Think Long-Term

Last week I addressed an 'A' Level Citizenship course at Oaklands College, St Albans on community involvement. We looked at the why and what and how of community work, identified areas each student could get involved in locally, and discussed community cohesion and social capital. The advice I gave them was:

• get involved, but don't let it take over your life
• enroll others, but understand their interest and commitment will vary
• recognise projects have cycles
• think ahead and plan for the project to continue without you

The following day I was helping at the youth club, set up as part of the Creating Safer Communities for All project in Leighton Buzzard, and was given the opportunity to practise what I had preached. The youth club had had a good first year, but then two of the five founding volunteers had moved on and it had taken a while to recruit some more. We just thought it was sorted, when changes in personal circumstances of three of the new volunteers meant they were unavailable. Also the mum who'd taken on the leadership of the club was getting tired. Her partner, wanting to protect her, was all for her packing it in. My view was rather than getting despondent, we needed to make it more manageable, get more people involved, make a rota to reduce the burden and train people to take over.

So that's our plan. And on the first night of the new rota, a mum came by and said she wanted to get involved. A couple of days later a friend told me about her 16-year-old sports-mad stepson who is great with younger kids, but needed some focus. She's going to talk to him about helping out.

Considering these good omens I think it's going to turn out fine.

Volunteering

I'm convinced that the way to create what we want and need in our communities is not by complaining about what governments – local and national – are not providing, but by coming together and creating what we want ourselves.

If the council provides a youth club / sports club / social club / drop in – that's great. But if it doesn't, and that's what the community needs, it just takes two or three committed people to get the ball rolling.

This is not about needing people with qualifications and training, it's about having people with a good heart and lots of enthusiasm. And the good news is that a voluntary group is not subject to changing funding priorities so, as long as finances are kept simple, is in control of its own destiny.

When people take charge of their own destiny they grow. It may take time and seem like hard work at times, but most volunteers get as much out as they put in, by seeing the difference they make to their community. When the feel good factor wears off it's time to hand the baton on to others, and if you make volunteering part of the culture of the organisation, there will always be someone else to take over.

An uplifting day

It started with a meeting with two mums who decided last spring that they wanted to set up a youth club – everything is in place for it to open next week. Later I watched Barack Obama's inauguration on TV.

This evening I was invited to a meeting of Cheddington Youth Council – a group of teenagers who want to make their village a better place to live. The two main things on their agenda were how to raise money for a skate park and how to get mutual respect between the generations. 

Can individuals make a difference? Yes we can!