Author: Deborah Castellanos
-
Getting a Bank Account as an Unincorporated Group
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a lovely woman named Mrs. Higgins try to explain to a bank manager why her community garden fund was currently sitting in her personal savings account. The manager… Continue reading
-
Reading a Council Budget Document
I remember sitting in a drafty community hall back in the nineties, staring at a sixty-page spreadsheet that looked more like a telephone directory than a financial plan. The local councillor kept insisting that if we just understood the “macro-economic… Continue reading
-
Dating a Photograph From What People Wore
I spent thirty years in local government, and if there is one thing I learned, it is that people love to make simple things unnecessarily complicated just to justify a high fee. You don’t need a PhD in archival science… Continue reading
-
Making a Freedom of Information Request
I remember sitting in a drafty community hall back in ’94, watching a perfectly good neighbourhood improvement plan wither away simply because nobody could prove what the council had promised us six months prior. People will tell you that getting… Continue reading
-
Comparing Three Maps of the Same Field
I remember sitting in a drafty basement archive back in ’94, surrounded by the smell of damp paper and stale tea, trying to prove to a stubborn council committee that our local park hadn’t always been a concrete wasteland. People… Continue reading
-
Applying for a Road Closure in Time
I remember sitting in a drafty community hall back in ’94, staring at a stack of council forms that looked more like legal summons than a simple request for a street party. Everyone around the table was convinced that if… Continue reading
-
Picking a Date Nobody Else Has Taken
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, staring at a dozen different community calendars, feeling that familiar, sinking sensation in my stomach. We had the energy, the funding, and the will, but we spent three agonizing… Continue reading
-
A Constitution Short Enough to Read
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a lovely group of neighbours fall apart over nothing more than a disagreement about who was allowed to sign the chequebook. They had all the passion in the… Continue reading
-
Finding a Street in the Census
I remember sitting in a drafty community hall three years ago, surrounded by half-empty tea mugs and a stack of dusty parish ledgers that seemed to hold more secrets than the local gossip. Everyone was talking about expensive, high-tech genealogy… Continue reading
-
A Role Description Instead of a Vague Plea
I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a perfectly good neighbourhood garden project fall apart because we’d asked for “general assistance” and ended up with three people who wanted to prune roses and zero people… Continue reading
