Author: G.C.D.L.

Girvan Gateway – Locked!

Girvan Community Developments Limited has received the discouraging news from Big Lottery in London that the Girvan Gateway Project has not made the final shortlist. The project will not receive Living Landmarks grant funding.

Speaking on behalf of the board, Alec Clark, chairperson, said, “We knew when we decided to go for Living Landmarks funding that it would be a really competitive process and that we might not succeed. Even so, we thought we should make the effort. Obviously, we are disappointed not to have made it to the final stage. But the directors of the company have vowed not to be put off by the news.”

Over 300 projects applied for Living Landmarks support and the Girvan project was one of only 23 to make it through to the second stage. Getting to the second stage brought GCDL £250,000 of Big Lottery funding to help to design the project in detail and to obtain planning approvals.

In their letter to GCDL, the Big Lottery explained that the 23 projects that reached the second stage had applied for total funding of over £525m. The fund had only about £80m available and so only 3 or 4 projects around the UK will get the full funding from Living Landmarks. The Girvan Gateway has not been selected as one of the 12 finalists.

The directors of the company met last week to consider how to respond to the disappointing news. They agreed unanimously to push forward with the project and were confident that they would continue to have the backing of their major partners and stakeholders – South Ayrshire Council, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Girvan Horizons. MSP’s, Cathy Jamieson and Adam Ingram; MP, Sandra Osborne; and the three elected councillors, Alex Oattes, Ian Fitzsimmons and John McDowall have all offered their support to keep the project on track.

Cathy Jamieson commented, “I was so sorry to get this news – I know just how hard the directors of GCDL and its partners all worked to produce this funding bid. I share the bitter disappointment that they feel. But, just as the directors have said, when one door slams shut, we need to find another one. I will give them whatever support I can in taking things forward. I’d like to take this opportunity on behalf of the people of Carrick to thank GCDL for the work they have done so far. With their determination and the support of the local community, great things can still be achieved.”

To date, including the £0.25m from the Big Lottery, GCDL has invested over £500,000 in developing its proposals for the regeneration of Girvan seafront. The project was designed to provide much needed facilities for the local community and to attract thousands of visitors to the area each year.

Alec Clark said, “In effect, our Living Landmarks bid was ‘Plan B’ – given the chance to get up to £25m of Big Lottery funding we raised our ambitions and combined several projects into one. We had the proposed Ailsa Craig Centre, the yacht haven, and the landscaping along the seafront, all combined into one major regeneration project. What we have to do now is go back to ‘Plan A’. GCDL will focus on its original priority – to create a building that will provide the facilities that our community needs and will draw in income from tourists so as to be financially viable.

“But, we’re not going back to square 1. The time and money we’ve invested mean that we can start from a higher level. We have full detailed plans for the proposed Ailsa Craig Centre. Working with our architects, we designed the building so that parts of it could be removed if it turned out that we couldn’t afford to build the whole thing. We have a detailed business plan produced by experts in the field. We can revisit that; see which parts of the building can be removed without ruining the viability of what’s left; and produce a new business plan and designs for the centre.

“The directors know that it will not be easy. GCDL will have to source more funding for the redesign. Probably, we will have to re-apply for planning approval. Then we’ll have to go out and raise several millions of pounds to build the centre. So, it will be difficult but we owe it to ourselves and to the wider community not to let the investment everyone has made so far go to waste.”

Over the next few weeks, GCDL will hold discussions with its partners to see if the other elements of the Girvan Gateway project can be taken forward.

Living Landmarks will announce the winners of their competition in December and will give detailed feedback to the unsuccessful projects early next year. Once they have digested that information, the directors of GCDL will continue to work towards creating a significant new building in Girvan.

As one GCDL director commented during their recent meeting, “The Big Lottery may have locked our Girvan Gateway but we won’t give up. We’ll just have to find some other keys.”

Author: Communities and Local Government

The following principles offer a framework that the third sector might use to organise effective representation on LSPs. They might be used to develop terms of reference or other clear statements that describe the nature of any networks or collective body, its representatives and what might be expected of them.

The framework should not be seen as exhaustive or prescriptive, but as a reference point from which to start a discussion between the third sector about how they might be better represented in their own area. Indeed, you may decide to develop your own principles with your own headings and your own understanding of what they mean and how they can be applied. The principles are essentially good practice in partnership working.

1. Accountability

Those who represent the third sector or speak on its behalf ought to be responsible to the local sector. Clear lines of accountability also allow the sector’s representatives to speak with real authority. This does not mean that all decisions are subject to a consensus, but representatives should be prepared and able to explain decisions and actions. The third sector should:

a) make sure third sector representatives on LSPs and its theme groups understand their roles and responsibilities;

b) ensure the wider third sector understands its responsibilities to its representatives;

c) put into place reporting mechanisms that support the flow of information without creating unnecessary burdens;

d) make arrangements that enable all third sector groups to participate as fully as possible;

e) ensure there is clarity about when third sector representatives on the LSP have a clear mandate and when they do not, and

f) clearly define roles for any officers that might support the sector’s representation work;

2. Equality

Reducing inequality should be at the heart of the third sector’s work. It should work to eliminate discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and empower people to make their voices heard. The third sector should:

a) be open to all third sector groups in the area, regardless of size, that accept the basic principles of equality for other groups;

b) engage communities and individuals from under-represented groups directly where they are newly arrived and/or do not have the necessary infrastructure and groups to articulate and promote their interests;

c) ensure that the partnership represents and reflects the community it serves, proactively reaching out to engage the most excluded groups. For example, it may be relevant, for the partnership, to consult in depth those service users who have historically been disproportionately failed by public services. It may also be necessary to take ‘positive action’ measures in order to target historically excluded groups to ensure that such groups can also benefit from local services;

d) work with all faith[1] and equalities groups, forums and organisations, taking steps to be accessible and in doing so seek to widen participation;

e) take into account the voices of people who are not able to participate in groups or do not feel as though they belong to one;

f) accept that in some areas groups may wish to organise separate mechanisms for representing their interests and concerns on the LSP;

g) make sure that involvement aids cohesion and local relations rather than damaging it; and

h) remember that real progress will take time, particularly in engaging those who are “hard to reach” and disengaged. People need to be given time to develop expertise and relationships, and to find the most appropriate approaches to participation.

