All over the country, people are starting to get more involved in making their local neighbourhoods better places to live. Individuals and community groups are active in all sorts of ways, and it can be very rewarding to be involved.

There are all sorts of ways that you can do something to improve your local area and make your neighbourhood a better place to live. Your contribution, whatever it is and however small it is, is still important.

You might choose to act as an individual to change your personal lifestyle, or work jointly with your neighbours to make a change to the community.

There are organisations that can help you with information and suggestions of ways to make a difference, and various ways in which you could get involved. Acting as an individual makes you a free agent, so whatever you do is entirely up to you.

On the other hand, perhaps you would like to work with others, particularly if they share your concern or aspiration. Bringing everyone’s skills together means that you are more likely to have a greater impact.

One of the best ways to learn about making a difference in your local community by running a local project is to see how other people have done it…

This might inspire you to run a similar event in your own neighbourhood, or it could motivate you to get involved in existing community projects yourself. Reading about the experiences of others can even help you to run your own project better, as you learn from their experiences.

There are essentially two types of volunteers – those who are willing to give time and effort to the community itself, and those who are willing to volunteer to work with specific causes and issues.

You need both types of people if you’re going to have your pool of community volunteers, although it’s the first group, quite obviously, that will be your core. Be aware, though, that it can take you a little while to find them.

When you’re starting out to find volunteers for something, begin by asking your neighbours and friends in the community. Some will help, some won’t, but most will know someone else who might volunteer.

From this you can slowly build a network of people. Some will have plenty of time to offer, others just a few hours here and there, but they’re all valuable. If you’re putting together a group for long-term work in the community, these are the people who will be of great assistance. They, too, will know people in the area willing to help.

All will have different skills. Take time to discover them and work to those skills and interests, which will pay dividends in the long run.

The Bampton, Carterton and Burford NAG will be organising the annual “Carterton clean-up day” on Saturday 27th June, as part of the group’s commitment to tackling neighbourhood priorities. Volunteers will congregate at Carterton Town Hall at 10am and we hope to have enough people to split into teams this year, to tackle known problem areas across the town, not just in the Town Centre.

I have registered this community action day on the “Big Tidy Up” website. The clean-up day we held in 2008 contributed to a successful Clean Britain Awards application and the district were awarded a four star award – please help us to better this achievement in 2009!

If you can spare the time to come along to help then we’d be delighted to see you there, if you are a member of a group or organisation that might be interested in joining us then please give us a call or drop us an email, we will try to ensure we have enough bags, gloves, litter pickers etc. to go around! We also hope to have access to a graffiti removal machine!

Email: Adrian@adriancoomber.com

Telephone: 07896 574 542