Your Community the BIG Debate 2020/2025
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Posts
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@Alunh 14096 wrote:
I would imagine that one of the biggest challenges for the Voluntary sector will be to create a positive harmony across the various community components that will be Wrexham in the future. ….(etc).
Excellent point Alunh.
If you only look how vibrant and alive larger cities are, in some part due to their diversity, you can see that facing up to this is an opportunity and not a challenge ( I’m not suggesting that you paint it as the latter ! ).
OK, they tend to have a few dips in the form of periodic riots, but generally they do tend to rub along just as well as some other more ethnically polarised areas i.e. Gresford :)
What if (possible) Scots independance gathers momemtum and Westminster decides that we should have ours too ?
That surely creates a very different landscape for charities & everything else.
@moggsie 14093 wrote:
….I thought the man was discussing what the voluntary sector could be doing in 10-15 years time ?
It’s a given that the business sector will play a part in displacing public sector or charitable provision. I’m not of course suggesting that all businesses are on the “make” in looking for opportunities. Some do a fine job I would imagine; and they do provide employment for many.
Industry and business employs the vast majority of people, and historically the benevolent and supportive nature of employers vastly helped communities to be charitable, and to support those in need. Large examples are social clubs, and smaller examples, keeping in contact with retired employees and providing Christmas vouchers. Port Sunlight is a good model to talk about, it enriched the lives of so many, by developing culture, not just housing.
@wxm 14108 wrote:
Industry and business employs the vast majority of people, and historically the benevolent and supportive nature of employers vastly helped communities to be charitable, and to support those in need. Large examples are social clubs, and smaller examples, keeping in contact with retired employees and providing Christmas vouchers. Port Sunlight is a good model to talk about, it enriched the lives of so many, by developing culture, not just housing.
I think that you raise a vital point here because I don’t think that business people have trumpeted this aspect of their very functioning at all. In part this is because many wish to act benevolently privately, often because they are aware that the cynics will leap out.
Most employers that I know have a whole range of social elements to what they do ranging from those who work in the Round Table style of organisations to those who support Charities in whatever way. I would see the future as one where networks of Businesses and Business organisations interact with the Charity sector at multiple levels and the same goes for other Voluntary bodies and groups.
If we look at the contribution of business benefactors in the past 150 years they established funds for education, college, hospital, social clubs, libraries, museums to name but a few – the bedrock of our current Public Services has it’s roots in charitable and philanthropic donations. I am sure the contributors to this thread with historical knowledge of Wrexham will be able to say which buildings or societies were formed by the business people of the day.
@99DylanJones 14117 wrote:
If we look at the contribution of business benefactors in the past 150 years they established funds for education, college, hospital, social clubs, libraries, museums to name but a few – the bedrock of our current Public Services has it’s roots in charitable and philanthropic donations. I am sure the contributors to this thread with historical knowledge of Wrexham will be able to say which buildings or societies were formed by the business people of the day.
Individual businesses do not have the resources for this type of generosity these days, and the larger ones have shareholders to be accountable to.
Would never happen now.
Can we do a simple list?
2020 is in 6 years time, and reading up on these issues, they are already appearing, and by 2020 these challenges will be part of every day life.
– Social isolation
– Personal mobility, the ability to get about as we get older, washing & dressing
– Having a garden, or a nice place to be in fresh air
– Exercise, getting the heart rate up, staying fit & agile
– Looking after personal finances
– Supporting younger people with learning difficulties
– Supporting people with diseases that are now curable
– Supporting people who have been in the services, and find themselves in a very different social and work skills environment.Looking at the data for Wrexham population, we have 80000 people 16 to 64, and about 25000 age below, and above, that group (total 130,000+).
The 25000 of school age are hopefully generally taken care of. Some of the 80000 will need the support of the community. Those 65 upwards are 25000 people who will have a variety of differing needs, and in the first instance have worked to shape the future of the country and paid taxes for 40 to 50 years, so that we all have what we have today.
Two key roles of any society are surely inclusion, and happiness. Do the 25000 people who have invested in our community for the past 50 years believe they’re getting a good deal?
What do you mean by a good deal? Are you talking about pensions, housing, health care, social services? Or are you talking about inclusion and happiness?
In the first example, I would say unequivocally, yes. In the second example, that is emotional response that comes from within the individual and it varies by degree from person to person. It is not down to the State to facilitate a feeling of nirvana, that comes from within.
With regard to your comment “………we have what we have today”, I tend to the view that should be ‘what we had yesterday’. Today and tomorrow is being financed and facilitated by the present working generations.
It is all very well to dwell on the past, but my main concern focuses on the younger generations who have little or no hope of enjoying the benefits that Senior Citizens are enjoying today.@BenjaminM 14234 wrote:
What do you mean by a good deal? Are you talking about pensions, housing, health care, social services? Or are you talking about inclusion and happiness?
In the first example, I would say unequivocally, yes. In the second example, that is emotional response that comes from within the individual and it varies by degree from person to person. It is not down to the State to facilitate a feeling of nirvana, that comes from within.
With regard to your comment “………we have what we have today”, I tend to the view that should be ‘what we had yesterday’. Today and tomorrow is being financed and facilitated by the present working generations.
It is all very well to dwell on the past, but my main concern focuses on the younger generations who have little or no hope of enjoying the benefits that Senior Citizens are enjoying today.I have two grown up children and neither of them has ever been unemployed and both of them have managed to buy, and still paying for, a house through their own sweat and tears. They occasionally come to ‘Dad’ with the inevitable crisis from time to time, but generally they have what they have as a result of their own work and effort. Many youngsters today have a sense of entitlement, but work will not find them, they have to go and look for it.
My kids have not had a priviliged upbringing, both having had local Secondary school education, and they do not have high flying jobs, but they prove that there IS work out there for those who seek it.
Bear in mind also that eventually us ‘elderly’ will pop our clogs, and assuming the government and councils have not forced us to sell everything to make nursing home owners very wealthy, our assets will pass on to our children as has always happened. Today and tomorrow has always been financed by the working population, and today’s pensioners were not that long ago doing the financing. Perhaps BenjaminM would wish to introduce compulsory euthanaisia at 65?
I too have two grown up children and I agree totally with the sentiments expressed in your opening two paragraphs.
However, your lucid argument is marred by the final sentence of your post, which is quite frankly, ludicrous. I neither implied or indeed attempted to imply any such assumption made by you.
What I will say however, is this:
If an individual has saved assets either by prudence or frugality throughout their lives, I consider it to be right and proper that, when or if it becomes necessary for a move to a residential home or similar, contributions to their continued care should be made from the assets accumulated. It is not a given that our children will reap the benefits by inheritance, although it is a situation that we all hope will occur.
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