3. Leadership

Those representing the local sector will be dealing with experienced senior public officials. This will require strong leadership skills: negotiation; mediation; assertiveness; dispute resolution; political and influencing skills. However, leadership is not about telling others what to do; rather it is the ability to represent the wider sector and not simply your own organisation or sectional interests. This links strongly to the principles of accountability and transparency. The third sector should:

a) be prepared to tackle difficult issues;

b) share and celebrate success;

c) work within the network’s defined structures;

d) develop and utilise the skills and experience of its members;

e) challenge the network to reflect changing contexts and needs;

f) include all its members and conduct wider consultation in assessing needs and priorities and in developing its future direction and purpose;

g) recognise and involve its external stakeholders in its development, building inter-dependence and mutual understanding; and

h) not alway taking the majority view when trying to resolve and represent conflicting interests. The voices of a legitimate minority deserve to be equally heard.

4. Purpose

Establish a clear sense of purpose about what you want to achieve, expressed in whatever terms are appropriate. Do not simply deal with the day to day issues; think ahead beyond the immediate horizon. Be clear about the issues that the network will deal with and what will be dealt with by specific third sector bodies. The third sector should:

a) establish a broad consensus of shared values from which to develop common goals and aims;

b) plan for the long-term as well as the short-term;

c) clearly define the stakeholders you wish to work with, including but not limited to LSP and LAA structures;

d) reach agreement on who should sit on the decision making bodies in your area including but not limited to the relevant LSP boards;

e) be responsive to change, anticipating the need for developing and supporting new groups that arise from demographic changes, aiding integration; and

f) embrace demographic and cultural changes that might be required to deliver the wider aims of the network whilst staying true to its values.

5. Sustainability

It is important for the third sector to understand fully the costs involved in starting and then maintaining an effective network for third sector groups and organisations in an area. In particular it may be necessary to consider investment in capacity building to ensure that representation is inclusive. Once identified, priorities should be agreed and future resource requirements explored fully as part of the future planning process. The third sector should:

a) build relationships and interdependencies that strengthen the position of the local sector and enhance its capacity to develop and innovate;

b) seek and secure resources to support the expression and dissemination of its collective voice;

c) look to develop the skills and capacity of members and examine the potential for sharing costs and capacity that might arise from working more closely together;

d) work in ways that make the minimum use of all non-renewable resources, and explore ways of using renewable resources sourced from within the organisation’s geographic boundaries wherever possible;

e) be flexible enough to take advantage of new opportunities that might arise;

f) make the most of the talents already at the network’s disposal;

g) identify the skills, experience, and competencies required of members and representatives and invest in their development;

h) put in place simple and robust arrangements that enable reflection, learning and continuous improvement and

i) build the sector’s capacity to engage with all stakeholders, in particular LSP partners and local communities.

6. Openness

The network should conduct its business as openly as possible. This is vital for its credibility both with its own members but also with its external stakeholders. The third sector should:

a) ensure that all discussions and decisions are recorded and open to all. Do not conduct meetings behind closed doors. Where, in exceptional circumstances, this is not possible, the reasons should be explained clearly;

b) have an agreed and well publicised process for selecting third sector representatives on the LSP and its theme groups;

c) communicate clearly and promptly with all stakeholders, using the appropriate mediums;

d) welcome challenge as an opportunity to learn and improve;

e) deal positively with failings by acknowledging and addressing them;

f) ensure that it shares ‘credit where credit is due’ in its dealings with the media, network members and external stakeholders and ensure the form and content of communications is agreed between the relevant stakeholders; and

g) establish clear and consistent lines of communication:

– Between network members.

– With the wider third sector.

– With the wider community.

– With the LSP and LAA theme groups.

– With any potential stakeholder – locally, regionally and nationally.

7. Values

In dealing with the practical realities of building and maintaining a network it is essential to keep in mind the valuable traditions and values of the sector. Building a network will mean change and some of the effects might be predictable whilst others might be unexpected and challenging. For many in the sector, working more closely with the statutory sector might be a culturally difficult task and this should be recognised, as should be the benefits that can result. The third sector should:

a) recognise and preserve the independence of the third sector from statutory bodies, but be pragmatic about building respectful relationships between the sectors;

b) recognise and value the diversity of its membership and the different strengths they bring to the wider network;

c) recognise and act upon opportunities for mutual development with internal and external stakeholders;

d) recognise the mutual inter-dependence of all internal and external relationships, and the benefits that can be enjoyed by all the stakeholders;

e) recognise the legitimate roles of members and avoid duplication by building upon their work;

f) think about who it involves and when and be open and honest about the extent of that involvement. Consider how to target those individuals and groups to whom the issue is most relevant. This approach will help to avoid consultation and participation fatigue. It is also more likely to ensure greater diversity and quality of involvement; and

g) develop the sector’s capacity to provide evidence to support its views.

Full document here http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/doc/556946

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[1] Two reports on faith-based representation have recently been published: Faithful Representation (Church Urban Fund – Sept 2006) and Faith in LSPs? (Churches Regional Network – Dec 2006). Insofar as they relate to faith communities as a distinctive part of the wider third sector, the recommendations of these reports are incorporated into the generic principles set out in this paper.

Author: Jim Harvey Consulting

Community owned Housing Associations which diversify can be our most effective Anchor Organisations for empowering communities. The Government’s green paper fails to assert the importance of community ownership and the Glasgow community housing sector forum (GWSF) have produced a response

Dowload full paper here , www.localpeopleleading.co.uk/downloads/firmfoundations.pdf

Author: Linthouse Housing Association

Linthouse Urban Village /Linthouse Housing Association

Background
Linthouse grew alongside shipbuilding and heavy engineering works on the Clyde, and with the decline of these types of jobs (and other contributing factors) widespread social problems arose, and then in the 60s the area was further blighted with the Clyde Tunnel physically splitting the community in two.

The Linthouse Housing Association (LHA) is a voluntary charitable organisation which has been renting, factoring and developing the majority of housing in the area for the past 30 years. Although the LHA has concentrated on housing in the past, in recent years it has looked at improving the Community as a whole. In 2003, in an attempt to bring back a sense of community and bring economic and social change to the area the Linthouse Urban Village (LUV) Project was set up.

The LUV Project already has an office base/workshop and gallery space called the LUV Gallery on the main Govan Road in Linthouse across from its own LUV Cafe; which runs as a social enterprise and has had to be extended to cope with demand. A Creative Shop fronts project involving the local community, artists and the shopkeepers redesigning 14 shop fronts has improved the physical look of previously dilapidated shops.

