Can you remember what it was like
to live in a close-knit community?

Can you remember when
neighbours knew each other?

Dear Concerned Neighbour,

We cannot live in isolation. Sitting at home and watching television, eating ready-made meals, and driving to and from work – that’s not living, it’s just existing.

To live, to be happy, we need to be a part of something – we need to be a part of a community. We need to know the names of the other people who live on the same street or in the same village as us, we need to take part in community events like fairs, and festivals, coffee mornings and social evenings – we need to belong. To know the people we pass on the street, and to smile and say ‘Hello’ to them.

Where have all the communities gone?

Sadly, it is getting harder and harder to find communities where everyone knows each other, and where people smile, and talk to each other, and look out for each other.

Why?

One of the biggest reasons is the crazy housing market. When house prices rocket out of reach of young people, most of them have to leave their home area and go and look for work somewhere else, somewhere far away. At the same time, older people with money move in – and more and more, these days, they don’t take the time to get to know their new neighbours. Maybe they’re too busy watching television, or surfing the Internet.

In the end, communities run out of young people, which means they run out of young families – so the schools don’t have enough children to stay open. When a school closes, we lose one of the best natural ways for people in a community to come together, to get to know each other.

Oh, and when house prices go up, more houses get bought by people who want to use them as second homes. This means that they are empty for a lot of the time – and that’s another nail in the coffin of a close-knit community.

It isn’t just sad when this happens, either – it’s DANGEROUS. Police figures show that where there are more unoccupied, second homes in a community, there are higher levels of crime and disorder – because children run riot if they know that no-one is there to watch them.

But it doesn’t HAVE to be like this!

At the moment, decisions about housing are made with the needs of developers in mind. Developers, of course, just want to make money – what matters to them is how much profit they make on a new property. It doesn’t make any difference to them if no-one local can afford it, or if it helps break down the network of relationships that makes a close-knit community work.

We need a change. We need decisions about housing to be made with the needs of local people in mind.

And that’s exactly what we’re trying to make happen.

Cymuned means Community

Cymuned is a voluntary organisation which is trying to help make our communities better places to live.

Cymuned believes in the importance of communities. Successful communities provide good housing, good education, good healthcare and satisfying work for everyone. Successful communities have high levels of involvement and low levels of crime and disorder.

Cymuned believes that communities are prevented from becoming successful by a housing market which rewards speculation, by an economy which rewards predatory chain stores and by a political process which is dangerously centralised.

Cymuned believes that decisions should be made at the most local level possible, and that this requires a shift of power from central government to local government, and from local government to community councils. Planning and economic decisions should be made with community needs in mind.

Cymuned believes that these changes will only happen if ordinary people call for them. Ordinary people should be given the chance to hear about the issues which affect them, the chance to work co-operatively to make their communities more successful, and the chance to express their opinions strongly enough to make things change.

Cymuned works to draw attention to the need for more local decisions, and to provide the tools for local people to make a real difference.

We believe that if these changes take place, all our communities will be happier, more vibrant and more welcoming places to live, and local cultures, traditions and languages will flourish to the benefit of us all.

We’ve got some very exciting new ideas

We live in a world that changes more quickly every minute. Sometimes, that can feel overwhelming – but it also means that new ways to make things better open up every few months.

We’re developing a system which helps local people make their voices heard. We’ve got a weekly email which goes to over 1500 people, and more are joining every day. We’ve got a collection of websites which promote answers to the problems communities are facing – www.Homes4Locals.com, www.Tax200.com, www.Shops4Locals.com.

When local people agree with one of our websites, we offer training and support to help them let other people in their community know about the website.

When people go to the website, they are asked to sign up for the weekly email – and when they do that, they get news about what’s happening in communities all over the country, AND they get news about what’s happening in their own community.

The more people who get involved in any one area, the more time we spend giving practical support to those people – we help contact their community councils and their county councillors, we contact the Assembly on their behalf, we help arrange media interest, and we offer regular training.

Our training shows local people:

• how to get their concerns listened to and talked about in the local press,

• how to bypass the local press and produce short videos that can be seen internationally,

• how to run successful publicity stunts,

• how to organise conferences,

• how to spread the news with simple leaflets,

• how to get local bands to wear campaign T-shirts

• and even how to organise rallies.

When we are successful, it helps to revitalise the local community – because more and more people get involved in making the decisions about how they want things to change, and that means that more and more people start expecting to be able to make a difference. And that, in the end, means that government has to sit up and listen.

So why are we telling you about this?

We’d like you to get involved – to help make a difference to your own community. You’re reading this because we think that you are the kind of person who could make your community a better place for everyone.

And, of course, we’d like to ask for your support. You’ve seen the list of what we do above – and you can see that everything we’re trying to do takes time and money. We’re overstretched as it is – we’ve got one employee who is in the office for four days a week. We desperately need another two part-time (or preferably full-time) support officers.

Simply put, we won’t be able to be successful, we won’t win the changes that are so badly needed, unless you and people like you become monthly members of Cymuned.

Monthly membership starts at just £2 a month – for which you get a welcome pack, you get a lively bi-monthly newsletter (which we’re hoping to make into a monthly newsletter by the end of 2007, if we get enough new members) and you get the satisfying feeling of knowing that you are helping build a better future for all of our communities.

How about it?

It’ll only take you a matter of seconds to click on one of the buttons below, and it will help change our country for the better.

Roughly speaking, for every 100 new members we get, we can employ someone for one day a week (I don’t mean this as a hint, but new members seem to choose to donate £3 or £4 a month on average!).

In other words, for every 100 new members, there are four extra days a month being spent working for the future of our communities.

Your choice is easy: leave it to the politicians, who have less and less control over big developers anyway, and often can’t be bothered to oppose them – or help us give a real voice to local people.

Thank you. Your support will make this country
a better place for everyone.