Author: Deborah Castellanos
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Closing a Group Without Leaving a Mess
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a lovely little neighbourhood garden project simply evaporate because the treasurer decided to just walk away with the leftover funds in his pocket. There was no handover, no… Continue reading
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Handing an Event to the Next Organiser
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a lovely woman named Mrs. Higgins try to explain our annual summer fête to a new volunteer. She was clutching a stack of loose, coffee-stained napkins with names… Continue reading
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Being Honest About Whether It Worked
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a group of perfectly well-meaning neighbours stare blankly at a stack of complex “impact assessment” forms someone had printed off the internet. They were trying so hard to… Continue reading
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A Community Plan That Gets Used
I spent thirty-one years in local government, and if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that most people make a mountain out of a molehill when they start thinking about how to write a community plan. I’ve sat through… Continue reading
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Reporting Fly Tipping So It Gets Cleared
I remember standing on the corner of Elm Street last Tuesday, staring at a sodden, half-collapsed mattress and a pile of cracked garden tiles that had somehow appeared overnight. It wasn’t just the eyesore that bothered me; it was that… Continue reading
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Getting Rid of a Sofa Legally
I remember standing on a damp corner in Eastbourne back in ’94, looking at a discarded, waterlogged mattress that had become a makeshift throne for local foxes. The council was dragging its feet, and the residents were ready to tear… Continue reading
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When a Volunteer Needs Help Themselves
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a perfectly capable woman—the heart of our flower arranging committee—just fade away. She wasn’t lazy, and she wasn’t disinterested; she was simply drowning under the weight of a… Continue reading
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A Research Notebook You Can Return to
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall in 1994, watching a perfectly good neighbourhood initiative crumble into nothing because the chairperson had left, and her “system” was nothing more than a handful of loose, coffee-stained scraps of paper. It… Continue reading
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What Is Not Online and Never Will Be
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, staring at a stack of dusty, handwritten parish minutes that told me more about our neighborhood’s true needs than any glossy council report ever could. People today think they… Continue reading
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Volunteering in an Archive
People often think that learning how to volunteer in an archive requires a PhD in History or a lifetime of dusting leather-bound ledgers in a silent, temperature-controlled vault. They see these institutions as gated communities for academics, which is a… Continue reading
