Facts and enthusiasm aren't enough

In 2000 I set up an educational charity with the grand title Next Generation Now. This preceded all the next generation mobile phone stuff and my business card justified the name thus. "Our challenge is to learn to live within our ecological means. We believe that global solutions begin in local action and that we need to act for the next generation now" To complete the picture the business cards were printed on what is quite obviously, and quite deliberately obviously, the back of an old corn flake packet.

The charity bumbled along for quite a few years. We held meetings with invited speakers on topics ranging from sustainable fisheries to carbon stores in upland peat. We tried to influence local politics through candidate question times and we used our charitable status to fund projects ranging from workshops to show how to mend your bike through to propaganda to encourage people to walk for short journeys. 

But over time the level of engagement began to fall off until, a few years ago, the apparent success of a number of transition town initiatives elsewhere prompted some local Greens to set up another body "Sustainable Scarborough". This too began with a flurry of enthusiasm, though I have to admit not a lot of real activity, but it was clear that it was covering much the same territory as Next Generation Now. Thinking that perhaps now the zeitgiest was with us and that the sense of being part of a wider movement, instead of just a small local organisation, would encourage more people to get involved, I decided that it would be simplest to amalgamate the groups.

Given that Next Generation Now was already a registered charity, and that it actually takes quite a lot of work to get registered, I thought that the simplest solution would be to hold a Next Generation Now AGM at which the officers roles could be taken over by the leadership of Sustainable Scarborough and they could then simply apply to the Charities Commission for a name change. This is what happened.

Now, the early days of Sustainable Scarborough also coincided with the era when the internet went local. No more budget for letters sent by mail, instead it could be assumed that everyone had access to e-mail. This meant that whenever the Chair of the Group spotted something of interest on the web he'd send us the links. For a month or so there were two or three of these a day. I think the assumption was that if only we had full possession of the facts then we'd act upon them. 

Needless to say he burnt himself out and, because there weren't any quick wins, the organisation quickly became defunct. This isn't to say that all those people who came to the early meetings of Sustainable Scarborough with its talk of action groups on this topic or the other were insincere just that they woefully underestimated what it takes to bring about radical social change and were quickly disheartened.

Before I set up Next Generation Now a friend who was then the Chair of the local Council for Voluntary Services said that the most important thing for getting things done was persistence. Having taken this advice to heart I'm slightly disappointed that I didn't stay in a position where I could keep things going. But the paradox is that the establishment of an organisation, or a project, is only really complete when you can stand back and let it get on by itself. So I allowed my relief at giving up the responsibility to overcome my better judgement about the likely outcome.