There’s also a programme of community events and workshops, with a regular LUV Book Group, Youth Drop in, Art Classes for young people and adults, monthly art exhibitions and various other projects.

LUV strives to support any initiatives or services that enhance the area.
LUV Farm
The LUV Project is working with local groups to put together plans for the former Fairfield Farmhouse in Elderpark, across from the LUV Gallery and Café. The former farmhouse and yard is dilapidated and in need of renovation. We are interested in bringing various local social economy organisations together in a creative working hub where people can visit and which will help invigorate the park.
THE LUV FARM VISION – Potential Partners
1. LUV Café – affordable family focused café and soft play area
2. Child and Family Centre Nursery/after school care
3. LUV Firm – social enterprise in recycled textiles
4. Community Space, incubator space
5. Scottish School of Herbal Medicine with Education Programmes and Herb Garden
6. LUV Development Trust office
This project is expected to cost in the region of 4.5 million pounds and therefore much development work is needed to bring together funding, the lease and partners.

Author: LPL

Save Meadowbank Campaign

Just before the May elections, the Labour party-group of Edinburgh Council tabled a motion to be debated at the Full Council Meeting of April 26th that essentially confirmed Labour’s commitment to sell off Meadowbank stadium. After lobbying from the Save Meadowbank campaign however, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP groups both tabled amendments to the motion which offered at least a temporary reprieve for the stadium.

It was agreed by the Council that a working group be set up to consider the whole issue and that the group report to the Council on June 28th.

The May 3rd elections put in place a coalition administration of Lib Dem/ SNP: two parties that had suggested pre-elections that they fully supported our campaign to Save Meadowbank.

Because of the alleged determination by Council officials to ensure they find the right ‘independent’ chairperson for the job, the Working Group didn’t meet up until June 21st. The Working Group report deadline was therefore extended to the autumn, and the Aug 23rd meeting of the Full Council.

Save Meadowbank Campaign had to lobby the new administration very hard even to be represented in these deliberations, but eventually we were allocated one space in the 19 member group, with the bulk of representatives coming from the Council.

As it turned out, the “independent chair” was perhaps less independent than we may have been led to believe. While the Council’s pro-sell-off line was backed up by a presentation from a team of around a dozen Council officials and contractors, Save Meadowbank Campaign volunteer architect, Edinburgh University’s Dr Dimitris Theodossopoulos was refused entry to make a presentation on our behalf.

In fact, the chair was so independent that, although the vast majority on the Working Group disagreed with him, he drafted a report to the Council that ruled out refurbishment of Meadowbank.

Off course, leaked copies of his draft report found their way to the media, and as intended, were presented by the Evening News as the views of the Working Group.
Before the Working Group began its work, many were wary that the outcome may have been pre-determined to agree the sell-off of Meadowbank. Actual experience of the Working Group confirmed that suspicion.

As a result, Save Meadowbank Campaign decided that we would have to re-engage the public in order to remind our elected representatives of the strength of feeling on this issue and make them aware that another phoney attempt at ‘consultation’ would not let them off the hook.
We therefore booked Meadowbank for our second public meeting on Aug 17th, the day the final report was to be published.

The Working Group chair refused to alter the report to reflect majority opinion, but uproar amongst the Working Group members meant that he was forced to present this as his own recommendations, and to make clear that the views contained were not those of the majority on the Working Group.

On publication of the report, the Evening News failed to mention the above detail when they wrote:
“Terry Christie… chair up an independent working group… [which has] rejected pleas by campaigners to refurbish the existing stadium, advising the council to press ahead with a total sell-off of Meadowbank if it cannot raise the money for major new facilities on the site. Mr Christie described any attempt to refurbish the existing facilities at the athletics stadium as “short-term and short-sighted”.
Public Meeting, Aug 17th

On a cold August Friday night in the middle of the Edinburgh Festival, around 400 people made their way to Meadowbank to engage in local democracy in a way that most politicians appear very uncomfortable with.
As noted above, the meeting was designed to provide the public with an opportunity to remind councillors of the passion that won’t go away on this issue and to make the public aware of the ‘workings’ of a Working Group that had entirely failed to examine the feasibility of refurbishing Meadowbank, and instead had taken as a given that it must be sold off.

SMC architect, Dr Dimitris Theodossopoulos, gave the meeting the presentation that the Working Group chairman had prevented him from doing. Based on comparisons with similar projects, he estimated that the refurbishment of Meadowbank (including a new covered Velodrome) was something that could be achieved for around £18 million.
The Sighthill Arena was to have cost £53m, and did not include a Velodrome. It did however involve Meadowbank being turned into a housing estate, and Sighthill losing the only green space that still exists in the area.
Ex athlete and current Green Party Councillor Alison Johnstone was the only Councillor on the panel to offer her full support to the campaign, and condemned the fact that there had never been any survey into the cost or viability of refurbishing it, as had been called for on numerous occasions.

Once again, the strength of feeling, and the power of the arguments put forward unanimously from the floor of ordinary people and sports superstars alike, was enough to convince now ex-Council leader Ewan Aitken to bravely acknowledge that New Labour (now in opposition) had been wrong on Meadowbank.

Like Aitken, the young SNP Councillor, Rob Munn (who attended in place of local SNP Councillor, Stefan Tymkewycz), had clearly never seen so many people in one room before, but was able to explain that, “We have changed our position because we have been listening.”
The Lib Dems’ Gary Peacock, who was less phased by the occasion, also accepted that it would be a good idea to establish how much it would cost to refurbish Meadowbank.
Full Council meeting, Aug 23rd (Minutes)
Before deciding the fate of Meadowbank, the Council heard from deputations of Save Meadowbank Campaign and various Community Councils

