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Forum:Local forum idea for sustainable communities

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Parental involvement in education[]

According to a recent BBC news story, E-mail school reports considered, 28 December 2006, the government is considering more use of new technology to increase parental involvement in education.

Options being considered include

  • more frequent progress reports to parents from schools
  • discussion for the local community to engage in how schools are run

The attractions (to government) include

  • seeing if technology can be used to engage the 'harder-to-reach parents'
  • finding new ways of engaging working people in what is happening to their kids during school time.


Comment

2012

  • An imaginary open letter: To those who would ‘engage’ us…, August 9, 2012 By Mike realisedevelopment.net
  • Exposing the lie, 26th July 2012, by John Houghton, cles.org.uk

2011

Westminster World Heritage Site and Parliament Square a national disgrace, Hansard Society, October 25 [1] New vision putting citizen and visitor at its heart needed. place, topic


High Speed 2 consultation "a train wreck", say CPRE, 28 February [2]

Councils and hyperlocal ‘bloggers’: It’s the council system which needs changing, not how people are allowed to cover them, David Higgerson, February 23 [3]


Eric Pickles: Citizen journalists and bloggers should be let in to public council meetings, 23 February [4]


"If nothing else the transparency that the social web embodies and that government says it wants to deliver with #opendata means that we will no longer be able to hide our policy programmes in big black boxes that we only open up on launch day" Catherine Howe, January 23 [5]


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Community involvement in sustainable communities[]

But hold on a minute, why isn't anyone promoting these ideas for sustainable (whole) communities?

Why not

  • more frequent progress reports from local decision makers to local communities
  • discussion for the local community to engage in local decision making, sustainable communities and quality of life
  • seeing if technology can be used to engage the 'harder-to-reach' (from across the whole community)
  • finding new ways of engaging working people in what is happening to their local communities (of residence)?

During the late 1990's the government successfully encouraged the vast majority of local communities to get involved in a process called Local Agenda 21. Unfortunately this was seen as a one off and no-one in government appears to have forseen the potential of something like local quality of life forums (being sustained).

With increased awareness of climate change, peak oil, etc,, with the public seemingly sometimes ahead of the politicians on these issues, and the increased use of technology society wide, aren't local quality of life forums and idea who's time has come? And if so, is anyone in government listening? Philralph 12:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Draft comment for posting to the 2020 vision[]

OK here's an actual policy proposal. Support Local quality of life forums in every community. If you're serious about climate change being the greatest threat to humanity, and genuine and widespread community involvement, then you need to connect with what Charles Leadbeater calls 'we-think'. Genuine democracy and genuine sustainability come hand in hand from much more ambitious local community involvement. This comment was first published on the Sustainable Community Action wiki.

Philralph 11:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Draft comment for posting to Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill web forum[]

I agree with much of the previous comment, but believe the real missing link is genuine community involvement. Involvement goes way beyond mere consultation. Genuine community involvement includes all (not just a few) stakeholders, in particular those passionate about sustainabiilty and low carbon futures, to bring about the necessary push factor. It involves ordinary citizens and community groups and networks, not just establishment organisations, or self regarding elites. As Churchill said, "If we are together, nothing is impossible", but it's got to be fully inclusive, encompassing what's been called the wisdom of crowds.

One specific proposal would be local quality of life forums in every community, as long as the government could find a way to ensure that local government and establishment stakeholders treated such forums with proper respect and enabled them to genuinely influence local decision making.

See also - Forum:Local forum idea for sustainable communities at http://sca21.wikia.com/index.php?title=Forum:Local_forum_idea_for_sustainable_communities&t=20070301113056 and Sustainability for all at http://sca21.wikia.com/wiki/Sustainability_for_all on the Sustainable Community Action Wiki - http://sca21.wikia.com This comment was first published on the Sustainable Community Action Wiki - http://sca21.wikia.com

Philralph 19:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

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  1. ↑ hansardsociety.org.uk,
  2. ↑ cpre.org.uk, 28 February 2011
  3. ↑ davidhiggerson, February 23, 2011
  4. ↑ communities.gov.uk, 23 February 2011
  5. ↑ curiouscatherine, January 23, 2011
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