Over 100 delegates enrolled in the fifth Carnegie Rural Convention which was held in Kendal, Cumbria on November 23rd and November 24th, 2009. In the end 96 individuals actually attended: a remarkable turnout in view of the fact that the event coincided with the major flooding in Cumbria.
The theme of the convention was “Local Action for Rural Development” and was designed to mix the insights from the Carnegie Rural Action Research Programme (2006-2009) and the current “Community of Practice” with the on the ground delivery through the “LEADER Approach” of the Rural Development Programmes in the five jurisdictions in which we work. The LEADER approach is an area-based, bottom-up approach to delivery through Local Action Groups based on a public/private/community partnership. The intention was to open up some of the big issues and to see how local action might address themes such as community action planning, food and farming, climate change and building local resilience. The rural team has been strengthening the constituency for its work since 2008 with the onset of the Community of Practice and Learning. At the 2008 convention at Cashel, Tipperary a commitment was made to the delegates that as the RARP came to a close there would be continuing face to face engagement with rural development activists, and an offer of solid content and innovative practice.
The convention exists as a major way of spreading to practitioners in rural development the awareness of findings from work carried out or commissioned by the Carnegie UK Trust. It also provides us with an opportunity to meet with those whose practice in rural development is close to ours. The convention was opened up with a session on community engagement, fleshed out with an eclectic mix of case studies from Uganda, India, Cornwall and Cumbria. There were also sessions on issues such as community-led service provision, rural service delivery through community websites and the use of the Carnegie diagnostic tool, the “petal model” in building local action plans for sustainable community development. New content was opened up as Paul Allen from the Centre for Alternative Technology outlined the challenge of building zero carbon communities and Pete Ritchie from the Falkland Centre for Stewardship spoke of the importance of re-localisation of some food production set within a context of globalisation.
It was no surprise therefore that one of the most popular sessions of the convention was Nick Wilding’s workshop aspiring to answer the question “How do we build resilience in communities?” This was clearly a timely question as, only a few miles to the west, a police officer was swept to his death as a bridge collapsed, rivers burst their banks, fields were inundated, roads ran like rivers and houses and shops were drowned – notably in Cockermouth where the flood water raged at 8 feet above its normal level.
A more detailed report, videos and further discussions will be posted up on our Community of Practice networking site in January 2010.