Welcome to Dalston Futures

Last week, to our amazement over 45 local residents attended a meeting in Dalston to create a community organisation in the area.     The meeting discussed the issues that people care about, and how we can build an inclusive voice that can raise community concerns in a way that cannot simply be ignored. At the end of the meeting, everyone agreed to take ten copies of a paper based version of our survey and get these completed before the next meeting. If you have completed them, you can either scan or photograph them and email them to hackneyunites@btinternet.com, post them to the address on the form, or bring them to the next meeting. If you were not at the meeting and would like a copy of the paper-based survey, please drop us an email and we will forward one to you. Next steps At the moment we are ‘listening’ to the community, identifying the issues that people in the area feel sufficiently concerned about to want to organise to see change. We have an on-line survey where we invite people to tell us what issues they care about and if they want to get involved. Please visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Dalstonfutures if you would like to take part. Our next meeting is at the Trinity Centre on Beechwood Road on Tuesday 10 December at 6.30pm (as ever we commit to finish promptly by 8pm). How you can help: Speak to your friends and neighbours about Dalston Futures, and how we are trying to build a community organisation and encourage them to join us on 10 December. We are encouraging people to register to attend the meeting https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Dalstonfutures We don’t have a leaflet for the next meeting, but we will need to leaflet the area again. Indeed, in the future, we may need to collect petitions door to door, so we are trying to establish a list of supporters who will take responsibility for contacting people in their street, or block: if you can help, please register when you complete the survey. We want as many people as possible to get involved so please forward this email onto friends and neighbours. If you use twitter or facebook, then please post the following message: Wow, Dalston’s communities are getting organised http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=99c9b76c358ddf0210073d98f&id=ecd36f00ed&e Please RT More than anything, though, why not just speak to your neighbours and get them along to the next meeting? Inevitably this initiative has begun with just a few people, but we need more people to take on a role in helping us get organised between meetings. In particular, we need people to visit local faith and community organisations and discuss what we are trying to do. If you have some time, and want to get more involved, please drop an email to hackneyunites@btinternet.com Who are Hackney Unites? Dalston Futures is an initiative of Hackney Unites, a community coalition for social justice, our member organisations include Hackney Planning Watch, the Black and Minority Arts Network, North East London Anti Racist Alliance, and Digs, the private sector tenants group. We are not aligned to any political party or ideology, and work when we can with people with a wide range of political views. We believe that our communities can prosper when we work together, and that if we want to see positive change in our communities then we need to work together to make that change happen rather than leaving it to someone else. Can you help us with a regular donation? Hackney Unites is always exploring grant funding for our projects, but in all honesty, it is never enough. We need local people to help with regular donations. We are transforming Hackney, but we need a little help. If you would like to help, you can make a donation via telephone, or on-line banking: our account name is Hackney Unites, Unity Trust Bank, Sort Code 08-60-01 Account number: 20245706. Alternatively you can write a cheque and send it to Hackney Unites C/O HCVS, 84 Springfield House, 5 Tyssen Street London, E8 2LY. Some of our supporters help by donating a regular sum, between £1 - £5 per month. If you would like to join them, you can download a standing order form from http://tinyurl.com/cjcrqqd  (please complete and return to us) or set this up via telephone banking. Many thanks for your interest; let's get our community organised! Regards John Page Secretary Hackney Unites