Does Central Brixton need a Community Centre?

[miss FX]

now then

Well, well, REWIND. As Anna has recommended, setting up a Charity is the best thing - which raises money, gets the leases or licence to use neglected space and supports groups who wish to pull something together, as well as ensuring that facilities engage the general massive.

Now then - Anna drew up a memorandum for this Charity which some of you may have seen. It looked to me a bit like the manifesto for a small country, it had so much scope - e.g the relief of poverty, unemployment (including assistance to find employment), financial assistance, technical assistance, provision, maintenance and improvement of housing, leisure facilities, provision of public education etc. etc.

Now I've been told I got a big mouth, but I was concerned this was biting off more than any of us could chew.

I have simplified this so that the Charity deals with property management specifically (object: public ownership, public utilisation) and regeneration more by implication, IOW facilitating the use of property for (social enterprise) - which would in turn lend itself to local sustainable economic development - or (groups with a co-operative structure) or (ecological projects) without taking direct responsibility for developing those groups, training those individuals within them (capacity building) and providing them with the financial assistance and structure! I don't think we need to set out so many aims so specifically at the outset. This is all in the spirit of self-help, afterall and there are numerous agencies who offer this sort of support already (including LVAC - who have helped Apt).

One of the objects reads: to facilitate the use thereof in the interests of social welfare and with the object of improving the condition of life of the local community.

So a concentration on targeting and acquiring property and funding for it and then matching it up with existing groups, which must have themselves clear aims towards regeneration and participation.

Apt will be seeking legal advice on the memorandum, but I would like input here and now on this please. . . !

Since you're all so keen.

Love from
The 'Secatry'.

 

[hatboy]

Have you heard of "Shoreditch Our Way" - a group set up by Shoreditch residents to aquire property for community use and protect it from development?

http://www.shoreditchourway.org.uk/ShOW_menu.htm

Keepb in touch please Miss FX.

 

[pooka]

You don't have to do every thing that's in your charitable purposes, but you can't do anything that is without them. So Anna is probably trying to set the purposes as wide as possible for greatest freedom of action.

Why don't you ask him?

I'm not sure I fully understand your post, but if you choose you want to go with regeneration as an object, then that has to be explicit - not by implication. I don't think the Charity Commission would accept 'public ownership' as an object.

 

[miss FX]

mmmmmmm

Thanks for all the food for thought. . .

That hatboy website link with the snappy paulsmith meets damienhirst meets shoreditch design is worth a look. . . TA
A company limited by guarantee, they are.

I see the point about keeping objectives wide - but does that mean specifically wide or generally open ended? The language is so blathery anyway, something that sounds specific says nothing much so often in social-speak.

I can run the alternatives by anyone specifically interested in person - should they wish to help.

 

[miss FX]

Strip!

This is the stripped down version which I think could be expanded on, carefully. . .

(a) The first and main Object of the Charity is to promote urban regeneration by bringing neglected properties back into use primarily in Lambeth but not excluding deprived neighbourhoods elsewhere in South London.

(b) The second Object of the Charity is to encourage community utilisation and control of land and property and to facilitate the use thereof in the interests of social welfare and with the object of improving the condition of life of the local community.

(c) The third Object of the Charity is to support businesses in the social enterprise sector or local groups whose structure incorporates the principles of co-operation and community or social inclusion and ownership.

(d) The fourth Object of the Charity is to use any such other means to use property to promote regeneration and local sustainable economic development as may from time to time be determined subject to the prior consent of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales.

 

[Gramsci]

Hi Miss FX-their are models for this kind of regeneration.Did email them to Anna a while back-Ill look them up again and link them up here.The newer models were made as it was seen that housing on its own was not the only problem and a more "holistic" approach made practical sense.

 

[Gramsci]

A link to the Community Gateway Association

http://cch.coop/docs/cch-gateway.pdf