“HOW can we improve the lives of people in Holsworthy and area?” That was the big question put to a lively gathering of community leaders, police, church and school representatives, other local agencies and members of the public in the town last week (October 11).

The evening was co-ordinated by the national, church-led organisation ROC - which stands for Redeeming our Communities (roc.uk.com). ROC’s vision is to transform the nation from the grassroots up through an “Asset-Based Community Development programme.” ROC works with existing community groups, agencies, local activists and positively motivated residents, helping them to discover each other and to find new ways to collaborate by pooling resources for the common good.

ROC’s first aim in Holsworthy was to have a public get-together of 100 people to share their thoughts, insights and concerns about the community. And last Tuesday night one hundred people were present in the Purple Circle in Holsworthy Community College.

One notable absence - due to COVID - was the chair of Holsworthy & District’s Community Forum, Geoff Cusick. That did not, however, prevent him contributing, as Debra Green from ROC shared a letter that he had sent to the ROC team.

Geoff wrote: “We know, from the experience of COVID, and from our community’s response to the crisis in Ukraine, that there is an enormous fund of knowledge, goodwill and hard work that we can draw upon. What we need to do, though, is to work out how to use these resources to the best effect. And to do that, we need the involvement of everyone.

“I’m looking forward to working with Debra, Phil and their colleagues in ROC, since I think we can really make a difference.”

The 100 present represented a very broad range of interests and organisations, mostly from Holsworthy, but with some representing agencies from further afield. While there were too many to mention by name, it was good to see Dr John Womersley, chair of One Northern Devon (onenortherndevon.co.uk), of which the Holsworthy & District Community Forum is now a part, make the journey back to Holsworthy to join the conversation.

ROC had been invited by Rev Simon Leigh, on behalf of the Methodist Churches, to start a “conversation” about the amazing community resources that the Holsworthy area has. These were collected and celebrated on colourful post-it notes, but also acknowledged were some of the needs of the community in order to try to address them.

Among the invited guests were three representatives of the police force, our new PC, Frank Morgan, Inspector Ewan Seear from Torridge and Superintendent Toby Davies. Debra Green interviewed all three and whilst Supt Davies admitted that there might be some excitement when using the blue light, all came across as really caring individuals who had joined the police in order to be able to help others and who were keen to see ROC’s dream become reality.

Everyone attending was then invited to share their practical “needs” and the “resources” that they were willing to share by writing them on green and yellow luggage labels. These were then pegged to a “wishing line” line. The ROC team will then look at these and see what can be paired up.

The ROC Conversation was the guest of the Community College and Debra went on to interview both Tim Salvadori, head teacher of Holsworthy Primary School, and Gareth Smith, head of the Community College, which is part of the Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust. Life is tough in education. The pandemic is recognised to have exacerbated inequalities amongst children and Tim Salvadori spoke of the challenge that this presents to ensuring that the children of disadvantaged families are in a place to start learning when they are in school. Asked if there was anything that the community might offer that would help, he suggested that people might volunteer to listen to children read. This need was immediately answered by an offer from the Rotary Club.

Gareth Smith spoke of the challenges of the impact of the pandemic on students’ mental health, and the lack of resources to give them as much help as they need. This is a national issue, but it was useful to be reminded that Holsworthy is certainly no exception. It is also sad to have to recognise that the cost of living crisis is already impacting families, some of whom are struggling to adequately feed their children. Debra Green shared a suggestion from another ROC group of a “Warm Coat” project.

At this point the hard work began. The whole gathering, seated in groups of eight, set to identify a number of specific community needs. Having detailed these, they were tasked to discuss them and to write down some potential solutions. A selection of these were shared with the whole gathering before the homework was handed in, hopefully in legible handwriting, for the ROC team to analyse and turn into a report. It was notable that mental health, loneliness and isolation, drug and alcohol addiction, end-of-life care and travel and transport featured in a number of the issues identified,

The ROC Conversation was a sociable and constructive gathering and the feedback from participants was very positive. As with all such meetings however, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and that will start when we receive our homework back in a couple of weeks’ time.