloggers enjoy what we post here. This first blog has been oh-so-wittily titled to reflect the time of year in which we are launching our contribution to web.

Resolutions? We have agreed to get out and find more people with brilliant ideas for their community, who only need to know who to talk to, or where to access support.

Repetitions...? As well as the new resolutions, we want to keep doing what we've done so well in the last year - keeping in touch with people, groups and organisations who are already doing great things within the borough.

Revolutions?! A little less Che Guevara, and a little more James Dyson - looking for new and different ways in which we can go about our business. Such as writing a blog about our activities, thoughts and reflections on Community Linking in the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames.

We look forward to working more with the brilliant people of Richmond throughout 2014.


John, Lynette and Mamta.