How can we stimulate involvement in the community?

by Benoit Bleau (translation : Sheila Lord)  (August 2016)

On June 18 the AGM of the members of Info-Hemmingford Community Bulletin was held in the Hemmingford Recreation Centre. To our pleasant surprise twice as many members as last year attended! In other words, ten plus the three directors, that is, a total of thirteen. I was very pleased to acknowledge that these people had given up their valuable time, on a fine Saturday afternoon, to be part of this community organization which is the IHBC.

Info-Hemmingford is indeed a community organization. An organization which is kept going by a handful of volunteers who care about their community and who have its welfare at heart. What I didn’t tell you is that almost all of those present at the meeting are already involved in other community organizations. It’s as if when one becomes a volunteer, one develops a liking for it, so much so that one is willing to take on more !

But why is it always the same people? Why do we not encounter new faces at these meetings? Is it because these organizations and the activities they offer are not sufficiently publicized? What can be done to correct this ? Or is it because people who might be interested are timid and don’t realise that their expertise, whatever they have to offer, would contribute much? What can be done to convince them to become a volunteer too?

Since its creation the Info-Hemmingford Community Bulletin has been a source of information regarding everything that happens in our community, whether environmental, housing, social, commercial, municipal, sporting, golden age, historical, land, education, nutrition, mutual aid, and much more. There’s a lot happening in our community and, in spite of being in the ‘era of communications’ we always seem to overlook something important. This is why to our paper support, we wish to add numeric support and the influence of the social networks.

Have you had a chance to visit our new website infohemmingford. org? It is really well produced, attractive and informative. And this is only a beginning! We would like to make it even more interactive and enable organisations who through lack of opportunity or lack of technical knowledge don’t have their own web page to have their own space which they can use as they prefer. They would be able to announce their mission, the values they hold, their types of activity and to whom these would be of interest, as well as any information they consider useful for the community. In each of the organizations interested we would undertake to train one or two people how to manage their particular web page. The calendar of the website will brought up to date regularly to include events taking place in our community, and links will be created between these calendars and your personal diaries or those of the municipalities. In order to achieve all this the organizations will have to show a minimum of goodwill. We shall do our share as this is part of our mission: to build bridges between individuals and organizations.

I realize that what we are proposing may intimidate some, but we must live in our time, and virtual links, even if they can never replace face-to-face connections, can nevertheless break down isolation. If this offer is of interest to your organization, don’t wait for us to call you. Get in touch by e-mail or telephone, or when you meet any member of our team in the street. We shall be only too pleased to give you more information.

Benoît Bleau, President-Treasurer, 514-570-0004 or benoit.bleau@gmail.com