Community Engineers

Yesterday Graham  and Joan visited a lady recuperating in Whitby Hospital. Nothing unusual maybe in that except she is 99 not out! Moreover she still sparks as much as she did twelve years ago. Long widowed, she contributed a lot to the community in Sleights through her active participation on the Village Hall committee for many years. In her day the committee were active not only with the upkeep of the Village Hall but also putting on functions that involved the wider community. Permanent residents put a lot into community wellbeing and care of one another. They simply pulled together to make community real. Community was them. All ages. Women and men.

We covered a lot of ground in chat. Not just parochial matters but the ongoing war, the USA, the Royal Family, Sheds (she was always a supporter of Sheds) and the Moon Shot. Not a sign of memory loss.

Then, “Why are we trying to get to the moon at such great expense when there is so much that needs to be done here.” Thankfully it was more a rhetorical question and she was not looking to Graham for an answer. She had been through WW2 of course, when communities in town and country had to pull together to make life tolerable. Every neighbourhood for itself. Every street.

“So much to be done here.”

We are not war torn here, mercifully, but things are “challenging” for many in our communities, with greater uncertainty, less security and smaller buffers against life storms. And these do not seem to be short term. In the drive to reduce costs, automated systems and now AI are throwing more responsibility on “us” to do the leg work of data entry which not everyone can do for themselves. Those who can are rewarded with cheaper prices but those who cannot often pay more. Where are the community faces who can provide support? Bank buildings obsolete. Department stores gone. Social places and faces gone.

How happy are we as people of a country? Where do we rank? The Happiness Institute publishes an annual report and a ranking. 

We should all move to Scandinavia or the Netherlands. Be careful with the scale on the horizontal (bottom) axis. It does not start at zero. See the chart beneath with the true origin. The Finns are 15% happier than we are which is not to be sniffed at. And they have worse weather than we do compensated by corporate saunas as places to sweat and socialise. Graham reached that dizzy height twice, stripped bare, which is a cultural sign of trust and test of character. 

What about equality and fairness? Here is the result of AI on that question with interesting pointers again regarding Nordic countries.

• Top Performers: Nordic countries (Finland, Denmark) consistently rank high, characterized by strong welfare states, high trust in institutions, and low corruption. Norway is often ranked top for gender equality.
• Key Drivers of Fairness: Key factors include access to high-quality education, healthcare, and equal opportunities regardless of background.

Note the key drivers of fairness. How are we faring over say the past few decades? Up, down, flat? All 3 have been part of our national ethos and long term culture, our compassion as a people.  Just this week Elsie, from a local primary school, with her classmates did something compassionate with a card saying “Be Kind” and 3 painted rocks. Elsie helped close the gap with Finland where she lives.

We went to two other primary schools last week for different reasons and saw evidence of compassion in staff attitudes and actions. At one the head was putting chairs away and we quipped asking id she was the caretaker too? From other things we went on to talk about she clearly would do anything to help youngsters have opportunity for learning how to live, as well as how to learn in the traditional way.

We erected a play stage we’d made at the other primary school. We asked whether they’d like some text on it. Their 3 word motto us Dream, Believe, Achieve. Sounded like a Shed to us!

Graham was at a church run Easter holiday event on Saturday afternoon in a community centre, helping families relate and kids playing together – no mobile phones in sight!

We still “get” compassion – it’s innate – but as we get older we can become very sinical and selfish. It’s one of the things we focus on countering at the Shed, since the Shed’s existence depends on trust and people working together for a common cause! Mateship.

SHEDS. Sheds (at least Norton Men’s Shed but others too) put great store on supporting wellbeing which is perhaps a synonym for happiness. We have emphasise people and their peer support. Not skills, not premises, not wonderful things made. People (men and their families). We are putting on our trailer A1 posters based on a Tasmanian one that describes what a successful Shed is. It says it all. Internationally. 

So, to the headline topic of Community Engineers. 

There are community connectors who try to bridge gaps between people and help and people wanting to help but not knowing how to. There are social prescribers bridging the gap between GPs and patients’ needs for social inclusion (the Shed works with the SPLWs), There are community development workers in administrations and agencies who endeavour to stimulate communities to be involved as community. So, what are Community Engineers? What do/might they add.

It’s something Graham did in High Wycombe as Wycombe Community Alliance. It was not an organisation but a gr oup of likeminded individuals in organisations of all sorts who simply shared what we were doing, what we hoped to do, any problems that others might have experience of and encouraged each other to help our Wycombe community. Wycombe had its hot spots of need and it was there that we were individually working and sharing. It was a mix of council development, university, faiths, the voluntary sector. We trusted each other, kept no minutes because it was more about enabling each other but we did keep personal notes on new ideas and new developments. It felt freeing for us. ideas have that excitement. We did not undermine our organisations. We brought past experience to the role too and we bridged several divides (not least between individuals with different faiths). It lasted about 2 years (maybe 20 lunchtime meetings). It ceased because we knew each other so well we just picked up the phone to each other and shared. It was not about money. It was about ideas, pilots and collaborations. 

Something of a similar name happened in Whitby, bringing interests together. The Whitby Community Alliance. The difference was it was about brining organisations together and them seeking a VCSE voice including about funding. It had a rather different emphasis and purpose.

In Norton/Stockton some of the former approach has happened. The Shed has made close relationships with individuals who are active and are focused on solving/resolving problems for people. Back to the ideas approach where our common interest is in people in the community more than just abstract community. We have learnt a lot about each other and our organisations – without undermining anything. 

