Community Action. What next?

Covid-19 has led to an upsurge of community activity, with neighbours supporting each other and pulling together.

Our current plans for community action

Early 2020 has been a reminder of the way in which people will pull together to help each other when it's really needed. But it has also seen inequalities widen as an effect of coronavirus. These inequalities won't go away as lockdown reduces, and we now need community action more than ever.

If we are to sustain and support some of this new community activity, we need to act now! We are now facilitating a coordinated offer of support, particularly to informal Community Support Groups unsure of their futures.

We are calling all organisations who can offer concrete, practical support - particularly in the voluntary sector - to work with us. We can help you to make your offer known as widely as possible, and work together to ensure that community support remains joined up across the county in useful ways.

It is only together that we can properly support people and communities make their own decisions on how to continue, with all possible resources at their fingertips. Let's get to work!

Are you a Community Support Group, individual or other informal group interested in what support there is for sustaining community action in your area? Please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!

We can provide the following support:

Connect you with the offers of existing Community Organisations and initiatives in your local area and across the county.

For example, Volunteer Link-Up is promoting new Good Neighbour Schemes and can support you to set one up. Ongoing and consistent support is offered by Community First Oxfordshire, a community development organisation which support local community planning and action such as setting up community transport schemes, running community halls, community shops and Together We Can workshops – be the change, lead the change!

The most important thing is understanding what you and your community want to do, and there are lots of different means of supporting this, whatever you decide.

Advise you on establishing a formal structure for your own group, and give you an honest opinion on whether we feel this would be the best course of action. Alternatives that we might suggest include joining forces with another existing group in your area, and if this is something you are interested in we can make suggestions on organisations that you might like to approach and help broker initial conversations if useful. Ultimately of course, the decision will be up to you and we will provide support either way…!

Support individuals to become Oxfordshire All In Community Champions. We envisage sustaining some of the upsurge of community action in the form of Community Champions who would be advocates for their local communities, help connect people within those communities with each other (e.g. it could be a new relationship between a local sports club and the GP surgery, or the post office and the library, etc), and share all these wonderful initiatives with the wider county through news posts and opportunities on the Oxfordshire All In site, to create a sense of shared purpose and direction across Oxfordshire.

Our work on Community Action

We are now facilitating a coordinated offer of support, particularly to informal Community Support Groups unsure of their futures.

The goal of this coordinated offer of support is to sustain - at town or district level and in coordination with existing local community organisations - a network of community support.

Our own network of Community Champions will connect with and complement this, helping to share best practices, connections, and a sense of shared purpose across the county.

Are you an established community organisation?

If you would like to work with us or through our communication channels to sustain community action in Oxfordshire, please complete this short form.