MISSING: Mayor Graham Bass (Councillor for Purley) - N.B. this is just banter, I have nothing against G-Man's administration or personhood

N.B. This is not a politicised criticism of local parties or their respective councillors, this is more an exercise to learn more about councillors and their work in Croydon – with best intentions and no malice. SAFE.

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As I work to improve my local community of Purley, I, naturally, look at others who are doing the same thing to see where our efforts and interests intersect and are making a difference.

Local govt is one such area that I continue to look to for community-centred inspiration and – as such – the work of local councillors is something that is of increasing interest to me.

A definition of the role of local councillors can be found on the Croydon council site:

Your councillor is the person elected every four years to represent your area.  They can help if you are dissatisfied with a council service by advising or directing you to someone who can help sort out your problem and can sometimes progress the case on your behalf.  This is often done in advice surgeries where you can meet with the councillor for your ward and discuss your problem.

That said:

I have no idea who my councillors are*, what they do and where/why/how they are doing it.

In part, this stems from my own apathy and ignorance -I could very easily have checked the Croydon council site or use google – however, I think there is also a duty on the part of local govt. representatives to remain visible in their local communities, as a matter of course, to  improve channels of communication between them and the public and increase confidence in their works.

It seems, from an enlightening exchange on Twitter last night that many Croydon locals are similarly in the dark about their local representatives:

So, QUESTIONS FOR CROYDONERS:

Have you ever met you councillor in person?

What do you think about your local councillor’s profile and activities? 

If you are a councillor: What do you find hardest and/or most rewarding about your role? Do you think charges of invisibility from the public are fair – or is it a two-way street and the public should take an active interest?

*Obvs, not now I googled them for the purposes of this post!

Please vote for Grace Children’s Village.  CLICK THIS LINK HERE –> http://www.worldofbetters.com/better/2424

And scroll down to FB Like/vote it. The site is wack, so use the picture below to understand what you should see.

Use the FB Like to vote for my nomination. Thank you.

Deadline 15th DEC. Thanks a lot!

Hopefully, this is will inspire others to come next year 

Bizzy Rascal: Wants to counter the negativity around Croydon

Today’s submission is from entrepreneur and go-getter Saif Bonar. Saif is a Croydoner with a MASSIVE passion to see our fine town turned into a vibrant tech-hub. His blog – which charts his progress – can be read here and to see why I first became a supporter, read Saif’s magnum opus here.

N.B. The post is from a hastily-written tweet – but I had to record it here for posterity!

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#croydon. Home for two years. Moved to write something positive about the council to counter the negative crap flying around, but will also be balanced and offer criticism where due..

In my short time as a resident I have used a broad range of services from the council. I don’t begrudge paying council tax, as I feel the services I have received are worth what I have paid.

Before living in Croydon I lived in LB Bromley and LB Lambeth. Croydon staff have been the most helpful and professional. The bar is actually rather high. At Bromley and Lambeth almost everything went via Capita and was often ballsed up in one way or another.

I am pleasantly surprised by the efficiency with which Croydon manages its services with an in-house team of civil servants.

I will summarise below:

Building Control and Planning
Have had cause to communicate with them on various issues. Always polite, professional and incredibly helpful. Knowledgeable, fast and if they were a commercial outfit they would be one of the best. They run a tight ship and know their stuff. Cannot fault them. Same day inspections, fonts of knowlegde by phone. A real credit!

Contact Centre
Never been kept waiting for hours on the phone, but if I go into the hub at the wrong time of day it can be busy and have had to wait up to 45 minutes. Too long, but was informed of the wait time accurately on arrival and told other times which may be quieter if I did not want to wait. Can’t do much better than that, saving over staffing and wasting considerable money during quiet periods.

Environmental Health
Professional, fast to respond, positive experience to emails.

Parking Services
Generally very good, if a little inflexible. Overzealous in on-street parking charges and attempts to extend CPZ’s. Sub-contractor wardens have some attitudinal issues but in-house ones are very professional, polite, friendly and approachable. Room for improvement in policies such as issuing of permits. Should charge much, much, more for 3rd and 4th parking permits (think in the region of £750 for #3 and £1250 for #4) on a single property. If you can afford a fleet of vehicles, you should be able to afford a suitably large house with driveway.

Waste Management
Waddon road facility is excellent but surprisingly easy to use (no ID, permits, etc checked, ever in about 100+ trips). Good to recycle tetrapak there, but rarely bother – too much effort. Bin collections, recycling etc – spot on. Green waste collection, great but could be extended into autumn (although decomposing leaves are good for the soil). Father was staying and diabetic, so needed sharps waste collection – arranged promptly and professionally.

Leisure
The facilities operated by Fusion are competitively priced. It’s cheaper to join a commercial facility like fitness first etc. surprised there isn’t something in central Croydon.

Arts & Culture
Lots of cuts, understandable, money needs to be freed up, but more effort to encourage and support community groups to take on management, costs and commercialise facilities like ClockTower would be a good thing.

