“Oh, so I'm the chairperson of Incredible Edible Todmorden. But I'll give you what the chair is. My job is to make everybody in the team (when I say the team, I'm talking about the board) is to make everyone in the board feel that their job is irreplaceable. That they are irreplaceable. But what they are doing is fantastic. And for me, my job is to be a a talent scout.
My job is to keep the organisation open, to use my background skills of working with drug users, mental health, social work, to make sure that we're continually transparent."
We're interested in the small people, the silent people, and the local people
Can you briefly summarise your role in the community of Calderdale?
“Oh, so I'm the chairperson of Incredible Edible Todmorden. But I'll give you what the chair is. My job is to make everybody in the team (when I say the team, I'm talking about the board) is to make everyone in the board feel that their job is irreplaceable. That they are irreplaceable. But what they are doing is fantastic. And for me, my job is to be a a talent scout.
My job is to keep the organisation open, to use my background skills of working with drug users, mental health, social work, to make sure that we're continually transparent. And I would have said five years ago, my job is to be a spokesperson. But I've changed my mind on that, in as much as there have been, over the years, incredible opportunities to travel. So, I just thought it would be so much wiser to say to other people, naturally, people say, can the chair come and address this conference? And we say, No. so and so good. So Gig (from The Golden Lion pub) went to North Korea. Judy went to Japan. Chris went to Belgium. So, we've shared that out. In fact, she knows she's called Kai Paignton know. She works for the National Trust. So some really flashy magazine wanted an article writing. We just said to her (she only volunteered twice) do you want to write the article? She said, sure I do. So we see that people can make career moves. They can, that and other moves, if they've got a business, by being part of us, and we want them to exploit it.”
But that's also this dynamic inclusivity because it's pinpointing where people can take something and move it in to a new direction, you know, or take into a new realm, and identify it.
Gardening is by the by in my work. That’s all. We’ve got a reason for people to come together and it’s gardening.
What does inclusivity and diversity mean in relation to your work in Calderdale?
“So you know, it's great to have a farm and to have outdoor school, and you know, Forest School and to get in touch with nature. That is fantastic. But, as much as I would love to go work on the hills, or in the forest, or on a farm, but I have to think of the person who can't walk, the person who can't talk, the person who's got severe anxiety. So, every single activity is built round, the slowest person's needs.
We we weave all of that care of those vulnerable people in silently. Normally, if you're an organisation, you tick a box - 'oh, we had some Asian people, and we write reports - Yes, we've got three people with learning difficulties, 5 drug users and 2 alcoholics, and you talk about those things, but we don't talk about those things ever. Because we don't need to because we are not taking the dollar.
I think the current models that everybody use, which are based on growth, they're based on the new. Whereas I actually think small, is beautiful. We forgotten about the small; small and really local, local people being equal with other local people. And I believe that there is another way to operate in communities. And I believe, actually, wholeheartedly that I've achieved that. And I've shown that it is possible, with or without money to make a difference. So I think small, local, beautiful, flexible, and well grounded and connected.”
You know, the feeding of people, which we did until COVID have every gardening sometimes men cooking a meal for 50 people. Now to organise two hours of gardening for 50 people, 40 of them have no idea what their fucking doing whatsoever; minding those people and having no staff, no one to boss about, is all based on absolute cooperation, and self management, is a really complex thing. So we have to think about that meal, we have to think about the person who's 80 and a hands shake; if we use a paper plate, they wouldn't be able to manage that paper plate, so we're going to use China plates. We have to think about the planet; we have to think about the food we serve. So we've never ever cooked meat, so that we don't have to worry whether someone's a Jew or someone's a Muslim. All of that's done away with. So every detail of what we do is built up over years, remembering we've got one person who comes who has no language whatsoever. But he does like to push a wheelbarrow and he will sometimes come with these carer. So everybody knows, has anybody held back the wheelbarrow for Alex? That's built in - it's the history of the group.
Gardening is by the by in my work really. Gardening brings them together. We're not in the slightest interested in gardening. Honestly, gardening is just the handbag we're dancing around. That's all, we've got a reason for people to come together. And it's gardening.”
During COVID we’ve got people listening for the silence and listening for who needs what
You know, I love the fact that you just said that. It's a handbag that we all dance around, because I think that's an absolutely brilliant expression for a lot of work that happens and people forget, it's about social connection. It's about communities built on stories.
“And, and our other really lovely thing that we do, because we're open about recovery. So it's spoken of openly know, when we've got those 50 people, we'll shout down the table to someone, 'Oh, how did you last detox go?', 'Oh, not so good!' Yep, we want an open conversation, which is really fantastic.
