“By thinking locally, you’re able to take immediate and significant actions, big or small, that benefit you and the people around you.“
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The volunteers making up the VGS and its projects are among many such groups of local folk trying to ‘make a difference to public life’ in the Sid Valley.
As well as its Friends of Glen Goyle and Cherishing Sidmouth Cemeteries projects, the VGS also has the active Sidmouth Cycling Campaign – with websites and social media playing their part in public life.
There is also the bi-annual Sustainable Sidmouth Champion Awards, which is very much about volunteers endeavouring to ‘make a difference’:
The Champions Awards are all about recognising the amazing people, organisations and businesses who are making a real difference to the Sid Valley. They are about acknowledging those who have acted to promote and improve the sustainability and resilience of the community.
The Champions Awards news blog and social media pages regularly post pieces on such ‘amazing people’ – the latest praising the ShelterBox champions, highlighting the Sidmouth Folk Festival, championing music and championing sustainability, publicising the Herald’s Citizen of the Year 2024 awards, and recently sharing Christmas cheer across the Sid Valley and beyond, all made possible through the selfless contributions of volunteers.
Jessica Sellick is a researcher/project manager with 10+ years experience across a wide range of local economic development and enterprise issues – and quite regularly, she puts together the excellent ‘Rural Words’ pieces online which offer a rural perspective on UK policy issues.
The latest asks: What more can we do to encourage people to make a difference to public life? Here Jessica focusses on the role that public appointments can offer, as the ‘official’ contribution to public life – balancing that given by the civic society represented by the myriad volunteer groups.
We certainly need to recognise the contributions made by our public servants – both our elected politicians and those appointed to our public bodies and public services, many of whom do much beyond their call of duty.
The members of the Environment Committee of Sidmouth Town Council, for example, are meeting next Monday 13th January to present reports on various projects – involving elected members, council workers and local groups – and it is hoped that these initiatives will indeed ‘make a difference’. And as the last minutes show, the committee is also keen to work on engaging more people in public life.
Finally, from a piece entitled 6 Ways You Can Make a Positive change in Your Community, here’s an endearing (and ‘engaging’?) gif which shows we can all do our bit, whether official or volunteer:
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Otters helping with recycling. : r/Otters
And as the writer of the piece on making a positive change in your community says:
By thinking locally, you’re able to take immediate and significant actions, big or small, that benefit you and the people around you. And the best part is that there is nothing stopping you from starting today! So if, like me, you’re looking to positively impact your community but aren’t quite sure where to start, here are six ways you can contribute…
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