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I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching two perfectly lovely neighborhood committees spend forty minutes arguing over who was supposed to bring the tea biscuits, while the actual project—a much-needed playground repair—sat gathering dust. It… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in the nineties, watching a perfectly good neighbourhood garden project crumble into nothing simply because the treasurer had moved away and nobody knew where the receipts were. It wasn’t a lack… Continue reading

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

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

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

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a professional consultant charge a local group three thousand pounds just to hand them a glossy binder full of jargon. They called it a “comprehensive demographic impact study,”… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a group of well-meaning volunteers spiral into a complete meltdown because they’d spent three months debating the colour of the bunting instead of actually doing anything. They thought… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’98, watching a perfectly good neighborhood initiative dissolve into thin air simply because nobody could remember who had agreed to buy the tea biscuits. We didn’t have smartphones then, but… Continue reading

I spent thirty-one years in local government, and if there is one thing that drives me mad, it is the way people try to solve loneliness with massive, expensive “social inclusion programmes” and glossy brochures. You don’t need a multi-million… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall three years ago, surrounded by the smell of burnt solder and old dust, watching a young man try to fix a toaster while a group of us hovered nervously around a pile… Continue reading