How do we continue the Covid Community Spirit

On 7th October a group of residents met online to chat about 'the covid community spirit'- what were they seeing, and what ideas did they have for keeping this going? This was the first online meeting as part of the Citizens' Alliance Network, and there was a lot of excitement about what we could do.

What residents were seeing and doing

• Alison was supporting families at her local school
• Matt was involved in providing food parcels to people in the Thames ward area
• Katherine was connecting and signposting people, and working in the community resilience space with the British Red Cross
• Adaora was volunteering at Kingsley Hall, supporting people who needed food
• Joanne supports older people who are isolated or lonely, by phone.
• Alison C has been involved in lots of different projects, through the BD Collective, River Roding Trust, and in her own neighbourhood.
• Will is a PhD student, studying communities and participation.

What ideas we had for continuing the community spirit

• Helping older people who can't maintain their front gardens. This is often a source of distress for people who once took pride in their gardens, and can indicate that vulnerable people might live there. We discussed how we could connect younger people into this, share skills and make connections. It would be 'covid-secure' as it wouldn't rely on face to face interaction. Autumn and winter are great times of the year to clear back gardens which have become overgrown.
• How we can have a great Christmas and festive season. Some people are already worried about what the festive season will like for them if they can't travel to family or take part in festivities. Some are worried that they won't be able to have a Christmas lunch. We talked about how we could encourage people to cook for their neighbours- maybe invite them to lunch; how we could fill our windows and gardens with light and fun- like we did with rainbows during the first lockdown; how we could bring the usual festivities to life in a different way.
• Bringing more people into a community conversation in neighbourhood. The Citizens' Alliance Network is supporting residents to have online community conversations in their neighbourhood- do you want to have one? Get in touch.
• We're looking into how we can expand community resilience awareness and activity.
  
• We talked about the power of having a vision of where we want our communities to be in 5 to 10 years.

What are your thoughts on these? Which ones do you want to be involved in? Do you have other ideas? Add your comments below.