River Carron Expo Day

‘From the bottom up’29 September 2010John GoldSLRP Market Towns Initiative

•Project Coordinator: Communities on the Edge CUKT

•Market Towns Initiative Project Officer: South Lanarkshire Rural Partnership

•Volunteer Director: Douglas St. Bride’s Community Group

•From across the pond…

•Animation & community engagement

•Participatory democracy & community empowerment

•Partnership

•Assets

Animation

‘…that stimulus to the mental, physical and emotional life of people in any given area which moves them to undertake a wider range of experiences through which they find a higher degree of self-realisation, self expression and awareness of belonging to a community which they can influence…’

Report of the European Cultural Foundation, 1973

Community engagement

•Offering everyone the chance to contribute•Respecting diversity of opinion•Creating opportunities for access and participation•Getting creative!•Going further than the perfunctory AGM•Quality, integrity, sustainability

Participatory democracy

•Community Anchors•Representative and democratically elected legally constituted groups•Well respected and credible local organisations •Local autonomy

Community empowerment

“…Scotland’s communities are a rich source of talent and creative potential and the process of community empowerment helps to unlock that potential. It stimulates and harnesses the energy of local people to come up with creative and successful solutions to local challenges…

Community empowerment is a process where people work together to make change happen in their communities by having more power and influence over what matters to them.”

COSLA and the Scottish Government

Partnership

•A level playing field•Hard work•Respect •Relegating lip-service•Compromise•Relationship building and solid future foundations

Assets

•Land and buildings as a means to an end•Nature•Culture•Heritage•Skills•You and I!

''People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes. All is a miracle.''

Thich Nhat Hanh

Fun!‘To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as if nothing of consequence will happen.

On the contrary, when we are playful with one another, we relate as free persons, and the relationship is open to surprise; everything that happens is of consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility.

To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion.

To be playful is to allow for unlimited possibility.’

James Carse

Thanks… Questions?