Undoubtedly though, the fact that over 1000 members of the public came together to Save Meadowbank Campaign’s two public meetings and made clear that we would not sit idly by while the Council sold off our public property was what led the Council to at last commission a report on:
a) the proposals to refurbish and upgrade the existing facility at Meadowbank;
b) the feasibility of providing a new athletics track, 2,000 capacity seated stadium and associated sports facilities also at Meadowbank; and
c) all funding options and possibilities in respect of a) and b) above.
The Council also agreed that “an athletics track and sports complex should remain at Meadowbank.” Deputy Council leader Steve Cardownie explained that the Sighthill plan was now finished.
Report on Refurbishment proposals
After that decision, SMC architect, Dr Dimitris Theodossopoulos was invited to a meeting with Council officials in order to discuss his refurbishment plans. Save Meadowbank Campaign allowed their £18m figure to be increased to around £27m due in part to updated figures for the area of the floor space, but primarily as a result of officials’ insistence that 35% must be added on for inflation and contingency costs.
Save Meadowbank Campaign felt that the Council were now serious about working with the campaign with an aim to refurbishing Meadowbank.
We were wrong. The press were fed an exagerated £40m refurbishment figure, together with a few choice quotes designed to prepare us for the bad news we’d need to come to terms with:
City planning leader Jim Lowrie said today: “It’s a non-starter for us to try to find almost £40m for a refurbishment and it’s unrealistic to suggest that it can be done. “If we were to sell off something like a third of the existing site we may be able to raise enough money for a replacement running track, a smaller spectator stand and new indoor facilities.”

Why exaggerate the figures? It is difficult to conclude anything other than to imply that the refurbishment option is not viable, and to convince the public and even sympathetic councillors that the only solution is to sell a considerable chunk of the site for luxury housing in order to fund a small facility on the remainder.
If the political will existed, officials would be looking at ways of providing the phased fit-for-purpose refurbishment the people of Edinburgh want and deserve, at an economical price; not searching around for the most exaggerated costs they can find, in the hope that a decision to demolish would mean their figures would never be tested.
In a rare moment of honesty, a “council source” pointed out,
There is no appetite for [the refurbishment] option among the council officials, but unfortunately for them, that is the number one priority for the campaign group.

The report commissioned by the Aug 23rd Full Council meeting is now due to be presented to the coming Dec 20th meeting.

Author: Newstart

So what do the punters make of the government’s empowerment action plan? If indications from New Start’s conference on empowerment today are anything to go by, most are sitting on the fence.

Given that we’ve been talking about empowerment since at least 1999, when Policy Action Team 9 reported (remember the famous seven principles of empowerment?) we seem to be spending a long time making our minds up. Asking for a show of hands on the issue revealed that most people prefer not to show their hands. The few who did were pretty evenly split between the enthusiasts and the cynics.

It’s been a long march that has given us the national strategy for neighbourhood renewal (2001), the establishment of community empowerment networks and local strategic partnerships, the single community programme (2003), the Together We Can action plan (2005), the local government white paper (2006) and the action plan for community empowerment (last month). But perhaps it’s been less of a relentless advance than a replication of Mao’s circuitous and costly Long March of the 1930s.

A couple of comments from two of today’s speakers may shed some light on this. Here’s Stephen Thake, member of the Quirk review on community assets, talking about the mentality of many in local government: ‘There are thousands of naysayers and few people who say, “we can do this”. The issues are in people’s heads. The issues are cultural, not substantive.’

And here’s Hugh Rolo of the Development Trusts Association: ‘Central and local government say “we want to empower you”, but what’s happening is completely different. Central and local government are hierarchical organisations. The people we see are disempowered. They can’t do anything without referring right back to the top of their organisations.’

That said, there are plenty of examples of communities that have become empowered. How? For the most part, by deciding to get things done despite the policies of local and central government rather than because of them. Liverpool, for example, can offer a long list of such exemplars of empowerment.

Perhaps Malcolm X was right: ‘Power never takes a back step – only in the face of more power.’

Author: Scottish Islands Federation

Scotland has 95 inhabited islands, divided between 6 regional authorities. Whilst the Western Isles and the Northern Isles have their own island authorities, the remaining islands are dependant on mainland authorities.

Unlike other island regions in Europe, Scotland’s islands are not represented by their own body. The Scottish Islands Federation aims to fill this gap.

To that effect, the Scottish Islands Federation is taking over from the Scottish Islands Network in order to develop and become a more representative and democratic body, on a par with other European islands organisations.

The Scottish Islands Federation can bring together all 95 inhabited Scottish islands, give them a common voice on issues that matter to them and ensure this voice is heard at local, regional and national level.

Through its membership of ESIN (European Small Islands Network), The Scottish Island Federation can bring attention to these issues at European level.

The Scottish Islands Federation wants to continue engaging young islanders in a Young People’s network, nationally and internationally.

The Scottish Islands Federation aims to develop a database of islands projects: “Islands work” to help Scottish islanders identify examples of best practices and models of sustainable island development.

Commenting ahead of the conference to which will launch the Federation, Convenor of the Scottish Islands Federation, Ian Gillies said; “Our islands are a unique and highly valued resource, and with a Scottish island population exceeding 90,000 residents, it is clear that islands are also economically important to Scotland and within the EU. I expect that the conference will explore some of the topical issues of housing, transport, population, environment and sustainability”.

Author: Argyllshire Advertiser

A NEW wood-chipping plant will open next week at Cairndow which will provide a shining example of environmental enterprise in Argyll and Bute.

Jim Mather, MSP for Argyll and Minister for Energy, will open Our Power’s new plant on Friday, November 2.

The wood chips produced by the plant will fuel the biomass boiler – previously fuelled by oil – which heats water for Lakeland Smolts.

It is hoped this development could hold lessons for other parts of Scotland. Though 40 per cent of energy consumed in Scotland is for heat we are still behind much of Europe in wood fuel usage. Many European countries are way ahead in boiler manufacture, standards of delivery, storage systems, and specifications on the quality of chips and firewood. Our Power is owned by the community charity Here We Are (HWA), and profits from the chips will provide revenue for it.

The project was helped with a grant from the Scottish Biomass Support Scheme (SBSS), which provided 50 per cent of capital expenditure for biomass equipment. HWA then raised £22.5k from its own supporters with additional funds (set up costs, the purchase of a tractor etc) totalling £75k sourced from the banking sector.

Two and a half years ago, HWA raised funds to research and put on an exhibition on the history of the power that has been generated within the Cairndow locality. Following this, a feasibility study was carried out exploring sources of renewable energy with sun and wind proving insufficient. There were two potential hydro schemes, impractical for different reasons, with the remaining one the biomass plant. Norwegian-owned local salmon hatchery Lakeland saw the attraction of reducing its oil consumption and a guaranteed energy price for a five-year period.

The timber will come from within a 30-mile radius after negotiating a five-year deal with the Forestry Commission’s assistance. The next step is to find more customers in the area.

