Having discussed community data all evening, group reporters update the room on actions agreed as a result
I don’t know where to start. It was so good. So ridiculously unexpectedly outrageously good.
‘Melksham Forward’ is all over Twitter this morning – what a great event, what great ideas, thanks to everyone who came etc, and in Melksham this morning within the first ten minutes here I’ve received piles of congratulations on the success of it, in the town hall, in the assembly hall, in the art house café, on the phone.
My talk was good. I feel silly for the amount of time I spent worrying and rewriting and rehearsing it. When I got up there I realised it wouldn’t work if I followed my notes and so I just winged it, which meant the bits that got said were the bits most prominent and powerful in my mind, which must be the point. My voice didn’t shake. I smiled. I didn’t say um. And I got across the power and potential of the partnership, the empowering possibilities of the plan, with the poise, posture and passion of a pretty professional person.
Ha.
I’d like to thank Mr Paul McKenna for being my mentor in the preceding days, for helping me with the breathing techniques that steadied my otherwise trembly voice. I scooped him up at Waterstones for a bargain at £11.99. Haircut, new dress and new shoes were not such a bargain, but all very necessary.
The partnership is tiny. It is a Steering Group of volunteers and me. People don’t understand us, appreciate us, but there we were, alongside Maggie Rae and the Wiltshire wide JSA, the document put together by 56 professionals and their teams, with us, and our document put together by me.
So I had to present it to carry as much weight, to convey that the thoughts and feelings of the community are equivalent in significance to the 8 Wiltshire authorities who made the JSA.
You’ve got to wear heels for that.
But the thing, the amazing bloody great fabulous thing is the response. The stuff that came out of it. The groups that sat and discussed the data, looked at the community priorities, contributed their thoughts, ideas, experiences – the room was abuzz with this energy, collaboration, community involvement and excitement. It was golddust to get all those people, with all those community minded powerful positive ideas, round the right tables, with all the necessary data, and to come up with some realistic and genuine and massively important projects for the community. This was the really very clever concept of community area partnerships, in action. People seemed surprised that it was so fruitful, I was like, of course! Surely this is what we have been needing to do all along. We did do exactly the same exercise on a really small scale last year, ‘theme dating’ we called it, go round the tables and discuss the issues. But this time it wasn’t just members of the public, this was a handpicked important audience of key key high up crucial people who can make decisions, influence policy, and quite usefully allocate funding for things that were identified as important.
I am genuinely, gigglingly excited and happy about the possibilities here for Melksham. I feel personally empowered, that 101 Melksham people sat and listened to me talk about the plan, appreciated the work I’ve done, and then added their intelligence and expertise to it. It seems like its finally worth it. I have been so on my own in this for months. And felt like I never had anything to show for it, like people didn’t get it, weren’t connecting, weren’t interested. But now I feel like we are all in it together, we are all on this same page, and the page is the ACTION plan of the community plan that I have been scribbling silently away at for ages and ages.
And in the summaries at the end, it was so obvious that of course everything links. Alcohol issues are significant for health, for youth, for economy, for community safety. Transport is crucial for employment, youth, health, economy… the things that exist – the Melksham news, the schools, the groups, the people who are already working so hard, we are all working along the same lines really, just in our separate little boxes. Coordinate that effort and you have a powerful community.
I’m the coordinator.
If I had a team, my God. So much would be done.
If I win the lottery, absolutely what I’d set up is a team, a community partnership team, with a huge shiny office and a fabulous reception area for people to come into, and staff who take care of the volunteer department, the communications office, PR, web design, graphics, events, networking….. each of these could be a full time role. Oh please someone give me the funding to replace this 15 hours a week post with ten, twenty full time posts.
Anyway, for now, we carry on with the limited resource we have. Limited, but full of enthusiasm, concern and dare I say it love.
I feel like giving Melksham a big hug. I feel like it gave me a big hug yesterday – Graham was actually going round taking pictures of people hugging, what a great idea. I feel, can I even say this, that I am in love with Melksham. It is the same buzzy excited giddy positive sense of possibility and happiness that you get when you fall in love. Probably the same set of endorphins triggering the same neurological pathways of security, significance and success that are hardwired into your brain for survival, but still, there it is.
Connecting to your community, belonging, and making a difference. All very motivating things for the survival instinct. And if everyone else there last night is feeling it, then we have such a wealth of stuff to work with here.
Either way, very happy.
Need to keep hold of all this and gather up all the data and get the work done and keep it going.
Myriad 