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I remember sitting in a drafty church hall in 1994, watching a lovely lady try to explain why the community garden project had collapsed. It wasn’t for lack of passion or a lack of funds; it was because the previous… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a lovely woman try to explain a three-page spreadsheet to five confused neighbors who just wanted to buy some new flowerbeds. She had all the fancy software, but… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a perfectly good neighbourhood garden project fall apart simply because nobody understood the legalities of who actually held the keys. People often think that learning how to become… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, watching a group of well-meaning retirees crumble because they thought they needed a massive non-profit structure and a government grant just to plant some marigolds. They spent six months… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, staring at a stack of glossy brochures promising that “meaningful civic engagement” required a formal board of directors and a thirty-page constitution. It was nonsense, of course. People were… Continue reading

I’ve spent thirty-one years sitting in drafty community halls, watching well-meaning people trip over their own feet because they thought they needed a massive charity partnership or a huge budget to make an impact. There is this exhausting myth that… Continue reading

I spent thirty-one years in local government, and if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people tend to make community work sound far more complicated than it actually is. You’ll see all these glossy brochures suggesting you need… Continue reading

I remember standing in the middle of a rain-soaked village fete back in the nineties, clutching a clipboard that had seen better decades, watching three different people try to manage the same tea tent. There was no central list, no… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty village hall back in ’94, watching a group of well-meaning locals get completely defeated by a thirty-page application form for a tiny woodland grant. They had the passion and the muddy boots, but they… Continue reading

I remember sitting in a drafty church hall back in ’94, staring at a stack of disorganized donation forms and wondering why everyone made helping people feel so exhausting. Most people think that figuring out how to volunteer in a… Continue reading