Ask any sailor and they’ll tell you that the state of the tide is very important.  Pick the right moment to set out, and the tide will help you along the way. Pick the wrong moment, and everything gets much harder.  This is not a matter of setting out or not, it’s just that it’s much easier at certain times than others.

I think that the same applies to our work as micro-local community builders with Village In The City.  It’s not just a matter of having good ideas and the Skills to connect with people and make things happen. There are clearly times which are more (or less) opportune to get something going.

We discussed this at the February 2022 Village Builders call on Village In The City.  People from Austria, Bulgaria, Portugal and the UK came together online for our monthly learn, share and support session.  This topic was on the agenda (which we put together at the start of the call so everyone has the opportunity to bring a topic), and it led to a lively discussion.  Everyone thought that timing was a factor, and we shared things which might be signs that the tide is favourable or not for community building work.

Times in the year

The seasons of the year bring natural opportunities.  Here in Scotland, it’s no use trying to get people’s attention around Christmas with something new – they are all thoroughly taken up with family and other events.  (Of course, you can use Christmas time as a good reason to have a community event/get-together – but you have to organise it well in advance!) Where I am in  Edinburgh, August brings the Edinburgh Festival, the world’s biggest arts festival.  Our neighbours are either spoilt for choice about things to do, or have left town for the month to avoid the rush. Not a great time to be proposing new initiatives.

Academic timetables

One participant was a TEDx organiser who said that the academic year had a similar pull/push factor.  A lot of his volunteers were students, and so doing things within term time (and avoiding exam periods) was important.

National days and festivals

This is another factor which can work in both directions. National days and other holidays can be a good reason to get together – or they can take up peoples’ attention with other things.  Again, probably best to get things moving well before hand.

Crises and emergencies

We have all just seen how the COVID pandemic has brought about changes in the ways we interact in our neighbourhoods.  There can be other emergencies too – a flood, loss of electric power, catastrophic storm damage – any of which can be a good spark for community action.  Rallying round our neighbours in a crisis is an excellent way to make progress, and it needs to happen quickly. Or maybe if there’s an emergency somewhere else, you can rally your community to go and support (like this Sikh community from the Midlands went to the South West of England to help following huge floods in 2014).

Generational factors

Different age groups can be engaged and energised at different times.  School students may be more open to things when they are on holiday.  New parents can be in need of support and connection when their babies are on the way.  Older people may want to come together to remember events from the past.  And of course there can be cross-overs between these things (like the partnerships between Care homes and nursery schools) which seem to benefit everyone.

One of our members related this idea of timing to farming. “There are times to plant, and times to let the land lie fallow.” Another related it to the 16^th century Protestant reformer Martin Luther, who said “where your attention is, there is your strength”.

What do you see as good (or bad) signs that the time is right to get new things going in your community?  Please comment below!

Village In The City offers a free online community on the Mighty Networks platform, open to all who or engaged or interested to create better micro-local community in your own area. It’s free, we hold events and calls, there are short courses, and it’s a great way to be part of a bigger group of skilled and enthusiastic Village-Builders all over the world. Please join us now.

Out today – a new podcast from Village In The City featuring Cormac Russell! 

Cormac Russell is a passionate advocate for bottom-up community development, carried out BY citizens for their own communities. He is a long-term expert in Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), and says that finding and building ‘what’s strong’ is vital in dealing with ‘what’s wrong’. Who gets to decide what the priorities are? What is the role of outside professionals and experts? And how can this make communities which are not only stronger but also more democratic and empowered?

We are thrilled that Cormac agreed to join us at Village In The City for a lively call. He is a genuine international star, and his new book Rekindling Democracy has been making waves around the world. This promises to be an exceptional call, with Cormac’s passion for asset-based action meeting Village In The City’s Mark McKergow’s three decades in Solution-Focused change and host leadership.

Cormac speaks about the importance of bottom-up community building, relationships with institutions and professionals, and answers questions from participants. The call was recorded in December 2020.

This podcast presents material from my talk with Rev Nick Bowry, Rector of St James The Less in Penicuik near Edinburgh in Scotland.

Churches have long held a role in building community – but what kind of role can they play in an inclusive and broadly secular world?

