Category Archives: Networking
Get Involved In Your Local Community
With a move to larger and larger cities there is a disconnection with the people who live the closest to us. This dislocation of the individual from the local area is to the detriment of society as a whole. The place that I live becomes just a place to eat and sleep, do I care what is happening next door or across the road? Do I even know their names? Yet if we, as a community, reached beyond the boundaries of our own private properties we could find a richness of friends and support networks lost in our busy world.
I am not suggesting that we live in the pockets of our neighbours, but rather make a genuine effort to get to know who they are, caring enough to say hello, smile, notice them. There have been numerous stories about people who have died and not been discovered for weeks or even months. This should never happen in any society, and wouldn’t if we were involved in our local community.
Support your local business
What are the benefits of this?
- Local businesses employing local people
- Environmental issues i.e. less of a need to drive
- Familiarity of the client to the business
- focused on community needs
(Check out the New Rules Project for more reasons to support local business.)
Support your local community groups and churches. These locally focused groups have a wealth of knowledge and understanding of what is happening in the area you live, but are often under-resourced due to an all to common focus on the city by organisations, funding agencies and local/national government.
If you support your local community, and other people support there local communities then we will see a more caring city.
Things to be aware of or do…
- Do not become so focused that new people can not come in or feel like they are intruding
- Welcome strangers
- Be open to new cultures
- Avoid gossip at all cost
- Don’t become a member of a group just to be nosey
- Get involved
- Take personal responsibility for getting to know your neighbours
- Everyone has something to contribute (old and young)
What do you want your community to be like? What are you going to do to see that it can happen?
Get involved in your local community, if you need to start an interest group, go to a local church, simply say hello to a neighbour.