YOU NEED TO FIX THE FENCE FIRST

(a comment from a passer-by as we were doing our 3rd RamgreatXID pilot mini place activation on Ramsgate high-street, South-East Kent).

In some ways she is right. 

We are painting onto old pieces of wooden hoardings, which are slightly rotten – how long will our painting efforts last? 

According to the local community centre and neighbours, these hoardings have been up for more than 10 years . They have been protecting a disused site where housing had to be taken down due safety issues. No-one local who we spoke to, knew who the owners of the site were. 

To fix the fence first   - we would need to find out who owns the site, this could take up to three months. Perhaps another three months of negotiations, perhaps another three months to raise money to fix the fence. Momentum from my community group might have been lost by then so we might have had to raise more money to pay people to paint the fence. Possibly a twelve-month journey. 

 WE CHOOSE TO NOT  FIX THE FENCE FIRST 

In that twelve month period, we will have bought a sense of joy and wonder to more than 850 local residents and visitors. (On the day of painting, we hadso many wonderful comments and conversations). We made Sammy’s (who runs the community centre next door) day, she loved Bluebells, so we gave her some. We got chatting to a passer-by who is now baking  cakes for my local community group. Perhaps most importantly we were able to give a sense of meaning and purpose to someone who really needed it, as they helped us with the painting. 

Building change from the ground up #XID.