A Community Lover's Guide to Dudley

There’s growing excitement in the office I share with Melissa Guest at Dudley CVS about gathering stories for a Community Lover’s Guide to Dudley. Mel and I have volunteered to edit this book, which will be available to view online and to order in hard copy on demand.

The following from the Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe site describes the background to the idea. 

The idea for Community Lover's Guide to the Universe was conceived in Rotterdam in April 2011 by Tessy Britton and Maurice Specht.

 Following the fantastic response to the collaborative book Hand Made (45,000 online readers), which was published in Autumn 2010, the idea evolved that we might be able to start producing local versions of Hand Made.

There are now over 35 confirmed voluntary editors.

Mel and I are drawing up a list of around 15 people who we will ask and support to contribute their stories. We are looking for projects local to Dudley Borough which originate from a person or group (rather than an organisation). The projects will involve 'hands-on' doing, learning or other creative elements and seek to include, involve, or share with others

I hope that sharing these stories will encourage those who work in our local voluntary and public sector to think a little differently about how we can make the most of the passion and energy we have in our communities.

This links to wider work in Dudley to respond to the government’s localism agenda and the changing relationship between the local public sector and communities and citizens. In particular through Our Society in Dudley Borough we’re starting to talk about community assets (we include social, human and cultural assets along with built, natural and financial assets in this thinking). The stories in the Community Lover’s Guide will offer practical examples of the ideas we are exploring. I’m also looking forward to reading stories from around the world and finding inspiration in other places. Mel and I met up with Steph Jennings who is working on the Community Lover’s Guide to Birmingham with Nick Booth and already has some amazing stories to share.

Please do get in touch if you have suggestions of people whose stories we could include in the Dudley edition.