Village In The City is all about building micro-local communities to enhance the lives of everyone in the neighbourhood, which may include one or more churches. Village In The City values inclusivity – so how are we to think about, and work with, churches which may appear to be there mostly for their congregations and followers? Village In The City founder Mark McKergow is joined by Rev Nick Bowry, rector of St James the Less Episcopal Church in Penicuik and St Mungo West Linton near Edinburgh in Scotland. Nick has been a supporter of our project since its inception and is actively engaged in community building in the town of Penicuik.

We discussed how village-builders might engage with churches and ministers, what they are interested in, and how they might be invited to help in a more general effort at creating micro-local communities and connection. It can seem a little daunting, what with the robes, collars and so on.

Nick has an interest in asset-based community development and strength-based approaches to change, in social justice, peace and creation. He was ordained in 2016, and is a member of the Iona community.

Listen and download the podcast at https://shows.acast.com/village-in-the-city/episodes/episode-5-engaging-with-churches-with-rev-nick-bowry, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I am very excited to be featured on the Kindness Chef podcast with Harpal Dhatt. We talked about the importance of hosting and welcoming strangers, and at the end of the podcast I reveal a new ‘recipe’ (requested by Harpal) for how to welcome strangers into our lives – for the better. Do give it a listen!

How welcoming are our communities – really? How can we make neighbourhoods welcome ready – whether that’s for people from the next neighbourhood or folk arriving from around the world? These are some of the questions addressed by Nigel Gann in our latest video call on Hospitable Communities.  Nigel leads the Lichfield chapter of the City of Sanctuary movement, and he is working with the citizens and local government of this (mostly) resolutely white place to build more of a welcome for newcomers.  With refugees arriving from Syria and Afghanistan as well everyday movements of people around the country, this is a challenge in which we can all play a part. Watch the video now.

You can also join our community where we’re discussing this topic (and others) in our online community and during our monthly Village-Builder calls. Open to all, free to join.

As regular readers may know, as well as hosting and leading Village In The City I am also engaged in building my own neighbourhood community here in Edinburgh’s West End. As you can read in Part 1 and Part 2 of this occasional diary, we have had some good success in growing our online connection; our Facebook group has grown from 19 members to 1100 over the past year. thanks to leafleting, hard work in behind-the-scenes moderation and building a small team of Facebook admins who support each other.  However, due to the lockdown restrictions it hasn’t been possible to actually get people together face-to-face – until now.

Another difficulty in setting up a group gathering in the pandemic is the lack of public space and outdoor meeting places. In community building circles these are called ‘bumping places’ – spaces where people can not only meet and talk but also bump into one another in unplanned and spontaneous ways.  We have lots of lovely cafes here in the West End but they tend to be rather small and cosy, with very narrow pavements outside which limit outdoor possibilities.

Then, in mid-July 2021, arrived the Don’t Tell Mama coffee stall outside St Mary’s Cathedral, on a grassy area normally used mostly for dog-walking. It was the cathedral’s initiative, and the Greek owners of their coffee shop in Tollcross stepped forward. They clearly invested in the site, with a booth, wooden seating, flowers, umbrellas/sun shades and so on.  It’s a wonderful addition to our neighbourhood, where people can come, meet, chat, bump into one another, see each other, all in an outdoor safe setting.  And Stathis and his team serve up excellent coffee, spanakopita (savoury pastries) and brownies to Westenders, dog walkers, people have earnest chats and those just enjoying the Edinburgh summer.

Our team of Facebookers had a chat and decided to announce a Westenders Sunday Get-together, just to invite folks along to meet each other, buy a coffee if they wished and start to make face-to-face contact.  After a couple of gloomy Sundays when the weather didn’t play ball, we finally went for it on Sunday 22 August. About a dozen Westenders turned out, we all made badges with our names and streets, and chatted for about an hour and a half. A modest gathering for sure, but a start!  Those who came (who had lived in the West End for anything from 4 weeks to 15 years!) all enjoyed it, said how useful it was to have community connection online and also to have a chance to ‘meet the neighbours’.

The cafe is only open during the summer (understandably), and we are planning another get-together in September to take advantage of the facility.  It’s a real boon to the neighbourhood, offering a different way to meet and a different kind of space for us to enjoy our wonderful surroundings.  I hear that the cathedral are having problems with getting planning permission to do it again next year. I hope very much that we can rally around and help convince the council that it’s not just another cafe but a really vital addition to the area over the summer months.