We will often face difficult decisions in our wards that are not easily resolved. While there is a space for deliberation before decision making, it is easy to end up analysing and arguing for so long that nobody has time to take any action at all.
We all have a tendency to debate issues and raise ideas and solutions to problems but often only a few people put up their hand to take action and implement things. In most cases, the people who enjoy speaking about an issue are the least likely to volunteer to take action and so we need to build a culture of doing, not just debating.
In fact, most problems cannot be solved by discussion and we can’t plan everything before starting. Many issues that we might argue about are naturally resolved as we take action and work through a problem. It’s better to spend an hour digging up a community garden than talking about how we should dig up the community garden.
Most people don’t have the time to sit in long meetings anyway. With limited time available in the day, they prefer getting involved and contributing time to an activity which shows results. It encourages and builds confidence to see changes happening and it’s easier to get more people involved in a project than in a structure or a forum. Let’s build a movement based on activities and projects rather than meetings.
