Southwark Community Groups - what do you do?

The Nunhead's Voice AGM will be on Saturday 7th January at 12 noon, at Buchan Tenant's Hall on Buchan Road

More information can be found here and on our website.

Want to be more involved? Download our nomination form to become a fully fledged member of Nunhead's Voice.

Looking forward to meeting lots of you in the New Year. In the meantime.....

Happy Christmas!!

As I passed Nunhead Green a few days ago I noticed that the Nunhead Residents Association still has a flyer on the notice board proclaiming that their group "exists to look after the interests of local people and the Nunhead area."

But do they? Does the group still exist at all? And if they do what it says on the tin then what is Nunhead's Voice for?

How do these groups come into being? Do they have official backing or funding from Southwark and such like?

Many years ago I was once briefly part of the Nunhead Action Group (NAG), which, as I posted in the Station thread, collected 2000+ signatures when the then rail operator Connex scrapped the Victoria Service from Nunhead. It was probably the last achievement by local people in relation to trains and, due to the petition, Connex backtracked on their decision and the service was reinstated after 3 months.

But my point is should there be so many different local action groups all splintered and hampered by confusion as to what each of them does and represents? And let's not forget all the wonderful ways forums and message boards like South East Central have given us some fire in our bellies and let us put our points over to our elected representatives, sometimes more than a little forcibly.

Nunhead's lovely, but it's not a big area. Wouldn't it be better if there was one group that represented us all?

It's the first time I've ever heard of them, and I've lived in Nunhead for seven years !

Do they have a website at all? It doesn't mention one in the picture, only email.

It is listed in the LBS website http://southwark.talis.com/engage/showrecord/1217535047906
And according to this other site is made up by Local Authority (council) tenants; or am I mis-reading the information? http://www.sgto.org.uk/T&RA%20&%20TMO%20Dir.htm
Though I do agree: united is better.

the poster you've pictured says they've meetings coming up in Jan and March 2012 so I guess the answer would be Yes

There's something called the Nunhead & Peckham Rye Community Council, but I've no idea what they do either!

There's a bit of info on Community Councils on Southwark's own website here, but I'd hazard a goes that one (or more) of the councillors involved in the Nunhead & Peckham Rye grouping (next meeting January 12th) could explain what they do a lot better than I ever could.

Attendees to the NV AGM this Saturday will be enlightened as to how Nunhead's Voice is different from the Nunhead Residents' Association. We are holding off on explaining this in detail on the forum because I think it adds an element of mystique, which is commonly all too lacking in community politics.

But do you really think mystique works for you? For any local organisation trying to represent their community in fact? It's a kind of 20th century pre-internet concept really.

You have an opportunity to let everyone know what NV does, how it came into being and why it exists, all of which could spark interest and persuade people along to your meeting.

As is stands, people have very little info to go on and therefore will probably deduce that it's not worth their while.

Magical Mystery Tour it ain't.

It was a joke. Sheesh.

As I understand it the NRA's principal objectives relate to public realm improvements, planning issues, transport and other day-to-day matters.

NV has tended to focus more on the "community" side of things - things like the development of the new community centre, the wider renewal area priorities and the recent Southwark bid to the GLA for funding. Inevitably the two cross over but there are a number of people who are actively involved in both, so duplication tends to be kept to a minimum.

The principal focus of Saturday's meeting will be a discussion of the community centre proposals.

What is the general time commitment for members?

Hi Clint. The meetings are usually monthly in the evening for a couple of hours, then it's whatever you can do. If there is an event to organise, or we're trying to do the next issue of Nunhead Voice newsletter, then the time commitment goes up. Depends on what your skills are and when they are needed really and also how much time you are able to commit.

I plan to post an update on what happened at the NV meeting just as soon as the minutes are written, to be sure that I'm actually telling you the right things!

Hopefully should be no more than a couple of days.

In the meantime, we've updated the website, and added the current proposed layout for the community centre. It's all on nunheadsvoice.org

OK, I've opened this thread up to a borough-wide discussion, so it's now an open invitation to Southwark residents associated with various local community groups to say what they do and how they represent their areas?

So far at SEC we've got Nunhead's Voice (posting), Nunhead Residents Association (not posting), Nunhead Community Council chaired by Cllr Victoria Mills (not posting), Peckham Vision (posting) and the Peckham Settlement (posting).

Who else is out there?

I am sure there are good reasons for the proposal to merge the Nunhead & Peckham Rye Community Council with the Peckham equivalent; savings being one, but what are the implications for the residents. What are our councillors views on this? Will there be less councillors as a result of this, etc? Apologies if this has been discussed before in here.
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/5791

The Nunhead & Peckham Rye Community Council currently covers the Nunhead and Peckham Rye wards of SE15. Any merger with another CC will ultimately translate into decisions affecting your street being taken by a councillor from another ward of whom you have no control or contact with whatsoever.

The decisions taken by your community councils when it comes to planning applications are quite significant. The current system sees broadly each ward responsible and its councilors held to account by their voters for the decision they’ve taken. The proposed system will instead dilute all this in two ill-defined bodies which will take all the decisions for half the borough.

It is plain and simply a power grab from Labour at the expense of all the wards that did not vote for them in the last election. Labour will simply stack the new bodies with their representatives and get to decide for the whole of Southwark.

This is a really good idea, as there are so many small and big groups around doing great stuff. This is what Peoples Republic of Southwark is trying to do - it's not always easy but it wouldn't be as much fun if it was!
We don't do 'representing' of any one in particular, but rather echo/mirror that which is happening around us, from micro-local to global level. Because everything IS connected. We get the news, we publish them with as little editing as possible because we all tell our stories differently. We challenge when it needs to be done but praise those who deserve it.
We helped set up Southwark Planning Network, group of local residents, activists, community groups with an interest in planning, as a space to highlight strategic and other planning issues on borough, city and national level, exchange information about alternative practices etc.
We have fairly recently set up an online archive of images (scanned flyers, printouts etc), including articles from Southwark News, which may be of interest to people. With specific reference to Peckham/Nunhead, a lot of the press coverage is negative, which raises the question of why the good stories are not being told? So, if you have a good/positive story, let us know

There's something called the Bellenden Residents Group near me but I never get involved as it's never particularly clear how these groups came into being, what their mandate is and even how they're funded?

Are they all in cahoots with the council, like their 'representatives on each' type thing?