Blink and you miss it… time that is…
I have been conscious that I haven’t been keeping up with my blog at the rate I had intended. I left us “Thinking Big!” about our way out of the COVID19 Crisis and I was away to spend my energies on developing the paper we had been discussing, “The Route Map for Community Participation in the Recovery Phase”. I am delighted to tell you that the paper has been written and is now out there promoting our cause to anyone who is listening. I will talk more about this in my following blog.
So why so long no talk?
In the words of Chumbawumba’s Tubthumping, “I get knocked down…” I don’t know about you but the “…get up again” is becoming a little more challenging these days.
I consider myself to be made of strong stuff and have the ability to bounce back with vigour no matter what life throws my way, but I have to admit to flailing in the wind a little at the moment.
October through to mid-November last year saw me investing enormous amounts of energy in orchestrating the delivery of Aberdeenshire’s first Third Sector Week. We had to create a quite different week than was originally planned to move to a fully digital offering. I am grateful for the support and assistance of our Creative Team formed from our Third Sector Strategy Group, as together we pulled off an amazing week of content promoting the value of the Third Sector across Aberdeenshire. The Route Map paper was ready, and this too was launched during the week.
In an ironic twist of fate or perhaps just bad timing that same week I learn of significant cuts to our core funding. Possibly driven by my commercial background which proffers rewards and returns on hard and smart work, I had genuinely believed that the time and energy spent doing a “damn good job” would secure our future. The nods and the agreements with the messages promoted through the Route Map made me believe there was an awakening and a real understanding that spend on Anchor Organisations such as ours are an investment and we are considered an asset creating the building blocks of community resilience and capacity… gosh aren’t we seeing this now in the community response to the pandemic? We are almost a year on and volunteers are still the main drivers in many communities tackling food poverty, loneliness and isolation!
Obviously, this news is disappointing especially as the message is that communities will be approached to do more, and this will require support – support from Anchor Organisations to help build community capacity and resilience – support for communities to revive, recover, adapt, and thrive once again.
I am not blogging this to lambast those who have to make incredibly difficult budgetary decisions – it is what it is… but it tells me loud and clear that we have still a way to go before the accepted ideology of Community Empowerment and all its facets translate into meaningful practice. As we emerge from this pandemic, we have the opportunity to try real transformational social approaches. The question is: are we all brave enough to make the changes needed to replicate the examples of good practise to normal practise?
I have much more to say on the shift in the balance of power but I will wind up this post with a link to a short film I created to capture the emotional journey that has been 2020.