Intro to this blog & ACT Hastings! (Actively Changing Things in Hastings!)

You are invited to read this blog and then to write for this blog. Comments on the pieces here are not moderated (until abuse occurs) and if you want to write new posts, phone me and I'll enable you to do so, just as I have for the activist, Scott Ellis, who published his letter in 8th October's Hastings & St Leonards Observer to say that "Maybe the destruction of the pier is the boot up the backside we need."

Last Saturday's meeting arranged by "kick up the backside" Scott Ellis has led to the formation of a group of 25-30 people (at present) under the name ACT Hastings!    (Actively Changing Things in Hastings!). Other contact details and information on the areas of work being undertaken to improve Hastings will follow.
 
The pier fire is certainly what 'fired me up' to volunteer in the Pier Shop at 34, White Rock. I'm also moved by the community I see to move to St Leonards in 2011. A friend there says that the heart has been torn out of Hastings; yet I've seen it beating more strongly than ever. Personally, I put much of my heart and soul into providing web-based services to access people committed to offering their best and creating better communities. My mission: "That Sussex becomes somewhere where no-one wants to set light to a pier".
On bonfire night, a month after the pier fire, the "Sussex People's Justice" service is to be launched via this blog:

Who am I to use web-sites to engage communities in this way?

• Co-director of Freelending Community Interest Company 
• Director of Mediation Support Ltd, 
• Personally invited to 10, Downing St to be thanked by the PM for my work on behalf of victims of crime. 
• Former Head of Restorative Justice, Mediation UK (2001-2006)

For the time-being I am not in contact with the “arsonists”, though I know someone who knows them.

First contact might be made with their:

- friends/family

- those in the criminal justice system who in some way “supervise” them.

Somewhere down the line I hope that the words & voices of the community recorded on the people's justice website will lead to a dialogue with whoever comes forward as a representative of the “arsonists”. It may be that other 18 & 19 year olds, or other (ex) “arsonists” offer to talk to the wider community in the first place.

Whatever you would want to ask or tell to each of the arsonists, type it or record it here or on the one-to-one video-messaging site to be announced here on 5th November.

Other pages on this blog:
Home
Mediation Support at Southwater Community Centre
Action for Happiness -A Good Week
Paul C -AKA Lend-It-All Man
Why Move to Hastings?