Neighbour

be near, friend

Neighbourly

friendly, helpful, civil, compassionate, genial, kind, obliging, social, sociable

Neighbourhood

closeness, district, especially with reference to its inhabitants as a community

Community

communication in unity, people united in definite activity.

The Vision

A neighbourhood community where people can know and rely on their neighbours, work and socialise together, pool resources, eliminate loneliness and have help at hand.

A History of Neighbourhoods

"Many people rarely ventured beyond their own neighbourhood, however, where they were linked together by myriad ties not only of blood relation, but also by a constant exchange of goods and services. Virtually everything not home made could be obtained locally, from neighbouring craftspeople or other small farmers, making everyone part of a complex economy where each depended on the other. As with individual family effort, so too the community worked in a way that supported its members, a way of living which undoubtedly arose out of need."

Phillipa Fox. Artful Living in Celtic Homes. p56.

Current Problems

• Isolation and loneliness even though people are only ten metres away.
• Young parents overburdened.
• People often feel helpless even though help is very close.
• When a friend moved house we called on family and friends and they converged from 10 to 15 km away to help with the simple task of carrying the furniture from the house to the trailer. It only took 15 minutes. This happened because there was no sense of neighbourhood community to call on.

  Examples

• There are a group of friends in the Adelaide eastern suburbs who go around and help each other with their permaculture gardens, and their gardens are three times better than people who are not in gardening groups, mainly because there is encouragement to keep going with it, and the enjoyment of doing it with friends.
• There is a small neighbourhood in Heathcote, Sydney, whereby the residents have an acre of park that they have removed weeds and revegetated every 1st Saturday of the month for the past 8 years, pulling the neighbourhood together.

  Problems that could be rectified by some neighbourhood organisation:

• a simple helping hand - moving things, lifting, shopping.
• gardening groups help create better gardens. If needed an expert could be called in once a month for several seasons to advise.
• tool and toy library.
• trading second hand building and landscape materials.
• a neighbourhood yearly garage sale.
• a neighbourhood yearly street party.
• create a list of neighbourhood skills.
• facilitated by a neighbourhood LETS (Trading) System.

A regular get-together can establish all this. Start simple, one step at a time.

  Getting to Know the Neighbours

What people lack in neighbourhoods is so often communication, whether it is a casual chat leading to greater knowledge of each other, or a means of releasing our gripes and worries in an appropriate way, and realising that we are normal to have problems.

Neighbourhoods in Adelaide are starting to have gatherings and street parties, whereby people get to know the other people in their neighbourhood. There has been surprising interest and success at these gatherings.

Some neighbourhoods may be more favourable to the idea of some neighbourhood interaction. Here are some suggestions.

• Your neighbourhood.
• Approach Neighbourhood Watch, Lions Clubs or other community groups. Give talks about simple neighbourhood development. Ask which people within the clubs feel their neighbourhoods might respond in some way, and sow seeds within these neighbourhoods. Then someone is interested to start with and ideas are invited into the neighbourhood.
• New neighbourhood subdivisions and housing developments. A new neighbourhood will have plenty of garden and house work to do that can foster interaction.
• Young peoples and young families neighbourhoods. The children are often a reason that adults interact and start talking. Once familiarity is developed then these people may need only a few ideas to act as a catalyst. Young mothers being at home are often in need of a nearby helping hand.
• Neighbourhoods with high unemployment. These people often have free time to contribute and may merely need some prompting and a few ideas on purposeful activity.
• Neighbourhoods that have a potential project to be involved in. For example, rejuvenation of an adjacent natural area. There is a small neighbourhood in Heathcote, Sydney, whereby the residents have an acre of park that they have removed weeds and revegetated to native woodland every 1st Saturday of the month for the past 8 years, pulling the neighbourhood together.
• Neighbourhoods that have parks adjacent to them. This means people have common or community ground to meet and play on, without feeling they are intruding on other peoples private space.