A spokesperson for HWA said: ‘Long distance transportation of timber for chips is not sustainable. And if the SBSS grant scheme is intended to reduce carbon emissions and help regenerate fragile rural areas of the Highlands the current support to the large-scale coal-fired power stations of the South and East should be discouraged, or the timber/chips price increases will threaten the future viability of the small rural initiatives.’

HWA has received support and encouragement from Argyll, Lomond and the Islands Energy Agency (ALIenergy); Highlands and Islands Community Energy Company (HICEC); Communities Scotland Seedcorn Fund and the Development Trust Association’s Business Accelerator scheme also helped with feasibility, research and development.

Author: Scottish Government

Making Community Empowerment a Reality – Getting your Views
Scottish Government
01.11.07

The Scottish Government is committed to doing more to empower individuals and communities to have more control over their own lives and more choice in how their needs are met. They are particularly keen to see people living in areas of deprivation more empowered.

To turn this into a reality Ministers want to hear the views of a wide range of people. They have asked us to organise a dialogue across Scotland from now until the end of December 2007.

This paper sets out the key issues that we believe have an impact on empowerment. It also makes some suggestions about what might be done to ensure that more communities become more empowered. The paper has been shaped by early discussions with a few people with a key interest in empowerment. [DN include names if we can get agreement in time]

The questions in each section are designed to help us understand your views on our suggestions. Your views, along with the views of everyone else who will be involved in the dialogue, will help to inform the decisions Ministers take to make community empowerment a reality.

What is Community Empowerment?

Community empowerment is very complex. It can mean different things to different people. Over the years community empowerment has often proved difficult to achieve. Also, trying to achieve empowerment can lead to increased tensions in the relationships between the people involved.

Any attempt at making community empowerment a reality that does not recognise these complexities or the scale of the challenge will not succeed. However, we believe that community empowerment can be achieved with the right level of commitment, and practical skills and understanding.

Our vision of community empowerment is based on the upper levels of what is often called the ladder of participation. In the 1960s, a woman called Sherry Arnstein described these as citizen control and delegated power. Here is a description of what these two ideas can mean:

Delegated power: Citizens holding a clear majority of seats on committees with delegated powers to make decisions.
Citizen control: Public handle the entire job of planning, policy making and managing a programme.

Community empowerment should offer opportunities for everyone living in a community regardless of their background or personal circumstances. The promotion of equalities must be at the heart of any community empowerment work. An approach that empowers some people in a community at the expense of others is not community empowerment.

Question: Are the concepts of delegated power and citizen control helpful?

Why Community Empowerment? – Strategic Context

Our proposal is not to develop a stand alone community empowerment initiative with a separate grant scheme attached. Neither do we want to impose another level of bureaucracy or governance. Our suggested approach aims to recognise the long term nature of empowerment and to achieve sustained change.

We see community empowerment as part of the broader agenda of community engagement in service delivery. It should be seen as part of a wider debate on how people engage in decision making and influence what happens in their communities. It forms the community led dimension to that agenda. It is about developing models that will see people deciding for themselves what should be done to achieve positive change in their communities.

We also believe that community empowerment should be a shared agenda across Government at national and local level and across the public and voluntary and community sectors. We believe that there is currently widespread support across a range of sectors for delivering a higher degree of community empowerment. However, being serious about community empowerment will mean real culture change across a range of sectors.

Question: Is this the right context for community empowerment?

Suggested practical models

To help make a concrete reality of empowerment we believe that we need to identify possible models that could be developed locally. We have suggested three possible models here – but there may be more. We believe each of these models fits within the upper levels of ladder of participation. We know that across the country some work along these lines is already taking place and our aim is to see more of it happening.

Model One

Budgets and other resources, for example assets like land and buildings, are identified locally and devolved to local community led organisations. This model would use the concept of Community Anchor Organisations (CAOs) as the catalyst and driver for change. CAOs are described later in this paper.

Model Two

Communities would scrutinise services. Public sector service delivery agencies (and perhaps parts of the voluntary sector) would make a binding commitment that communities would assess the quality of the delivery of agreed service within an area. Careful consideration would have to be given to existing scrutiny regimes and legal accountability for service delivery.

Model Three

Devolved decision making to neighbourhood level with the community in the majority on decision making structures. This could build on existing models of governance at community level and could involve community bodies like community councils, community forums or Registered Tenant Organisations.

Question: Are these models helpful and do you know of others that might work?

Role of the Scottish Government

Our proposal is that the key role for Scottish Government is to provide leadership at National level to encourage and promote community empowerment. This is in line with the Government’s determination to avoid duplication at local level and to take a strategic approach to supporting change in communities. This role could involve leading discussions with other key sectors, for example Local Authorities and other public bodies, to ensure there is explicit, strategic level buy in to community empowerment.

The Scottish Government could also develop and resource a national support programme for community empowerment. This might include support for skills development, for evaluating the impact of empowerment and to help networking across Scotland to make sure people learn from each other about what is working. Any programme along these lines would be developed in partnership with people involved in community empowerment.

Question What do you think the role of the Scottish Government should be?

Role of Local Authorities

Communities can’t be empowered by someone else. Communities must empower themselves. However they will often need help and support to achieve their goals. In each of our proposed models we see Local Authorities as having a key role to play to create the conditions where communities can empower themselves. This will be true of both elected members and officials.

We want to encourage Local Authorities to make firm commitments or pledges about what they will do to help local communities empower themselves. In doing this we would expect Authorities to think very carefully about the complexities involved and how empowering communities fits with their overarching strategies on community engagement and service planning and delivery. In particular we would see Local Authorities having a key role in co-ordinating the Community Capacity Building that underpins empowerment and in identifying resources which could be devolved to local community led groups.

However, Local Authorities should not be seen amongst the public sector as responsible for community empowerment As we said earlier this should be an agenda shared across the public sector. Local Authorities in turn need the support and commitment of the wider public and voluntary sectors. We believe that the key mechanism for co-ordinating public sector support for community empowerment should be Community Planning.

Question What do you think the role of Local Authorities and Community Planning should be?

Role of Community Anchor Organisations

One key element which could make a lasting, long term difference to community empowerment, is the role played by locally based, community led organisations.

These strong community led groups are sometimes referred to as Community Anchor Organisations. We think this could be a helpful term to identify a particular kind of local community led group. The attached draft definition is being adopted by the Local People Leading campaign and is based on an existing definition produced in England.

