Lucy Langdon

I recently attended an excellent workshop run by the Energy Saving Trust under their Green Communities umbrella, entitled Making it Happen. The day was hosted by Transition Town Brixton and took place in the ludicrously overheated Lambeth Town Hall.

I came away from the 7 hour session feeling invigorated and inspired. Here are a few highlights from what I learned:

• A community doesn’t always mean the same thing. The group presented several different definitions:
  • people living in a particular area
  • a group of people who share ethnic, cultural or religious characteristics
  • people who have common experiences
  • those who share a common goal or interest and communicate about it

My definition outlines what I’m looking for when I talk about community: “people who live locally to one another and have a vested interest in the overall wellbeing of friends and neighbours, and their shared environment”.

• If you want to ‘make a difference’, it’s vital to be able to break that down into an acheivable aim, within which sit SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed) and deliverable tasks. Reporting on the success of these tasks and objectives, will make the overall aim a lot more fun and rewarding to reach.
• Don’t assume that just because you’re not involved in your local community, there isn’t a thriving group of active people. I made this exact mistake. I was busy designing a poster to start a community action group in my neighbourhood when it occurred to me to do a quick google. I have since joined LJAG (Loughborough Junction Action Group) and am very much looking forwards to an upcoming photo exhibition- We Are Loughborough Junction.
• Take time to recognise skills in yourself and others. There’s a study that claims everyone falls mainly into one of the following three categories:
  • a maven: someone who knows a lot of factual information about a certain subject and is used by others as a sort of all-purpose reference point.
  • a connector: someone who excels at getting to know people and connecting up those with common interests
  • a salesperson: someone who loves to spread the word

  (I think there’s a risk here of putting people in boxes. Perhaps the solution is not to assume someone falls into one category at the expense of all the others, just that they excel at one in particular.)

• There’s a lot of information and support out there, if you know where to look. Here’s a list of resources:
  • Green Communities (from the EST) offers free support and advice via the community helpline (0844 848 0077) on any aspect of community-based sustainable energy projects. There’s also a community chest to cover small costs, and a range of free training courses (such as this one I’m writing about!). All the information you could ever need can be found on the Green Communities site.
  • A list of online resources for finding out more about your local community: the census, neighbourhood statistics, UpMyStreet, Fuel Poverty Indicator, the Centre for Sustainable Energy and your local CVS.
  • Funding options: the Government (European Structural Funding, Regeneration Funding, Health Funding), Lottery Funding, Charitable Trusts and Foundations (there are 8,000 in the UK!) and Private Sector Finance.

  The main lesson I took away with me was to think about what’s already happening within my community and to get involved without a personal agenda. I have green aims, but they’ll have to fit within the group’s existing wants and needs if they even stand a chance of succeeding.

  (Thanks to Jason Cartwright for the LJ image)

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to attend the LSX workshop on Behavioural Change in the Community. Excitements of watching the snow fall over London on the eighth floor of City Hall aside….I found the event useful and interesting.

My two highlights were talking to David Willians from Futerra, and listening to the main takeaway points from each London borough that attended.

First up, David:
Futerra are all about communicating climate change and they do it very, very well. I told David about my concerns that behavioural change will only come about through financial incentives (and my sadness that it should be so), but he had some heartening things to say. First off, change because of financial incentive is only a ‘weak’ change. For a permanent and complete shift in thinking, people have to have more invested in the concept than just their money. He convinced me it was entirely possible; it’s all about ‘Selling the Sizzle‘!

Secondly, borough takeaways:
Each borough was asked at the end of the workshop to give their main takeaway from the overall event. The message was loud and clear: the community has to be at least implicitly involved and at best, completely in control. I find it so exciting that the councils understand this. Lambeth (where I’m based), has an excellent Sustainability department and is just about to launch a round of low-entry, community group funding. Whoop!

This is really brilliant. Not in terms of saving the world, but lyrically and humorously superb!