• L.E.T.S. can be looked up on the internet.
• Why have a LETS system? Since money is limited in the broader society, people often become unwilling to exchange goods or commit services that could help people. If we can't find all the work we need for national dollar currency, then we can't get all the goods and services we need. Better to save that money for the most wanted things. A LETS system can help get those extra exchanges of goods and services happening. Anyone who is ever short of money may benefit by LETS.
• How it works. A ledger system is set up that records exchanges of goods and services valued in LETS money. When an exchange takes place, the receiver of product or service is debited an amount, and the giver is credited.
• A problem with most current LETS systems are that they are dispersed, with only several members in each suburb, which leads to problems in distance. If someone wants to buy a small cupboard, they must currently travel 3 km to someone's house to find out that it is not the type of cupboard that you want to buy, then travel 2 km to another house to look at another cupboard. And then a car trailer must be found to move the cupboard. In these situations people would be happier to go to a second hand store and look at ten cupboards at a time.
• Yet if the LETS system was in the neighbourhood then it is a pleasant walk one minute to look at one cupboard, then another one minute to look at another, and a pleasant trolley move of the cupboard up the road. The close-knit nature of neighbourhood LETS could work very well.
• Theoretically, LETS is both an accounting system and an information system. A neighbourhood could use the broader accounting system, such as local municipal, shire or regional accounting system, while having its own information system in the form of booklet and meetings. The best information system perhaps would see the top pages of the newsletter and resource guide being activity and resources within the neighbourhood, the next pages being activity for the suburb, and the next pages being activity for the broader region. This resource guide structure helps the work and resource exchanges be as local as possible. If something or some help is needed, the person would first go to the neighbourhood LETS pages. If they do not find what they need in the neighbourhood pages, they then go to broader pages. However, to start a simple system within the neighbourhood, one can just have neighbourhood pages in their newsletter and resource guide.

How to Create a Neighbourhood LETS

• At least one person must act as an organizer and accounts / administration. Two people might be better. They may be volunteers or they may be paid a small fee, perhaps in LETS currency.
• Decide on a currency name. Other systems use such currency names as Bunyas (after the nut), Stars, and Ecos. The value of many currency systems is often linked to the national monetary currency (1 LETS unit = 1 dollar), though this is not essential.
• An account ledger must be set up showing the debits and credits of each person and the dates, and perhaps some other pertinent information.
• Each person needs individual record sheets for their exchanges. Some systems use a cheque book and stub style system, others have a sheet where each person giving the LETS units signs the sheet of the person receiving the good or service.
• A small fee, payable in real money or LETS money, may be needed each year or season to pay for costs and maybe the administrators deserve some remuneration. Some LETS systems charge a small amount for a fee, others a larger amount. However, these amounts could probably be lower within a neighbourhood style system.

This is the minimum requirements for basic LETS. People can then start trading goods and services. Activities that can help add to the success of the system may be:

• Have a regular newsletter, (standard with most LETS systems).
• Have meetings where people can organize activities. At least one group has found that they get far more activity success by asking people what they need, rather than what they have to offer.
• Have a skills directory of the people in the neighbourhood.
• Have a goods directory of goods that people are offering to sell. Second hand building materials, old cupboards, anything.
• Have a tools, machines, books and toys-for-rent library to facilitate pooling of resources.
• Have neighbourhood garage sales.
• Have a street party.
• Or street theatre paid by LETS.

Ian Mason. 6.6.00

Construct surveys. This can help the neighbours and others understand how they feel and what people want. There is a very good survey of several neighbourhoods in Sydney, Australia, and perhaps this web site could get permission to publish some of the results in the future.

Survey Questions - 'I' statements:

This section is a development of more questions and statements that can help generate understanding of what people think and feel, and where and how to encourage activity. The idea is to get a long list that the questioner can select, from depending on the situation. More ideas to add to this list are needed please. There are some good books with neighbourhood questions and this section will hopefully be updated in the future.

• I am in need of a baby-sitter, sometimes only for ten minutes. (Often, sometimes, rarely, never).
• I would be happy to do some baby-sitting. (Often, sometimes, rarely, never).
• I need a quick hand to do lifting and moving of something. (Often, sometimes, rarely, never).
• I would be happy to give a quick hand to do lifting and moving of something. (Often, sometimes, rarely, never).
• I would be interested in a neighbourhood garage sale and party (New Years).
• I would be keen to buy fruit and veges and other produce from within the neighbourhood. (Yes / Only if the price was competitive).
• I would be keen to act as a organizer if it wasn't too difficult.
• I may be doing some building or landscaping or other activity, and I may be interested in discussing the possibility of pooling resources.

  Notes to the questioner

• For some questioning situations, when trying to generate activity in a group, as with the creation of LETS, it may be best to ask the person what they need (for e.g. the occasional baby-sitter about 3 times a week for 1 hour), and let others respond by offering to give.

Creating Neighbourhood Community magazine

It would be good if someone would create such a magazine.

This is a developing draft of an information booklet that can help spark neighbourhood activity. Comments and contributions are needed and encouraged, especially concerning neighbourhood history and current neighbourhood activity, and can be sent to Ian Mason at futurecom99@hotmail.com

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