Abronhill is a real world community just outside of Glasgow, Scotland.
The Abronhill Activists are a small group of locals who want to improve Abronhill and the lives of everyone who lives here by doing what we can to foster more community spirit.
Part of our plan of action is to share our progress on social media as a way of generating not only funds for community based projects but also interest from others in what we're trying to achieve and if successful, to inspire others to follow the positive example we're trying to set in our community by setting a positive example in their own.
In order to reach as many people within Abronhill as possible we decided to create a Facebook page first of all but we will also be sharing our content on Steemit as well and while it may take a while, we hope to encourage our fellow Abronhill residents to sign up to Steemit in order to support us here.
Below you can see what we wrote in our first Facebook post which outlines the ambitions we have for our local community.
The word community means ‘common unity’.
If we want to be able to call ourselves a community then we need to be united behind a common goal.
We suggest the common goal for everyone in Abronhill could be to make our community a cleaner, safer, happier, healthier, more friendly, more helpful, more respectful and more prosperous place for us all.
The reason this is so important is because we are the men, women and children who live in Abronhill and as such, if there are any decisions to be made that impact us or our community then we should be the one’s making them.
Over the last few weeks, months and years, decisions have been taken that affect our community with little or no input sought from ourselves.
School closures, service closures, house building, removal of the animals from Palacerigg, talk of replacing the local shopping centre with a Tesco, the closure of the Woodcuttter, the last pub in our community, etc.
We have been given little to no say in any of these decisions and while many of us may have protested some of them, the truth is, even a united front is ineffective if it doesn’t have the numbers to support it.
Many more decisions will be taken in the weeks, months and years to come that will also have an effect on our community, on ourselves, and on our children’s future.
Until such time as we can come together and unite in large enough numbers, we can expect no different treatment. In order to change this we have to be invested in our community and in those we share it with.
We have a number of projects we’d like to suggest that could get us started, the first of which would be this regular newsletter to keep everyone up to date with the progress we’re making with community projects, as well as other information on community related initiatives.
Wherever possible, we want to support community initiatives that are self sustaining. We want to demonstrate that we have all the skill sets we need already within our community to make it a better place for us all.
One of our initial ideas to foster more community spirit would be to create and launch a community clothing range.
This would be one way of generating funds to support any current and future community projects.
We feel it makes a lot more sense to support our local community and ourselves when it comes to choosing what clothing and brands we allow to represent us.
Rather than paying money to Nike or Adidas to have us advertise their brand or support their ideals, we feel it would be much better if we had our own brand with our own message that helps support our community.
Instead of ‘Just Do It’, we feel it would be much better to ‘Just Do It Ourselves’
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This would be a community clothing range produced by and for the community with all profits going towards community projects and we’d like to get as many Abronhill residents involved as possible, so we’re asking anyone within the community who would like to submit designs for hoodies and tee shirts etc, especially younger members of the community, to please do so or to share with us any other ideas, thoughts, suggestions or feedback you have.
The first thing we need to decide on before doing this, though, is a name for our brand.
If you have a good idea for a brand name based around Abronhill then we’d like to hear it, so please share it with us all in the comments.***
To kick things off, we’d like to make a couple of suggestions of our own.
The Abronhill Activists is obviously a name we feel was right for our social media accounts and we think this would be a good brand name for our clothing range as well but we’d also like to suggest using the name Abronhill Urban Guerrillas that many of you will be familiar with.
We weren’t exactly sure what sort of response this name would get, so we thought we’d suggest it and find out.
If you like or dislike either of these suggestions, then please let us know or suggest a name of your own. Or If you like one of the suggestions made by someone else, then let us know by liking their suggestion.
We would also like to ask anyone within the community who has experience of computer design, art and craft skills, such as embroidery, or any other skills they feel may be relevant, to help us by volunteering some of your time and talent to help others, as well as calling on anyone who has access to any equipment, such as screen printing equipment, that might be able to help us in the creation of our community clothing range.
We feel that if we can get enough help and support for this project from within the community we can begin generating community funds for more community projects.