That's actual therapy, you know, compassionate therapy, and that's the most productive form of therapy. We say, we accept you as you are and life is a journey. I was talking to Aine Douglass (Calderdale Food Network) the other day about food and well being and if we accept that everybody's on a journey, and we make choices based on that, no one's wrong. You know, we have to say that we accept people at different stages, otherwise we get fed the same story that we're not doing things well enough. What we need to do is have some self worth that we can do things better, not beat ourselves up about it. And, you know, most people don't know how other people's lives are, and how hard they are. And simple things like asking the question makes a difference. ”
So I was going to ask you, how do you think things have changed since COVID-19? Do you think people have felt more excluded?
“Yes, it has been amazing. Yes, it has. It's been a great leveller. And a great show of kindness. Yes, it's been fantastic. I think, the little libraries are a little seed that's been so spread all over town.
The one on Ashenhurst, which is the one we only really care about, because that's the one where people laughed at us and said, 'Oh, they don't read up there'. And it's got a constant somebody monitoring the library, talking to the children, even taking requests or books, and then gathering those books.
So I think the food hubs demonstrated that kindness is so powerful and that those food hubs were the people operating them you know, we're showered with home baking and gifts every day. I mean, the kindness every fortnight 14 masks are left on the doorsteps, still beautiful homemade masks to distribute silently to people. Last Monday, Adam (Real Junk Food Project) sent over three pallets of surplus food with the with the free paid Freegan boxes. And we don't need to advertise. We've got someone who knows poor people that don't go to the food bank; some went to Nikki's project in Oldham; some went to a poor school.
We've got other people listening for the silence and listening for who needs what.”
If people are coming in to invest in that kindness, hopefully they are actually investing in the community and not just buying a property
I've got I've got friends who are working full time, and we're still running free business services to help older people get the food; take them food and celebration packages. And it's funny because people get disappointed that that might reduce after COVID after COVID. But it proves that in every crisis, we've got this like muscle memory now. You know, we need to build that muscle memory. We need to respond to need.
“In the first two weeks of lockdown they did an analysis of which towns would fare the worst and Todmorden was at the top of the list. Todmorden was on that list of 30, who knows what it's based on probably gobbledygoop. Then COVID hit drastically, but more and more shops have opened here. More restaurants are opening. I mean, the absolute opposite has happened here. In fact, the property market, there is not a property available. So, you know, they've got that wrong too, because they never factored in, that people saw all this kindness, saw what was going on and thought, 'God, where do I want to live? Manchester or Kind Town? Yeah, I'll live in Kind Town'. Do you see it was always based on good schools, computability, job availability, so all that's changed. All the traditional measures of property value has changed.”
If people are coming in to invest in that kindness, hopefully they are actually investing in the community, across the board, and not just buying a property.
“Beth, I would like to say that I do believe in the power of the table. 100%. So I can tell you this is that our numbers doubled in six months, the minute we made eating part of our activity. So we don't want separate tables. We have a long, long, long table. Yeah. So you know, where you see separate tables, you see cliques. Where you see a long table where no one's got a place reserved.
And that and that's so simple for Equinox. They could make sure that they have a canteen where you have to sit down and it's a long table. Stick into the small and the beautiful and just making relationships happen.
Joyous stuff, because it is joyous work. And for years, people go, 'oh, how do we reach the unreachable? It's always been problem talk, but, actually, it's so joyous. One of our volunteers, a Romanian guy, he came to see me and said, 'Mary, I can't go gardening on Sunday, so here's 20 pounds'. I said, for fucks sake why are you giving me 20 pounds. But he said 'I love it so much. It's worth it.' So I just gave the 20 pounds to Heather, who'd cut a deal with the hospice shop, to sell her books, children's books for 5p for her little library on Ashenhurt. And it was just just so fantastic. He wanted to pay for the joy he was missing.”
Joyous stuff because its joyous work!
“All this Equinox wandering around? What should they do? I tell you what they should do? Put their money where their mouth is. Because it's easier for them. They could hire a building where it's most needed. And I'd say there's nothing in this town. 15,000 people and some of the poorest people in the Upper Valley. They have got the ability in their office to pay the rent, and have a booking system, and say repair cafe you can have it on so and so, you can have it on so and so. Boom! And Brand the whole thing up as theirs. If they did that for six months to see whether it would work they'd be doing an amazing thing.
That's it. We need like, good compost distribution, teaching people how to make their own compost, and then paint recycling stuff. We don't have these recycle centres, and bigger spaces that we can just provide things.”
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