Weekend Things October 28, 2007

We held our table top sale on Saturday and it was an interesting experience. On one hand it was hugely successful because we made a good wodge of money for The New Place. On the other hand very few people came in.

It’s the perenial problem of putting on ‘open’ events in a church – sometimes people show up and some times they don’t; and when they don’t people who have spent ages organising it feel disappointed.

In the area where the New Place is, there isn’t a whole lot of passing trade – its not a busy high street like staple hill. But we do have a lot of groups and individuals involved in The New Place and as Dawn rightly asks ‘why didn’t they come along?’. I can only guess on a few levels; for many people The New Place is associated with the specific group they go to and the specific people they come to meet, an alcohol addiction recovery group, a mental health group etc many of those people are particularly vulnerable and so just walking in to something like that might be scarey for them.  For some people Saturday may be the only day they get contact with their kids, and particularly at the end of half term. Some people, particularly elderly people might’ve wanted to come but were nervous about the weather and being outside in it.

There are probably millions of reasons why people don’t turn up for something you put time into organising, each reason for each different person will be equally valid but I know that doesn’t make you feel any better.

I think over the years what I’ve come to realise about The New Place is that the concept of ‘community’ is key, fundamental, the most essential aspect of what we’re trying to do. And community starts small and grows bigger. It never grows huge but it grows a little bigger, bit by bit and more importantly it growns more solid and dependable. So for me yesterday may not have brought hundreds of people through the door but it was another little step on the way to making us a closer, stronger community unit. A group of people who individually couldn’t do some of the things on which we enbark, but together can do almost anything.

I try to look at things through these eyes – evaluating what happens at The New Place according to how it effected, encouraged, grew or built up community because if we looked at things according to profit or numbers we’d be eternally dissappointed. With these ‘community’ eyes I can only see yesterday as a soaring success.

It was a day when each of us played a little part in doing something together, a day when some of us got to practise being in charge, and some of us got to practise running a cafe; a day when our volunteers got to build their confidence and when our neighbours got to see through the windows a group of people working together, being together and supporting each other.

I give the day 10/10