If you ask a direct question, never expect a direct answer

While working on this campaign (in fact, working on anything), I constantly have to remind myself, 'what will make the most difference with the least effort'.

I was recently reminded of this with a soft jolt during a WhatsApp chat with our primary spokesperson Carlie. I asked her about a response I was writing to a community organisation, wanting a second pair of eyes on it before sending. This was one of the replies.

It was a soft jolt because I knew already that I was wasting my time. I'd got caught up in the back and forth, the emails sent with straightforward questions, followed by responses that seemed to ignore those specific questions. I'd lost track of what was important, of what could make the most difference with the least effort.

It's a common theme in this kind of campaign work. If you've ever seen MP's in the House of Commons perform what's known as filibustering, you will get a sense of what we have to deal with. Emails are written, meetings are held, minutes are taken to document promises and actions, months pass with little or no action, go back to start. It's no wonder the community we are from isn't that involved in community activism because who has the time or energy for it.

And that brings me back to the start of this post, the thing that had become another time sink. The email I was writing was about Neighbourhood action plans, or NAP's for short. I was asking the organisation responsible for running them in our city for some information on their efficacy. I had been asking these same questions to the council and this organisation for months, and guess what? I'm still not clear on how helpful NAP's have been in East Brighton.

From my understanding, a NAP is meant to be a way for the council to collaborate with the community. NAPS in East Brighton have been managed by a funded community organisation, supporting a local committee of volunteers. Together they run events to canvas local opinion on what the community needs.

On the surface, this all sounds excellent, and I wholeheartedly support any good collaboration in the community. But, as I mentioned earlier, apart from the bringing together of the committee, I am yet to see any evidence of positive change from the NAP process in East Brighton. The problem, it seems, is the interface between the NAP and the council. I've been observing the NAP process for a few years in East Brighton, and I have always felt that it was a performative consultation process. One that kept the community committee busy, paid for some hours of the community organisation and council officers working on it and created a glossy brochure with many vague ideas and promises. I wasn't surprised when I heard from someone working on the process that senior council officers found it hard to engage with the outcomes of the NAP.

It made me think about what we've been doing for more than two years, that we have been running our own kind of NAP, with a focus on education. We have shared evidence, data and ideas with senior officers at the council, and nothing has changed; not one of our demands have been met.

To cycle back to the start of this post (again), just like me trying to find out about the NAP process, the NAP process itself seems like one big time sink with very little evidence of it making any difference at all in the community.