Locality Archives - Jericho Road

Locality 2015

Jess Steele — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 10:42:02 +0000

Jericho Road had a fantastic time at the Locality 2015 Convention in Liverpool. We caught up with old friends and made new ones, discovered some great projects and sold a lot of tea towels! We heard from some inspiring speakers from neighbourhoods all over the world including a particularly captivating talk by Jason Roberts of Build a Better Block from Dallas who, along with his neighbours, transformed the neighbourhood they live in. All the things they wanted to do to change their neighbourhood were against the rules – so they did them anyway and attached copies of the rules to... Read more...

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Sitting in a ditch watching stars

Jess Steele — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 23:19:13 +0000

After a good start with weekly blogs I seem to have fallen into Abeyance. It feels like a ditch I want to climb out of. It’s been a stunning couple of months – which is probably why I feel like a cartoon character seeing spinning stars. So I’ll just begin and hope there’s something of interest for everyone in this meze of odd experiences and learning. It started with a 24-hour residential to help redesign the Community Organisers training programme. As we approach the final year of the programme, our task is to consolidate everything we have learned to create... Read more...

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Delinquent ownership – a PS about the council role

6970@jrs — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 16:17:00 +0000

When it comes to dealing with derelict and disused buildings and land, Councils are in a practically impossible position (but that’s quite normal for local government!). They have a set of ‘powers’ that are theoretically available but technically complex. In my experience, councillors quickly learn a default position to say they won’t use them – too difficult, too expensive, too risky (the DER response). It’s important to remember that this is a cultural and political position and it can be changed. But once you get the ‘DER’ response, it can take years for a local community to campaign to get... Read more...

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NYC 2 – Occupied Wall Street, Good Old Lower East Side & University Settlement

Jess Steele — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:50:09 +0000

On Thursday I went to see whether the original #Occupy is as well organised as Occupy London Stock Exchange, which I visited just before coming away on this US trip. I was much reassured by the similarities. Apart from the accents they have everything in common – the same focus on living democracy minute-by-minute, the same witty posters, the same cramped-up tents and workshop schedules, and always the dogs of the occupation looking on with their sad, loyal eyes. But most of all: open, friendly, peaceful people with the shared knowledge that they are on the big side of the... Read more...

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New York City 1: Queens Community House

Jess Steele — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:50:09 +0000

[From La Guardia airport on the way to Detroit, 12 Nov 2011] I have spent the last 4 days visiting a community organizing development programme in New York City which has striking similarities to our emerging home-grown Community Organisers programme in England. I am indebted to all the wonderful people involved who looked after me so kindly and made the trip so useful and inspirational. Sometimes it is said that Americans think they know it all about regeneration and aren’t interested in learning from the rest of the world. I didn’t find that at all. They were fascinated by the... Read more...

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Feeling weird about the media

6970@jrs — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:32:00 +0000

What a strange 7 days… I feel like I’ve been through a shrapnel whirlwind and there are a dozen fragments lodged in my brain, any of which could either strike gold or explode any time. One thread runs through it all – the medja. But even that has four faces. Three great positives: And then there’s…

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Civil service lessons

6970@jrs — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:27:00 +0000

Various prompts have got me remembering my conclusions after five months on secondment to the civil service in 2009. @Puffles2010 at http://adragonsbestfriend.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/a-challenge-for-the-civil-service-and-large-institutions-alike/ is one of the sparks to make me trawl my archive for the memories. The experience of trying to run the Community Organisers programme in a febrile environment is another. So… Looking back on my reflections as the secondment came to an end, it felt to me that: Other conclusions from my write-up on 15/06/09 included:

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Demob happy – fragments

Jess Steele — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:55:15 +0000

Off tomorrow to Prague to celebrate 10 yrs with DH (v dear, not quite H). Very excited, but before I go, I need to record a few fragments of conversations from today: I’ve been to JRF’s ‘Communities Under Pressure’ report launch and exhibition. Great report by CRESR – beautifully written and very clear that poor communities are not ‘broken’ or culturally different or ‘chav-land’ but in fact bastions of traditional values around mutual support, family (complex not nuclear) and hard work. A couple of niggling concerns – it’s difficult to extrapolate from 6 places (‘the plural of anecdote is not... Read more...

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Compulsory Purchase

Jess Steele — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:55:15 +0000

Today Greg Clark announced an exciting new piece of guidance but you won’t find it without dogged persistence, or a bit of help. The guidance is designed to help local communities deal with abandoned buildings and irresponsible private ownership of buildings that matter to them. I have some knowledge and experience of this field – most of all Hastings Pier, plus links with Plymouth Palace Theatre, the long-empty Rose & Young site in the heart of Tandridge and the New York pub in Hull – and I mentioned this to Greg Clark at a meeting 6 weeks ago. He said... Read more...

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How dare the Lord?

Jess Steele — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:55:15 +0000

Recently enobled Lord Glasman, of ‘Blue Labour’ fame, allegedly let fire some insults in the Palace of Westminster today: @kayewiggins @tobyblume Glasman calls Locality “toffs” – says real comm organising would create “conflict and mayhem” Kayewiggins: Maurice Glasman being v critical of Locality’s comm organising contract. Calls Locality “paternalistic” and “well intentioned busybodies”. As an unelected peer of the realm in an overstuffed second chamber, this is a direct insult to every member of the movement of grassroots community organisations connecting hundreds of thousands of people rooted in real communities all over the country. Locality is a solidarity network of... Read more...

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