Our Communities: 2020 Vision

Author

Mark Gale, CEO Gloucestershire Gateway Trust

"After some of the challenges of 2019, I’m hoping that we can all be a bit kinder to each other in 2020.

What makes communities special is the positive time we all share chatting to friends and neighbours, playing together and keeping an eye out for each other.

The great news from our 2019 Annual Community Survey* is that most residents in our neighbourhoods still want to share their skills to help other local people.  When we start sharing local skills and knowledge, we find that the solutions to many local ‘problems’ lay in our own hands. What people often need is to be allowed some time, trust and resources to create their own opportunities and solutions.

A great example of this in 2019 has been the amazing array of activities generated by our local Culture Matson partnership with its many and varied partners. This group has helped turn the reputation of the local area from being seen as a problem into an asset. Culture Matson partners like GL4, schools, churches, library and many community partners organised a plethora of events from theatre, dance, beat boxing, circus skills, outside cinema and many more all of which have been led by local people.

Now people come to Matson to go to the theatre and other community festivals. As a community we are focused on helping to increase this activity providing us all with new opportunities to get to know more people, make new friends, have fun together and generally make a spectacle of ourselves. That’s what I call perfect 2020 vision."
 
 
*for a copy of our Community Survey email office@ggtrust.org and we’ll send you a free copy, or visit our publications page.