Locality is now recruiting:

2 Trainee Community Organisers

to work and learn in the Wembley area

As part of the national Community Organisers programme.

This government-funded programme will train 500 senior Community Organisers, who will work in local communities around the country to bring people together, listen to ideas, build networks and support people to tackle the local issues which are important to them.

Trainee Community Organisers will learn how to motivate and organise people locally using the Root Solution Listening Matters approach developed by RE:generate to animate, catalyse and focus community action. This involves systematic listening and dialogue that builds trusting, respectful relationships, networks and connectivity between and across diverse communities. As well as supporting local people to take action, senior COs will recruit a team of voluntary COs.

Trainee Community Organisers will be employed by Locality, who are delivering the national programme. In most cases COs are hosted by established local organisations. However, we are testing out a ’direct deployment’ approach and these posts are the first that will be managed in this way. There will be a Local Contact — in this case Meanwhile Space who will be undertaking activity in the area and will provide local orientation and ongoing moral support.

Contract:                 51 week Fixed Term contract

Salary:                      £8.50 per hour

Hours:                      30-35 hours full time per week

Accreditation:          Certificate in Foundations of Organising

To apply:

Send a personal statement to Ruth Townsley at Locality (ruth.townsley@locality.org.uk). This should clearly show how you meet the essential and preferred criteria for Trainee Community Organisers as outlined in the person specification, including describing your experience and knowledge gained from paid and unpaid work roles. Candidates must be able to demonstrate that they are eligible to work in the UK and must be available for a 3.5 day residential training course 27^th-30^th March 2012 (in Birmingham).

Selection will be via a local interview and a telephone interview. Contracts will be issued after an offer is made, but will not be signed until the residential training course, giving candidates the opportunity to ‘experience’ the work before making a final decision on accepting the post.

Info about the Community Organisers programme and Listening Matters: www.cocollaborative.org.uk/

Info about the Lower Lea and Regent’s Canal and the Local Contact: www.londonboaters.org/

Closing date for application:   Friday 17th February 2012

Interviews will be held:              week of 27th February to 2nd March 2012

Residential training:                   Tues 27^th to Friday 30^th March 2012

January 31st, 2012

You have until the 3rd February to make your views known about the proposal for a Queen’s Park Community Council.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help improve Queen’s Park for everyone who lives here.

Campaigners, with the help of Queen’s Park Forum staff Ted and Fabian, are hosting an all day and evening drop-in information surgery for residents wanting to find out more. Come and see us over a cup of tea at Office 1, Beethoven Centre, Third Avenue w10 on Monday 30th January. We hope to have Somali, Bengali and Arabic speakers on hand to translate. Our aim is to help you have your say.

For those unable to make it to the information drop-in on the 30th, we provide a short note on the two key questions that most directly concern Queen’s Park residents right now. Dont delay, let Westminster Council know what you think: email cgr@westminster.gov.uk  

Alternatively the full consultation document can be found on Westminster’s website. But be warned – it is more than a little confusing.

PDT and the Queens Park Forum start 2012 with the great news that Queens Park has been selected by the Department for Communities and Local Government to pilot an exciting new initiative that will open up  participation in the co-design of local public services focusing on families.

The QP project is one of ten ‘neighbourhood level’ projects that have been selected to develop small scale Community Budgets that will give residents a micro-local level say over the services they want and use. The local community will play a leading role, working with councils and professionals, to shape local services so they work in a user friendly and integrated setting.

Angela Singhate, Chair of the Queens Park Forum said, ‘This is a great opportunity for Queens Park and works alongside our petition to become a recognised Community Council.’  Neil Johnston CEO PDT said, ‘The Neighbourhood Budget pilot provides the people of Queens Park with a chance to re-think how services to families and the wider community can be made to work better. Working together with Westminster City Council and other public services we look forward to discovering new approaches co-designed by local people and professionals.’

The Independent Riots Communities and Victims Panel (IRCVP)  has been set up to examine and understand why the August 2011 riots took place.

5 Days in August Interim report

The interim report ’5 days in August’ has now been published. It sets out the expert panel’s  findings and immediate recommendations for action, following a national call for evidence made on 16 September 2011.

The final report will be presented to the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Official Opposition in March 2012.

In recognition of its regeneration expertise in deprived neighbourhoods, PDT recently presented its response to the 2011 riots to an  IRCVP interim forum including leading experts in social unrest. Jackie Rosenberg described PDT’s work with young people and the community at large. Evidence suggests that those areas engaged in a process of transformative regeneration, like North Westminster, reacted less violently to copy-cap and bystander looting than those areas still excluded from mainstream big society.

To read the interim report, please see www.5daysinaugust.co.uk

The Panel still wants to hear from as many people as possible - the most important part of its work is to listen to the people who have been affected by the riots and to make sure everyone has the chance to have their voices heard.

The interim report includes a response form for communities, victims and organisations to provide their views to us in the second phase of our activity You can also submit your views to panel members via the contact details on the contact the panel page and follow the work of the Panel on twitter - @riotspanel.

http://www.queensparkforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Briefing-Paper-Web-View-Keeda-spreads2.pdf

Dear Westminster residents

We are the Campaign for a Queen’s Park Community Council and we aim to set up London’s first parish council in Queen’s Park ward in the north of the City of Westminster. We write to ask for your support.

In May we handed a petition of 1600 names to Council Leader Colin Barrow. In response, the council has announced a community governance review to explore whether to establish the new parish our neighbourhood wants.

Community (or parish) councils are concerned with local issues, and people often associate them with village life. We believe cities too can benefit, but we do not seek to impose our ideas on anyone else: we are campaigning for Queen’s Park ward, nowhere else. We have already begun work on projects including a garden and toy exchange. We also helped organise a public meeting in response to the recent shooting on the Mozart estate.

Westminster is a huge and diverse area, and we believe local people understand their neighbourhoods better than anyone else. Our campaign is non-political and we believe our council, with its deep roots in the community, will complement the strategic leadership provided by Westminster City Council across the borough.

We believe our aims fit with the government’s commitment to localism and the Big Society: while the parish council’s administration is funded by a precept added to council tax (in our ward only), the councillors are volunteers.

Please join in the consultation. Write to Tom Kimber at the City Planning Delivery Unit, Westminster City Council, 11^th floor, City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6QP, tkimber@westminster.gov.uk, tel 0207 641 3478, or contact your local church, area forum or amenity society, and tell them you support the residents of Queen’s Park in bringing this ancient form of local democracy to the heart of London. And please visit our website: campaign4queenspark.org or email us: campaign4qp@gmail.com.

Thank you.

Angela Singhate, Chair, Campaign for a Queen’s Park Community Council