Community Anchor Organisations could play a number of key roles on a day to day basis in community empowerment. They could ensure that local people have a say in identifying the priorities for change in their neighbourhoods; they may deliver services directly themselves; and they might influence the public sector on behalf of local people.

In particular, in the first of our proposed models they would be the bodies who control devolved resources.

The type of organisation that would play the role of a Community Anchor Organisation would vary from place to place across Scotland, but crucially they would have a fairly high level of existing capacity to work on behalf of the wider community. We think models might include Housing Associations, Development Trusts, Community Councils, Registered Tenant Organisations, Community Forums, and other forms of locally based social enterprises.

Question: What do you think about the potential role of Community Anchor Organisations?

Outcomes and evaluation

We obviously want to see community empowerment making a difference to communities. From previous research the kinds of outcomes we would expect to see from community empowerment would include:

More innovative and responsive solutions to local problems;
Increased confidence and skills amongst local people;
Higher numbers of people volunteering in their communities;
A greater sense of pride in a neighbourhood; and
Higher levels of quality of life in a local neighbourhood.

Some of these would be more immediate outcomes related to the process of community empowerment and some would be longer term outcomes.

The issue of measuring empowerment and the change that is brought about in communities because of empowerment is tricky. There are issues around establishing baselines, identifying indicators and the process of monitoring and reporting on progress that need to be resolved. We are interested in people’s initial views on the challenges of measuring progress in community empowerment and any experience they have which may be helpful.

Question What do you see as the main challenges in measuring progress and do you have any experience that might help?

Making Community empowerment a reality – How to make it happen?

As we said earlier, communities cannot be empowered by other people. But others have a clear role in developing the right conditions for empowerment and in supporting communities. This suggest that to move forward to a Scotland where more communities are more empowered, the first step will be a process of local negotiation between communities, often led by Community Anchor Organisations and the local statutory bodies through Community Planning Partnerships.

As a catalyst and framework for those local negotiations, it would be possible to build on the outcomes of this dialogue to develop jointly owned guidance on what we would expect to see from community empowerment.

Question Do you think that issuing jointly owned guidance is a helpful step in starting the process of community empowerment? Are there other ways you could see the process working?

Author: Edgar S. Cahn

I have met that person whom you just heard introduced. We have a nodding acquaintance. But that’s not who I am. Because the person speaking to you today is a troublemaker, a malcontent. My guess is that there is some of that in every one of you. That you chose the career you did because you too are troublemakers. You want to make a difference. You want to leave this world changed for your having been here.

You are here because you have been devoting yourself to helping people who are having problems, people who are at risk, people who are vulnerable or fragile. To me, they are like a canary. Not just any canary, the canary that miners carry into the mine along side of them. You know why they take that canary with them. It’s because the canary has a fragile respiratory system that will collapse from toxic gases long before human beings are affected. And that alerts the miners to danger.

Well the children, the young people, the families, the elders you help care for are like those canaries. They are the fragile ones, the at-risk ones. And the question is: what do we do if we see them starting to keel over?

I’ll tell you what we do. We put respirators on them. We rush in all kinds of services. Intensive services. That’s expensive – and we never seem to have enough respirators or enough experts who know how to use them or to put everyone on life support.

And so, I’m here to say to you: isn’t it time we stopped just putting respirators on canaries? Isn’t it time we asked: where does the toxicity come from? How do we get at it? How do we stop it, clean it out, restore health? And who can best do that? Is it just professionals? Or is it professionals and the community working together?

That’s when I came up with the concept Co-Production. It’s my way of saying, if we can enlist the community as partners, maybe we won’t have to worry about putting canaries on artificial life support. Maybe it’s time we realized that all the specialized professional intervention and professional programs cannot supply

an extended family

a best friend

an informal support group

a peer group

a network

ongoing help after the program ends

Co-Production is a hypothesis:

To realize its full potential, a program must enlist those being helped as partners, co-workers and co-producers of the intended outcomes.

Co-Production requires

A partnership on two levels: between professionals and those that they serve

And between two economies: the monetary economy and the core economy

The first is monetarized and has 2 major components: the private, market economy & the public purpose economy (government & philanthropy)
the second is not monetarized: Family, neighborhood, community, civil society

Aristotle called that second economy Oekonomika. Economists took the term (or more precisely, hijacked it), then expressed their appreciation by demoting the household economy with a negative and calling it the non-market economy. Neva Goodwin, a noted environmental economist, reversed the hierarchy by calling it the Core Economy. We have adopted her term: the Core Economy.

Economists ranging from Nobel winner Gary Becker to MacArthur “Genius Award Winner” Nancy Folbre estimate that at least 40% of economic activity takes place in the Core Economy and is not reflected in the GDP.

The Core Economy is critical – and it is vast:

Redefining Progress, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, has pegged the value of household work in 1998 at a total of $1.911 trillion – about one quarter the size of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) that year.

The national value of informal care giving in 1997 was $196 billion, a “figure [that] dwarfs national spending for formal home health care ($32 billion) and nursing home care ($83 billion).”

A multi-million dollar, multi-year study undertaken in Chicago concluded that poverty and joblessness could not account for the differences in crime they found in largely black neighborhoods. “By far the largest predictor of the violent crime rate,” the study concluded, “was collective efficacy” – a willingness by residents “to intervene in the lives of children.”

What does this Core Economy do? What DOES any economy do? It produces and it distributes.

So what does this economy produce and what does it distribute?

Infants, Children, teenagers and peer groups, families, care for seniors.
It produces safe vibrant neighborhoods, community, democracy, civil society
It produces love and caring and coming to each other’s rescue and sharing 24-7.

That economy, the Core Economy, uses a different production model and a different distribution model from the Market Economy

Production

Specialization and Division of Labor (Market) versus Interdependence, self sufficiency
Distribution

Pricing (Market) versus equity, need, contribution, love, reciprocity, moral obligation – guilt

There is no family that I know where someone holds up a drumstick and asks: what am I bid for this – or divides the mashed potatoes based on the market value of the tasks performed (walking the dog, putting the garbage out.)

Our real job, our real challenge is to rebuild that Core Economy, to make it healthy. But how do we do that, how do we rebuild and restore the Core Economy? What does that really mean: rebuilding the Core Economy? When the Core Economy breaks down, when families, neighborhoods and civil society cannot do what we count on them to do, charities, foundations and government are called upon to pick up the pieces.