Traffic
Wow.. don’t get me started. Nightmare. Lots of room for improvement.

Public Realm
A few thousand gallons of dulux would do wonders to brighten up Wellesley road, underpasses, St Georges Walk and improve the realm without spending tens of millions.

Town Centre/BID
Good progress – but worth upping security presence in and around Whitgift, Centrale and pedestrianised areas and taking a leaf from The Glades in Bromley – PCSOs and Security do not allow groups of kids to gather or loiter. Its a shopping centre, not a playground.. buy your Mcdonalds, do your shopping and move on!

For all those bemoaning the Tory controlled council (and I am not a Tory) be careful what you wish for, it could be worse, you could live in Lambeth! Then you really would get a flavour of incompetence and mismanagement.

It’s only words
and words are all I have
to take your heart away – Words, Boyzone  

So sang our generation’s greatest wordsmith – Ronan Keating – about one of Mankind’s most important communication tools.

In Who Needs Words, Richard Littledale builds upon Ronan’s considerable scholastic foundation, to further grapple with the nature of language, meaning and communication – in a manner that is both amiable and empowering (although, sadly, not as tuneful).

Who Needs Words is very much in the same vein as Littledale’s blog Preacher’s A-Z which deals daily with the issues of communication in an age where technology is both facilitating and hampering human connection and conversation. That this is written from the viewpoint of a preacher is almost incidental; Littledale has a great knack of presenting in his thoughts in an accessible fashion that – whilst unapologetically Christian – is not overtly dogmatic.

Who Needs Words is a very easy read – something which is laudable considering the difficult concepts is addresses. Littledale has an incredible gift of being able to take the complex world of linguistics, and explain it in a manner that is unpatronising and conversational (think Noam Chomsky crossed with Bill Bryson). Suffice to say, that as a recent English Lit. graduate, I came away from the first few pages of Who Needs Words with much a greater understanding of semiotics than a whole four years of higher education!

Admirably, Littledale is not just interested in giving his reader an education, but also giving them inspiration to apply. Who Needs Words is intensely practical – and more, importantly – intensely encouraging. With section titles such as “Embrace your vulnerability” and “Enjoy your humanity”,  the book faces the fears and concerns of public speakers and conversationalists head-on, but in a manner that is far from an anodyne self-help book.

Who Needs Words would be a worthy addition to the shelf of anyone who is in the business of communication (i.e. everybody) and for people wish to be a little more self-reflexive and intentional about the things that they say. This book could also serve as a primer for people who are interested in the way messages can be disseminated in the new media age. If it is the Gospel message – then so much the better

BUY IT NOW.

N.B. This review is based on an advance manuscript of Who Needs Words which contained some omitted chapters. As such, it may not reflect the totality of the book’s contents or concerns.

By means of an answer, below is a video of my working day which I created for John Walkers’ #walkerstudioschallenge – an attempt to show businesses the power of video for marketing purposes:

Who said work couldn’t be fun, hey?

N.B. Any similarities to BBC’s hit series The Office are purely coincidental. That’s what my lawyers have told me to say, and I’m sticking to it.

Today’s submission is from Yinka K – a great pal whom I first met at the Christian New Media Conference in 2010. Back then, he was a humble man but having starred in Dave Roberts’ Glimpses he is now Deptford’s most famous celebrity IT support worker and can be found often signing autographs in Nandos.

A Great Track Record

I was in shower singing to myself (as I do), when something struck me. Well it didn’t strike me so much as seep into my eyes… soap. On this occasion I was singing to my God, and had been praising Him for who He is, what He’s done, and what He’s going to do. My pastor had recently taught us the benefits of praising God with a sincere heart. So imagine my slight annoyance at the stinging eye (and probably soon to become ‘eyes’) that was putting me in discomfort and trying to ruin my cleansing experience.

I didn’t panic however for a simple logical fact (based on my beliefs). This wasn’t the first time that I’d gotten soap in my eyes. And even though every time the image flashed across my mind of me being clinically blinded by this encounter, I somehow turned out alright at the end, with the help of a lot of water. Now I believe that my God had no small hand in this. And so when it happened again today, I continued calmly trying to douse the eye with water, whilst singing simultaneously. The operation was successful, otherwise this post would have taken a different turn(!) :-p.

You see, that occurrence taught me once again what a valuable thing experience is. And how essential it is to belief in the Christian God.

Christians believe some outrageous things – that their God once parted a sea in half, and held the waves there long enough for thousands, maybe millions of people to walk across the dry land at the bottom of it. They believe that one of His prophets once spent three days inside a whale (as a sort of punishment), and when he had seen the error of his ways, he was let out again, alive. We believe, that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to earth, so as to be able to give all of mankind a clearer understanding of who He (God) is, and so that we can have a friendship with Him forever.

