this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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Where are you based? I found myself facing the same problem. In my small rural community a 2nd hand and artisan market proved to be effective to get people out of their houses and meet up. No need to throw political theory at them immediately, it's just great they appeared. Though I do admit there's already a bit of a community to work with and entertainment is sparse around here so it's easy to get people's attention. Where are you based? Not sure what would work best there.
The organizing steps that worked so far for me and bf are described in the Community community of this instance (and the many social anxieties suffered by a person who wants to encourage community but isn't very social to begin with).
I'm in South East England. There's a weekend market here, but it's all organized by the council and such, it's not something mere mortals can really influence. Other than that while entertainment here is sparse, I think most people just stay inside the home. I wouldn't call this a rural community, it's a small town, I'm not sure if it would be harder or easier if the population was in the hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands.
Thanks for linking that! I'll check it out. I'm pretty outgoing and social, at times it seems the only person in the world who seems to be okay just chatting to people, but I also want to get it right, so it'll be good to read up as much as possible before any action.
Hello neighbour.
Formerly Chuck's?
The very same.
I would just like to both validate and challenge your view of the UK. I lived in Torquay (Devon, so the southwest) for a good long while, albeit during the height of lockdowns, and community felt nonexistant. There were some punk-type-folks attempting to get stuff started right when I moved away, but only just then iirc.
I moved to Inverness (Scottish Highlands) and it’s night and day. There’s a queer community doing hella shit, there’s a tool library popping off, lots of good local initiatives are being organised and taking off.
My kneejerk response is to say that Inverness beats the hell outta Torquay. But the thing is, about 4-5 years ago NONE OF THE STUFF I mentioned was going on. The queer meetup was organised by one dude who moved up from London and was gobsmacked that there wasn’t an active community. Now it’s consistently a huge, weekly event. There are even offshoots of quieter meetups that had to be created because the main one is So Successful. But all the local queers will tell you that before this started, they thought they were all alone up here.
And the tool library is only about a year old, but keeping on well.
So on one hand, yeah, I think the UK has a very… independent culture. But once someone identifies a need in a community and fills that need, people tend to show up and appreciate it.
Also, i reckon this is a good time to be an organiser. People are tired of being alone during a pandemic, people are tired of seeing what other communities do via the internet and want their communities to do the same.
Tl;dr be the change! There’s an appetite for it.
That's so cool! Very jelly. Would you mind sharing how you found all these communities when you moved around?
I'm very surprised a guy from London was gobsmacked by this, London if anything was the most alienating of them all and I never found any communities there either.