How can we best restore the Core Economy to health? That answer is NOT exclusive concentration on massive professional service programs to meet needs and to rescue at-risk groups and individuals. That’s putting respirators on canaries. We need to take a different approach.

An Analogy —

Computers run powerful specialized programs: spread sheets, word processing, data base, graphics. Behind those programs is an operating system.

No matter how powerful the specialized programs, if the operating system crashes, none of those powerful specialized programs works. They can’t fix the operating system and they can’t function at peak capacity if the operating system is on overload.

Like computers, society has specialized programs: schools, police, courts, prisons, mental health agencies, gerontologists, drug detox agencies, hospitals and, of course, all the specialized industries that comprise the private sector.

Like computers, society has an operating system. That operating system is family, neighborhood, community, civil society. The Core Economy.

The problems stem from the malfunctions of the operating system – the Core Economy.

But, if we are going to be candid, the operating system that is still sputtering along ran on free and cheap labor – exacted from the subordination of women, exploitation of immigrants, and discrimination based on ethnicity. So we can’t just go back to the old operating system and we can’t just do a patch job. We need a strategy for rebuilding and upgrading society’s operating system – based on valuing all human capacity, honoring all contributions, generating reciprocity, and building social assets.

4 Operating Principles for the New Operating System –

A. Definitions

1. Assets. The real wealth of this society is its people. The real wealth of any community is people. Every human being can be a builder and contributor.

2. Redefining Work. Work must be redefined to include whatever it takes to rear healthy children, preserve families, make neighborhoods safe and vibrant, care for the frail and vulnerable, redress injustice, and make democracy work.

3. Reciprocity. Giving is most powerful when it becomes a two way street. One-way acts of helping and largesse must become two-way transactions. To avoid creating dependency, acts of helping must trigger reciprocity: Giving back by helping others. “You need me” becomes “We need each other.”

4. Social Capital. “No man is an island.” Informal support systems, extended families, social networks are held together by trust, reciprocity and civic engagement. Progress in any context requires a social infrastructure generated by investments of trust, reciprocity and civic engagement.

B. Examples & Explanation

Assets: Do we really value as contributors the very people whom we are charged with helping? I can’t accept this statement a senior gave me. She declared: I have nothing left to give – except love. As if that wasn’t the most precious thing in the world. Or the teenager charged with UUV (unauthorized use of a vehicle – or joy riding) who had come before a youth court run by other teenagers. When the jury was out deliberating, I went to talk to him. I said: your community really needs you – and he looked at me as if to say, “White man, what planet are you from? Don’t you know why I’m here?”. Then I asked two questions, “Do you know how to tie your shoes? Don’t you think a child in pre-school would rather learn that from you than from me?” and “Do you have a grandmother or grandfather you know how to hug? Did you know there are seniors in nursing homes who haven’t had a visitor in six months – who would give anything for a visitor to come and hug them?”.

He knew I knew something he couldn’t deny, that he had the capacity to help someone else in a way that mattered. Until I asked those questions, his father could not look me in the eye. He was ashamed of his son. Now he was looking at his own child in a new way. Both knew the youth had value. We – all of us — have value far beyond those skills that the market values. What percentage of the real you do you put in your resume? 5%, 10% at most.

Redefining Work: What does that mean? One example: the five year old with pigtails who went up to a gang leader (complete with gold teeth, chains and tattoos) after a truce had been negotiated and said: “We have trash cans here – and we use them”. That was her Time Dollar job – Time Dollars or Time Credits are the currency that Time Banks use to reflect the work that we really need and that we can honor, even if we don’t have “real money” to pay them. (She could get the dancing lessons she wanted with those Time Dollars.) Martin Simon from Timebanks UK can tell you about how Timebanking has been used in the UK to cover the services involved in a wedding, a funeral and in the US for a child birth by midwives. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of hours of real work paid for with Time Credits, provided by people whom the economists don’t consider to be in the work force.

Or in both your country and mine, there is a very special organization called the Youth Advocate Program that works with teenagers who otherwise would be in some institution. There’s one 13 year old, returned home from a secure detention facility for possession of a firearm. He was too young to be eligible for supported work but not too young to develop an orientation program in the language of a 13 year old. Like my colleagues in Time Banking, the YAP staff can load you down with stories about the offenders who are now emerging as youth leaders, or who are advising other young people about what path not to go down. Others are proving themselves experts who can actually lead workshops and discuss community alternatives to custody.

Redefining work means honoring people for what they can do, recording it, validating it and rewarding it. That doesn’t mean paying market wages. But it does mean developing incentives that send the message: by helping others you can shape your own destiny. In Chicago and Washington DC, youth with special learning problems are tutoring younger children in the first and second grade and so far, 4,500 have earned recycled computers by tutoring. Grades have gone up; test scores have gone up; attendance has gone up and the fighting after school has stopped because we didn’t realize we were also creating a protection system. Apparently you don’t beat up your tutee and you don’t let anyone else beat them up either.

Before going on to the next “Core Value”, I need to say something about what it means to rebuild the Core Economy and why Time Banking is working out to be just the right tool to use to do that. It’s because of a characteristic of money that we take for granted without realizing what the consequences are. All of us know that money has something called price built in. We just assume that’s how money should be so when I first developed a kind of money that treated all hours equally, people (I mean my mentors at the London School of Economics) thought that was crazy. But think about how price works in the market. It means that things that are in short supply cost more and things that are plentiful cost less. If they are scarce, they are valuable. If they are abundant, they are either dirt cheap or worthless. But take a look at what that means. It means that everything that defines us as human beings is worthless. Because we all are human beings. Except I guess for the Martians in the audience. So all of us can reach out to each other, care for each other, come to each other’s rescue, come together to reach an agreement, celebrate together, and teach each other the basics. In market terms, that abundance brings price down. It is worthless. But we know it is priceless.

So the basic things that the Core Economy requires is something we all can do for each other. I know it comes as a surprise that it was possible for our species to bring forth children without a gaggle of PhD’s in child development being available or that people actually could get old without guidance from gerontologists. But if we let price determine value, then we have to devalue everything that enabled our species to survive. Maybe, just maybe that’s why we’re in a bit of trouble now as a species.

