Celebrating Community Involvement: Leading Lights, Moving Spirits and Lattice-work Networks

Community involvement in regeneration is increasingly promoted as a ?good thing? and there are many publications offering guidance on how to involve local people in the delivery of sustainable regeneration. The advice generally points out the importance of valuing individuals? involvement whose ideas, energies and time are often invested benevolently. This publication is an attempt to begin to recognise and articulate that value. Through anumber of models of involvement, the study brings together a variety of examples of personal discovery, sense of accomplishment and deep social learning that participating in the management of community projects can bring. Thus, this study details the stories of 21 people involved in different ways with their local community development trust as a way to celebrate individuals? contributions to the quality of individual and community life in localneighbourhoods. It begins to tease out what inspires and motivates local people to become actively involved and what practices are used by trusts to encourage, sustain and expand membership and participation in the management of trusts and projects. The richness of the individual stories and depth of insight of the interviewees? experience andlearning is reflected in the style of this report which draws heavily on participants? own words, in an attempt to capture the human dynamics at play. The report highlights the very personal nature of individual learning and motivation and avoids the use of what some participants described as regeneration jargon and ?regenerese?. In the main, the report does not seek to universalise some kind of elusive community member experience, but instead respects each individual and their sense of personhood. Thus, this study weaves a collection of tales together using common sense language.