Another project we could hopefully support would be the creation of a community garden where we can grow our own fruit and vegetables etc, which could be used towards supporting the local community in many ways.
Firstly, it would enable those who have the skills required to create a community garden to teach these skills to others and allow those of us who haven’t the skills the opportunity of learning. It would also allow us to help by providing free, healthy food and/ or meals to the community, particularly those who might need them the most, as well as many other positive benefits.
There have already been a couple of posts from individuals in Abronhill calling on anyone interested in creating a community garden and we feel this could be a big benefit to us all, so please let us know if this is something you would like to see and also if you’d like to get involved in some way.
As well as a community garden, we would also like to make better use of the many, poorly maintained flower beds we’re fortunate enough to have spread around Abronhill.
We feel that by taking ownership and responsibility of these ourselves, by giving them a little TLC and adding a few pretty flowers to the low maintenance bushes favoured by the council, we could make our community a much nicer place to live in, work in and visit.
Again, if you’re a keen gardener or would like to learn some gardening skills and you’d be interested in helping out by doing a little bit of guerrilla gardening around the community, please let us know in the comments.
We also believe it’s just as important to tackle the many years build up of dirt, grime and moss that’s been allowed to accumulate around our local area.
It’s true that we employ others to ensure Abronhill is well maintained but unfortunately, for whatever reason, it would appear that they are no longer up to the task. So, it would also appear that if we want our community to be clean, tidy and well maintained, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.
We’re the ones who live here and our children have to grow up and play here, so we feel that it’s ultimately our responsibility to do what we can to ensure a positive and friendly, clean and safe, community environment.
While we live in a beautiful part of the world with access to some amazing countryside, some areas within Abronhill have become a bit neglected and not so beautiful anymore, so we would like to suggest we come together as a community and do what we can to give Abronhill a bit of a spring clean before the summer gets here.
We believe that with a little co-operation and community spirit mixed with a little bit of hard work and a bit of a laugh, we could have this place looking spic and span in no time at all and in doing so, would make Abronhill an even better place to live than it already is.
This would be a great opportunity for us all to get to know each other a bit better as well as a fantastic opportunity of providing a great example to the youth of the community, who we encourage to take as full a part in and as much responsibility for, as possible.
We want to encourage participation in all of these projects from everyone within the community, particularly the younger and older members, so if you have any ideas or suggestions you’d like to share, if you have experience or skills you’d like to pass on that could benefit the community or those who live here, if you’d like to learn new skills, if you can spare some time, or you’d like to help or volunteer in any other way, such as donating seeds or tools etc, please let us know.
It can often be hard to ask for help these days but we’d like to reverse that trend.
We believe that if we want to become a real community worth being proud of then we need to do what we can to help those within our community who need it most and we also have to encourage those who need it to be able to ask for help in the first place.
Rather than asking what Abronhill can do for us or what we can do for Abronhill, we prefer to ask what we can do for each other. What can we do to improve Abronhill AND the lives of those of us who live here?
We’d like to find out the answer to this question.
We’d like to find out for ourselves what we can achieve with a little bit of community spirit and co-operation.
We need your help to do that.
What ideas or suggestions do you have that could benefit the local community?
What can we do to help you?
Would you like to help with the community garden?
Could you spare an hour or two to help with cleaning up?
Could you donate some seeds, flowers, brushes, scrapers, or any other equipment that could help us?
Could you help with the newsletter?
Do you want to learn new skills or pass on some of your own skills?
Are you a local business?
Would you like to sponsor a community project?
If so, then please let us know.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to read our first newsletter.
Hopefully, it will be the first of many.
We look forward to hearing what you all have to say.
(Please check out our short videos by clicking on the link to our facebook page. We're not sure how to upload video yet :()
https://www.facebook.com/abronhillactivists/videos/300000620925505/
Thanks for taking the time to read our introduction post on Steemit. We plan to share lots of content in future documenting our progress. There will be ups and downs for sure but we hope the Steemit community will support us in our efforts at positive and meaningful community activism by being the change we want to see in our world.