Now thankfully I’ve got a few friends, and I often observe my interactions with them. Having made a few mistakes in past (and current) friendships, I have learnt that the greatest favour I can do them and myself, is to regard them as one whole being with whom I’ve had several experiences; rather than to judge them based on individual experiences. So when one of my friends makes me feel special, I am happy, and feel truly grateful to have them in my life. And when they upset me with something they say or do, I try to remember that like me, they are also an imperfect being with faults, and that given the whole picture, they would probably have chosen not to hurt me. With time, I no longer have to ‘try’ to remember that my friends love and care for me – I just know it, and so forgiving becomes even easier. And I know that they do the same for me, because I often know when I’ve hurt them, and yet they continue to reply my texts and tweets without so much as a -__-.

I think it’s a similar thing with Christians in a relationship with their God. Apart from God having faults, because we of course believe that He is a perfect being, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. When we begin a relationship with Him, we are (hopefully) informed of Jesus’ words that life isn’t going to be a walk in a well-tended garden – it isn’t for anybody. However He assures us that with Him, we have the best chance of having a great life, and making the most of it. And we often hold Him to His word throughout our friendship with Him. And in my experience, He’s never once failed me.

You see it’s a tricky thing, understanding the relationship between a perfect God and an imperfect man, but like all other relationships, respect, love, trust, and understanding are important for it to work. And because of my understanding of God from what the Bible says, I respect His being, I trust His decisions and actions, and I choose to love Him as best as I can every day I spend with Him. Which looks like forever apparently.

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To find out more about Yinkster, you can read all about him and his Apple-hating ways at Yinkster’s World. He is also a proof-reader and contributor at A Day In God’s Will. 

This post was originally posted on Neil’s facebook page but he has given me full permission to republish it here (the unmarked bills are in the post, Neil! )

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Evil was visible in Croydon on Monday night.  Smoke and flames rising at Reeves Corner made it so.  Shattered glass on pavements made it so.  Blackberry messages saying, “Loot! Shoot!” made it so.

In our heads, we know good people outnumber those willing to spread destruction and chaos. So why would kids copy the rotten few?  Is it because ‘We the Decent’ are invisible?

 - INSIDE OUR BUBBLES

We commute.  We work.  We go home.  We smile at the neighbour.  We don’t speak to him though.  We curse at school kids through gritted teeth.  We don’t help schools out though.  We’re ‘down with the kids’ because we have iTunes.  We won’t talk to kids about music though. Best we all keep our headphones in, eh?

Each time one of us retreats into our bubble, a child loses a role model.  We are all a different illustration of what a good person looks like.  I am a good person.  My brother is a good person.  We are completely different but we are both good people.  The ways in which we show we are good are different, but we both do good. There are kids out there who could end up being like me, or being like him.  Whoever they end up being like, one hopes they end up being good.

However, this will only happen if my brother and I bust out of our bubbles and show publicly the individual ways we have found of being good.

 - DON’T KEEP KINDNESS TO YOURSELF

‘The good outnumber the bad.’  You wouldn’t know it looking at the news.  You would know it if you were out there meeting your community.  I do it at Purley Breakfast Club and Sing Purley, eating and singing – doing what I love most.  Everyone I meet there shows me yet another way of being a good human being.  We keep each other sane and happy because we don’t keep our kindness to ourselves.  We’re out in public, celebrating community spirit.

#purleybreakfastclub meets on last Saturday of every month at Cafe Nino

The more we are out of our bubbles showing the public – the youth – the infinite ways you can be a good person, the better for us all.  Make good deeds as visible as the bad ones.

 - MAKING ‘GOOD’ VISIBLE

Not all British homes are safe havens for kids.

If kids are not lucky enough to have a role model at home, they’ll need one on the bus: offer your seat to someone who needs it.

If a kid does not have a role model at home, they’ll need one in the shops: always say please and thank you to the cashier.

If a kid does not have a role model at home, they’ll need one on the road: drive safely, don’t swear at other drivers and respect pedestrians.

Kids will learn. What they learn depends on what they see.

My message to everyone is, Make Good Visible.

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I will remember August 8th for a very long time. Mainly for the riots that plagued the streets of London (and – even closer to home – central Croydon) but also because it was the night of the first #PurleyDinnerClub.

#PurleyDinnerClub is the older, more louche brother of #PurleyBreakfastClub. My vision for both groups is for them to be a focal point for tweeters and non-tweeters in Croydon who want to make friends, connect with their neighbours and develop a more community-focussed mindset.

Tonight’s inaugural event was a reminder that although some aspects of Croydon’s community was in turmoil, there are also groups of people who want to change our fine town for the better and make a discernible improvement to the borough. If it’s just through casual meet-ups with our fellow man, so be it!

Now – more than ever – community-minded groups of closely-knit people who talk, take an interest in each other and tangibly (rather than virtually) connect are needed. I hope #purleydinnerclub is able to make a small contribution to this ideal