| Topic: | Re:Good luck and Kind weather on Clean Up Thursday 28th June 10am to 1pm meeting at Goddards Corner | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 20/06/12 15:52:00 |
| The purpose of events of this kind is to garner a sense of co-operation, community and social responsibility and their strength is in the way they pull together all the different agencies and interest groups - police, council (members and officers), residents' associations, civic and amenity groups, faith organisations - in a common endeavour. They are good for locale morale and a superb vehicle for community cohesion. Sometimes Payback teams are also involved and this helps to instill them with a sense of belonging to a wider community as well of course as putting them to good practical use. When I was Lead Member for Community Safety at LBH I had the honour of overseeing several of these initiatives in different parts of the borough. They were well received almost everywhere by residents who understood their ethos and appreciated the efforts of all those volunteers who gave of their free time to do something to try to improve their local environment, albeit in a very small and admittedly tokenistic way. Interestingly the exception was Chiswick, where having learned of our activity several locals came immediately onto the W4.com forum and proceeded to demand a Council Tax refund as they believed they should not be paying for such services if volunteers from other parts of the borough were prepared to do it for them for free! If I can get the time off work I will certainly be supporting this activity, and I have no hesitation in urging others to do so too. |