These three experiences (and knowledge of work in Frome, Somerset which had Community Connectors who were volunteer assistants to a GP practice) plus the meeting on Friday with the inspirational 99 year old caused Graham to invent the term “Community Engineers”. In our community (most communities) there are people with skills of all sorts that would like to help their community but either cannot find a way in or cannot commit specific time to something voluntary. There are people with creative, management, production, caring, digital and much more. Most will in one way or another be problem analysers and problem solvers. No need for AI, they exist in the real world. Sometimes they are people who feel they are now side-lined from life and lacking the sense of purpose they once had in work.  Norton Shed has people like that and its purpose is to restore purpose in people – or rather helping them to do it in the company of others. ThHere is a link ey are material to be Community Engineers.

Time to define that term. Graham thought it was a brand new term. He Googled and it’s not. Below is a link to a paper by one Ben Blaine https://benblaine.org/community-engineer.html.

For ease I’ll extract a couple of his definitions that seem very right to summarise a lot of the above blog. 

The Definition of Community

A community is a group of people with a shared identity². The more specific the identity, the more meaningful membership becomes. [Norton community makes it specific to Norton. Norton Shed community narrows it to a small group]

The Definition of Engineering

“Engineering is figuring out how to do what you want, with what you’ve actually got.” — John Carmack on The Joe Rogan Show.

Community is about people around us with things in common and engineering is about solving problems (of people, place, provision, resources, safety etc etc). What Graham did in High Wycombe and is attempting in Norton/Stockton is Community Engineering from bottom up.

Engaging with others in Community Engineering costs nothing. It does not require a budget – until an idea needs to be tested. Even then, a prototyping approach to getting an idea going (good enough to learn from, not perfection) need not cost much. The Shed is doing that at present (also with Whitby Shed) with respect to the “problem” of the partially/wholly housebound using digital tools to connect people. Norton Shed started in 2022 in a prototyping way – just decorating a cricket pavilion in winter. The idea was proved for Norton and that caused the prototype to gradually evolve into a mature Shed where the Shedders. are the engine. Big oaks grow from little acorns! A lot of satisfaction for all.

Community Feeling

According to Alfred Adler³, deep happiness can be found in making a contribution towards helping others — without compromising oneself⁴. Putting the well-being of “us” above only “me” lets people transcend their own existence and plug into a greater network.

Adler called this “gemeinschaftsgefühl” ⁵ or “community feeling”. This feeling lets people overcome a fear of being left out, giving them courage to contribute repeatedly, creating a virtuous cycle.

Engineering [of] Communities that Thrive

Communities organically grow, operate, and die at the whim of the chaotic world. If you want to help a community thrive
and become a resilient network of people, you need to engineer it.

Connect, Create, and Change (the World)

When people connect, they create new things and change the world. There are millions of communities all around the world doing this every day in big and small ways.

A famous example is The Homebrew Computer Club⁹, which accommodated Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and helped them develop and launch Apple Computers.

Community engineers get to set the stage to spark this connection between community members.

The ambitions for Norton Men’s Shed are more modest (though I dount the two Steve’s knew what would happen.

Sleights Area Men’s Shed (SAMS) only had the ambition to establish a Shed for a small group of men. Ten years later it has been the foundation on which 6 Sheds directly happened and we are heling new Sheds start. SAMS started when in the UK there were 250 Sheds. Now there are 1200 or so. They spread from Australia across the world. Andy’s Man Club started with one and they are across the UK. Two things specifically for the community of men!

Becoming a Community Engineer

To become a community engineer, you need to find or start a community to contribute towards.

Maybe there’s a thriving community out there you can join and learn from? Maybe there’s a struggling community that needs your help? Maybe there’s a group of people waiting to be led as a community.

You might even already be a community engineer of some kind — you just need to recognize that and double down on getting your people together!

Me, bottom left, having a Project Thrive Jam

Identifying a Community to Start // Start Engineering

The best book on building a community that I know of is Get Together¹⁰. The starting point for identifying a community to join or start is to decide “who” and “why” people are part of this community.

Who do you care about; share an interest, identity, or space with; and want to help? Once you have answered these questions, you need to be able to answer…

Why would members want to come together?

Then you can start worrying about the what, when, where, and how . . . .

WHY NOT a group of Norton Community Engineers? Centred on problems in our neck of the world that can be solved by local people themselves. Not leaving out the authorities, agencies and big organisations but working at our scale. 

The Neighbourhood Health strategy will be unfolding across the UK and in localities like Norton. Remember the definition of engineering above! Solving problems with what you have. Time to explore what Norton has in a group of Norton Community Engineers. 

Might you have something to offer? Maybe you are itching to help the community by being part of a people based locality effort? Acting as an individual, but bringing past and present knowledge and experience with you of organisations and efforts. No power comes with it and it is not money focused. What does Norton do well? How could it be improved? What does Norton do less well? How might that be transformed? It all requires your creativity.

For now, contact Graham at nortonmensshed@gmail.com. Looking for no more than a dozen to prototype the idea in Norton. It will not be high profile, but it will not be a secret. It is just bring some latent thinking resources to bear for people’s benefit. 

Going to recruit the 99 year old as a life member. She would love it! At the other end of the age spectrum why not youngsters in schools and Scouts. It is about the community they are growing up into.