Dear members and friends,
A George Monbiot piece, suggesting that the success of this campaign against Corbyn was partly down to Labour ‘drift’ – their failure to respond with decision and speed: what he sees as the party’s ‘weak instinct for power’ – even for self-preservation. The Tory party’s rebranding this week, of its official Twitter account as ‘factcheck UK’, is shameless – because it deliberately undermines the truth. Labour reluctance to ‘play dirty’ online – rather than weakness – is a decisive assertion of values: ‘we don’t do that.’
Tim Berners-Lee, its inventor, unveiled a global action plan this week, to safeguard the web from abuse and assure it benefits humanity; in particular he mentions the abuses of political manipulation, fake news, and privacy violations. His plan already has the backing of over 150 key organisations, who agree to support nine core principles. Last year Berners-Lee said that tech-giants like Facebook and Google have grown so dominant – that if not curtailed by market forces – they may need to be forcibly broken up. Amen to that.
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I’ve got election fatigue – I wish it would hurry up. A high spot for me this week was Monday morning’s session at our conference – Neil McInroy and Joe Cullinane talking expertly about ‘Building Community Wealth and Wellbeing’ – with even the local Council as an active partner – see session summary. When I served my time as a frontline community worker, Scotland was ‘ruled’ by a Labour Party of entrenched municipalism; ‘empowering communities’ was considered ‘ideologically unsound’; our relationships with Councils was mostly adversarial; yet community work somehow flourished. The rhetoric of the SNP apparently favours community empowerment – but where is it. ‘Mind whit they dae – no whit they say’.
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Big Society Capital (BSC) was created in 2012 to provide appropriate investment for the social ventures of our third sector. This article by Helen Heap continues the examination of why it has failed (my words): why, instead of the patient capital required, it offers unaffordable loans. In his book, Building Social Business, Muhammad Yunus makes it clear that, by definition, ‘social’ investors get back only their original investment – no dividend is paid or expected. Commercial banking has distracted us from this benchmark – but it will return: the human need to help others goes deep.
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I’m a fan of economist Joseph Stiglitz, who has a short piece in Social Europe called ‘The End of Neoliberalism and the Rebirth of History’. He says that if the 2008 financial crisis failed to make us realise that unfettered markets don’t work – the climate crisis certainly should. Neoliberalism will literally bring an end to our civilisation. He wants us to revisit the values of the Enlightenment.
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The great Leopold Kohr famously said: “when something is wrong – something is too big” Scotland’s govt. needs to heed this – (excellent summary of Kohr’s philosophy). The annual performance report of GWSF (67 small, locally run housing associations) as usual, places them ahead of the big boys. Scottish govt would probably prefer to be dealing with a single entity – for everything
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Quote from The Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Kohr.
“Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. If the stars in the sky or the atoms of uranium disintegrate in spontaneous explosion, it is not because their substance has lost its balance. It is because matter has attempted to expand beyond the impassable barriers set to every accumulation. Their mass has become too big… And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the fever of aggression, brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations, have been welded into overconcentrated social units.”
Our annual event – ‘Community Wealth Building – the role for social and community enterprise’ – took place this week at the Westerwood Hotel, near Cumbernauld. Over 140 delegates participated in, we hope, a varied and interesting programme. In recent years, this event has been run them in partnership with Social Firms Scotland and Scottish Community Alliance – which reflects an increasing convergence in our work, as well as extending the reach of our respective networks to over 2000 social and community enterprises. We hope that by building connections, sharing experiences and learning from one another, organisations will be better placed to serve the communities in which they work. In addition to the keynote addresses on Community Wealth Building, Day 1 highlights included Dragons’ Den winner – Giraffe Healthcare; Audience Prize winner – Rise Glasgow; and evening entertainment – SoundSational. Day 2 saw three impressive presentations from Pockets and Prospects participants – with the conference ending with discussions on the next SE Action Plan – including Emerging Themes from recent consultation events.
NOTICES: We can’t flag all notices here, but more jobs, events and tenders available on our website.
Job Ad: Senscot is now recruiting for a new SE and Sport Co-ordinator – to facilitate and support the growing volume of activity amongst Sport SEN members – as well as liaising closely with sportscotland. The post is funded by sportscotland and Scottish Govt with funding in place, in the first instance, through to March 2021. Closing date for applications in Thursday 19th Dec – with interviews due take place in week beginning 13th January 2020. See full Application Pack.
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The Scottish Parliament’s Local Government & Communities Committee is planning future work into community wellbeing and is keen to hear ideas and suggestions for what they could/ should focus on. They have set up the engage.parliament.scot website to allow people to share their ideas. Worth a look.
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The Scottish Human Rights Commission and Nourish Scotland have recently launched a new animation on the Right To Food in Scotland. The 90 second animation explains what the Right to Food means, and what’s needed to make it real for people in Scotland. The animation echoes previous calls made by both organisations to put the Right to Food directly into Scotland’s laws.
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Frontline News: The work of Unlock Employment was covered in this week’s Herald. The Govan-based community employment agency has helped more than 60 people into work over the last year:
Total Homes, the Glasgow-based co-operative supporting the circular economy in Scotland – has, in its first year, been able to donate around 1,000 Christmas gifts to locally-based organisations in Glasgow:
Cultural SEN member, The Scottish Traditional Boat Festival has been crowned winner of the Best Cultural Event / Festival category at the Aberdeen City & Shire Tourism Awards. Congratulations all round.
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This week’s bulletin profiles a Development Trust that manages and develops village facilities for the benefit of the community – Muir of Ord, 10 miles west of Inverness. The Muir of Ord Development Trust was established in 2011 to take ownership of the Village Hall on behalf of the community – having been a community venue since 1893. Since then the Development Trust has gone onto develop the Old Tarradale School into The Muir Hub. The Hub includes versatile meeting rooms, an auditorium which features retractable seating and stage with cinema and sound system – as well as hosting Café Artysans – run by the Calman Trust, a social enterprise providing training for local young people.