Time Banking reverses that. It honors those skills, those universal capacities that define us as human beings; our willingness to come to each others rescue, to care for each other, to share, to help out, to listen, to hug, to pay for others who are less fortunate, and to reach agreement. Time Banking says: it’s possible to honor that, value it, reward it – regardless of what the market says. That’s what we need to rebuild the Core Economy. That’s why those of us in Timebanking have recently adopted the saying, “We have what we need – if we use what we have.” Now I come to the third Core Value, the third principle.

Reciprocity: We need to rethink how we go about helping others. We need to ask them to give back in some way, not necessarily to us, but to someone else. Some of you may have seen or heard about the movie Pay it Forward. It’s that idea. We can always pay it back because there is always someone else out there we can help.

This is probably the most controversial principle to implement because we think help should be given based on need and that it is somehow wrong or inappropriate to ask a person who needs help to help someone else. All of us went into the helping professions in order to help, and no one taught us that we needed to ask people to give back, unless they had money and could afford to pay. But think of the message we are sending. Without meaning to do so, we are saying to people, “I have something you need but you have nothing I need or want or value”. And we are also saying, “the way you get more of my time, help and resources is by having more problems and being less able to take care of yourself”. So we are really sabotaging ourselves without meaning to.

I confronted the consequences of doing things this way in the mid-nineties. I had been the co-creator and founder of the national legal services program. For the first time, the U.S. federal government expended large amounts of money to provide free legal services to people who could not afford a lawyer. And then in the nineties, Newt Gingrich and a conservative congress tried to kill the program. By that time, over 30 years, we had helped over 100 million families, really dedicated lawyers doing all they could to stop an eviction or overturn a bad ruling or stop spousal abuse. We barely survived that fight but not a single family we had helped turned out to help us in that fight. I realized that for all the valiant effort, we had not created a constituency for justice and for all the money we spend on helping people, we have not created a constituency for social justice in my country.

There’s a Time Banking program that enlists prisoners to fix bicycles that are then sent to third world countries and the Time Credits earned can then be spent by their families to get help. Likewise, in the Youth Advocate Program I described earlier, young people who have committed offenses are helping out on a community bus, ensuring that young people with learning difficulties get to school safely. And in another community, the Youth Advocate Program has youth who have been in serious trouble helping local fire fighters to distribute fire alarms and teach fire prevention to local residents. In return, the local parks and recreation department has just agreed to expand a skate park for neighboring teens. In still another community, youth who committed offenses take jobs that earn a small wage, half of which goes to a victim support fund.

But I learned, in meeting with the Strategy Unit in the Home Office, that there is another kind of bias, and even greater bias, against asking people to give back in this country. People on disability cannot participate in Time Banks without losing their benefits. The “contributory principle” has been abolished. Yet, even if disabled, they can visit nursing homes and orphanages.

We have to find a way to have a different set of rules apply in different contexts. The Core Economy is NOT the market economy. So why can’t we let people contribute to rebuilding the Core Economy even if they are legally disabled and cannot work in the market economy. That’s one place where your help and creativity will be critical if we are going to expand reciprocity and enable everyone to contribute in any way they can.

Fourth, and finally, comes the concept of Social Capital. We have to invest resources in helping rebuild a sense of community, that you above all know enabled communities to survive World War II. In Washington DC, we are creating a club for the youth who were in the Youth Court, so they can create a peer culture based on helping others. I am working with the Youth Advocate Program in Houston to create an alumni club so that these youth and their families can provide help to each other, after the funded services end. In Seattle, a group of families with children who suffer from Severe Emotional Disturbances, who may be violent or suicidal have banded together to provide mutual help and to form a new kind of extended family where no one need be ashamed of their problems and everyone can provide each other with mutual support. In Texas, the families who have formed a Time Bank called Banco del Barrio are now teaching each other about everything from health and diabetes to how to become a citizen. They are now engaged in voting registration and turning out the vote. They earn Time Credits and the health clinic provides some funding for monthly socials and pot lucks and for the first time, families are developing a knowledge of how to cook healthy meals and are exercising together to lose weight or to control diabetes.

That’s the kind of world we need to rebuild. You have in your a kind of self-assessment instrument that enables you to assess whether and to what extent your agency is putting these values into practice. It asks simple questions:

Do you ask your clients what they like to do?
How do you record contributions?
Does your program/agency budget funds to create special programs and/or to provide goods and services as rewards or incentives for clients to contribute.
How do you reward contributions by clients?
Do you require, request or encourage clients to help others in return for services you provide?
How do you support clients in finding ways to help others?
Is there a key person who is responsible for helping to see that it happens?
Does the organization help to create mutual self help, or social action groups as an expression of agency mission?
In what ways does your organization support client-based membership groups which can function as an informal support group, peer group or extended family?
What supports and resources are provided for social events and celebrations that are organized by client-based membership and peer groups.

Rebuilding the Core Economy can actually help you further your agency’s mission and statutory purpose. Co-production can

(1) supply a critical missing element

(2) change relations with clients from dependency to empowerment and contribution

(3) create a constituency that will fight for your program and generate additional resources

(4) create feedback loops and early warning systems that amount to real system change

(5) advance social justice by empowering disempowered groups and reducing barriers based on national origin, gender, age, language or ethnicity.

We are talking about genuine system change, change that formally enlists the clients you serve as co-producers, as partners and co-workers. That’s a big step. It involves major system change but if you go down this road, new possibilities will emerge. Co-Production expands the range of the possible. If this is undertaken systematically, problems that have long remained intransigent will suddenly become manageable.

That’s my message to you today.

Co-Production means we can stop lamenting the fact that we don’t have enough money to put respirators on all the fragile canaries. But maybe, just maybe, if we clean up the toxicity, if we enlist our clients and the community in getting at the sources of the problem, we won’t need all those respirators and those who do need respirators can be taken off in a shorter period of time. That’s the message; that’s the hope. Let me end with a passage that says it all better than I can:

When the Stranger says: “What is the meaning of this city?”

Do you huddle close together because you love each other?”

What will you answer? “We all dwell together

To make money from each other”? or “This is a community”?

And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.

O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,

Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

(T.S. Eliot, Choruses From the Rock)

In case you hadn’t noticed – the Stranger from the desert has arrived. What happened on September 11 has profound implications and the bottom line is what will we answer?

We all dwell together to make money from each other.

Or

This is a community?

Co-Production provides that answer. It declares unequivocally:

This is a community. We are a community. I think that’s why we are here. Not just here, here.

But here, on this planet.