Buy Retin A, Following a West Somerset Free Press article 25th August 2006 asking for ideas to make Exmoor a better place to live and work, I have sent the following article to the Exmoor National Park Authority (abridged to exclude personal names) via the New Economics Foundation (neweconomics.org).
Hi
Thank you for the good work you are doing to try to help Exmoor area. I hope that your article in the Free Press brings in some good suggestions.
Living in Minehead, I have long been passionate about helping Exmoor to be a better place to live and work and really welcome the opportunity to make my small contribution.
The main thrust of my proposals is that we need to vastly 'improve communication and a sense of community in the Exmoor area' as an immediate prelude to devising and implementing action plans for rapid change.
Once communications between the people of Exmoor (and not excluding surrounding areas) has been substantially and radically improved, we can then move to identification of specific issues and devise viable plans for their rapid resolution.
The word 'communication' is being used here in its broadest sense but the solutions implied are highly specific, practical and, 1000mg Buy Retin A, unfortunately, extremely challenging.
The key objective, at this stage, is to achieve an 'action model' that will rapidly and positively drive forward the process of change and become the vehicle for the implementation process.
It is vitally important not to see 'improving communication' just as an easy cliche. Improving communication brings important and powerful benefits and advantages. By systematically improving communication in Exmoor and surrounding areas, 250mg Buy Retin A, and involving the community to a degree hitherto thought undesirable, we greatly increase the manpower resources we can bring to bear on all the problems that have been outstanding and unresolved for so long.
Harnessing the expertise of all thinkers in this area, not just the elected few, gives us our best chance of creating a 'buzz' of Exmoor conversation. Buy Retin A ebay, This makes it much more likely that we will add to our resources by drawing into the debate the best thinkers from areas outside Exmoor too.
By involving more people, we can move forward on many fronts at the same time which is vital because failures are as important as successes and not all strategies will work. We need to take a survival of the fittest approach with many projects being promoted at the same time in the knowledge that all will not succeed.
Here are a list of features of the urgently required new communication model for this area:
Communication needs to be 'inclusive' not 'exclusive' - the whole of the public community must be involved equally and all the community must believe that they are involved, Buy Retin A. Therefore, 'reaching out' to all parts of the community must be a significant and extensive part of the plan and it must be adequately resourced. A few, like myself, Buy Retin A mexico, will be there eagerly from the beginning but many more people will need to be encouraged and cajoled to take part because their input is just as vital. The success of the operation of this model can be evaluated directly by measuring the number of people contributing.
Communication must be distributed not hierarchical. There must be a cobweb of discussions taking place not a pyramid of discussions. Buy Retin A, However, the systems used to promote the discussions must ensure the conversations are not 'lost'. So the systems must involve some degree of 'drawing the threads together' but it is vitally important that this does not create a 'hierarchy'. 40mg Buy Retin A, The 'drawing together' process must be accessible and available to all, whether they are current participants or not.
Communication must be two way and, at very least, enable a dialogue. Ideas are only improved by debate and debate wins minds and pre-empts subsequent implementation opposition and problems.
Communication must lead rapidly to auditable action. There must be a clear and plausible connection between the two, 10mg Buy Retin A, otherwise everybody involved will believe they are wasting their time and otherwise willing contributers will withdraw cooperation.
Communication must be focussed on identifying problems as much as solutions. Everybody believes they have problems and are usually quite willing to share / communicate them, Buy Retin A. The process of sharing people's problems can then lead to identifying a plan for their solution but the human resources available will be greater because more people will have been drawn into the process.
Communication must allow for kudos. Ideas and contributions should be attributed to the people that have originated them. This will then lead to more ideas and a virtuous circle of innovation and creativity.
Genuine communication must be officially sanctioned. Buy Retin A canada, Whistle blowing must be encouraged. The public leaders in Exmoor must be seen and believed as being fully committed and involved with opening up communication.
Buy Retin A, The methods devised to improve communication must be very low / no cost. If large grants have to be obtained, the project will get pushed years into the future. We must achieve small benefits fast and then build on them in an 'iterative' process to achieve larger benefits.
Opportunities and threats:
The good news is that most of this can be achieved at practically no financial cost.
The bad news is that it means drastically changing attitudes and challenging current local thinking, which is intensely territorial, hierarchical and paternal.
I have to confess, 500mg Buy Retin A, therefore, that my expectations of any level of success for this strategy are very low. I have tried long and hard to engage local politicians and officials in constructive dialogue on these issues and have made practically zero headway.
Additionally, these proposals are not new. 20mg Buy Retin A, I have already made these proposals for Exmoor clear to the Exmoor National Park Authority both directly by email and indirectly by attending a public consultation several months ago. Gratifyingly, I received an email thanking me for my contribution and saying it would be looked into, Buy Retin A. I appreciated the reply, however, nothing seems to have happened since so I suppose my proposals and strategies were not accepted.
My proposals have also been extensively canvassed to the West Somerset Council and ruling party councillors, again over a period of years, but no replies have been received.
The practical method I proposed which would drastically improve communication in the Exmoor area is to institute online Internet based, 50mg Buy Retin A, two way, public discussion forums for Exmoor (and surrounding areas). However, this is only the first of many more necessary steps relating to improving communication and should not be seen as a complete solution in itself.
Public officials must then be encouraged to appear on the forums to discuss issues and problems that are communicated and engage in meaningful debate about identified solutions.
An 'outreach programme' must then be instituted to publicise the forums and encourage people to see them as a way of achieving progress on issues that concern them. The 'outreach programme' must also identify how many people in the community are not included because they are not at ease with the technology. People who have problems with the technology must be 'enabled' to work with the technology (preferably) or integrated offline systems must be plugged into the online systems to enable all to participate fully. It is vital that the discussion systems, both offline and online, operate and are seen to operate, as a single system to prevent fragmentation and ensure one community of participents is maintained.
In conclusion:
Efficient and widespread ongoing communication and consultation in Exmoor and surrounding areas is a vital precursor to solving the problems we all know about.
If local government genuinely want to identify and proactively solve local problems, viable community communication systems are fundamental and should become a benchmark by which local government organisations are measured.
Rob
.
.
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