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7. Activities and Trading

Community groups are about addressing the needs of people. In most localities, there are many voluntary groups representing different local needs. Some of these will be multi-purpose and many others single-purpose. Some will occupy their own premises, others will hire accommodation and others again will meet in each other's homes.

Most groups are set up with some particular intention and, when a group has been in existence for some time, it can be enlightening to re-visit its original aims. Were they ever relevant or realistic? If so, are they still relevant to the neighbourhood? Have the original needs been met and the aims achieved? If not, what progress has been made?

To answer questions like these will also involve looking at the neighbourhood itself. This may, in turn, prompt new questions. Are there people whose needs and interests are not at present catered for? Who are they? What are their needs? Can an existing group meet these needs, or is a new organisation called for?

Community organisation means looking outwards, and responding to what you see. It is impossible to offer a universal prescription: different ailments require different treatments, and a good doctor knows how to listen – and what to listen for; how to observe – and what to look for. The important things are ability to recognise what is happening, and flexibility of approach in response.

Different approaches to assessing community needs are offered under “Profiling the Community” which can be found under 'Setting up a community organisation'.

For information on how active community associations and similar organisations can and should be continually assessing local needs and developing new groups in response read ‘Starting New Groups’ which can be found under Setting up a community organisation.

Looking out and moving out

Some community groups – very properly – have limited aims. A local cricket club, for example, will spend most of the summer enabling its members (and, usually, their friends/partners/spouses) to play cricket or to be involved in supportive activities such as score-keeping or making the sandwiches for the tea-break. Come the winter, it may put some effort into securing (or taking advantage of) facilities for indoor cricket.

Beyond this, it might consider, for example, making its clubhouse available for the annual village senior citizens’ Christmas party. Normally, however, it will not involve itself in wider issues. Its approach to the local community, at best, will be that it sees itself as needing to achieve good results in cricket as a means of promoting a good image for the community.

Many other community groups, meanwhile, pursue wider aims, and multi-purpose community associations in particular have the intention of serving everyone in their locality. Yet actions speak louder than words and those actions; however unintentionally, sometimes say that newcomers are not particularly welcome. Especially, actions may speak loudly and negatively to members of the community who are different, in one way or another, from the majority of well-established members of the organisation. The group’s current activities, it may be judged, serve the needs of its existing membership quite adequately, and nothing more is needed.

All community organisations, whether single- or multi-purpose, will benefit from being outward looking, becoming more aware of different human needs in their communities, and – as appropriate in relation to their particular objects – from initiating activities to meet those needs.

Limitations and dangers

Notwithstanding the importance of an outward-looking approach, a community organisation will always be subject to constraints upon the activities open to them, and will have to watch out for certain dangers. The following are some of the chief ones.

The danger of activities becoming funding-led. While any proposed activity will need to be adequately funded, there is a real danger that activities will be pursued simply because funding is available, rather than because the activity is of genuine benefit to the local community;
The legal environment – particularly, where an organisation is a charity, the constraints of charity law as embodied, for example, in the organisation’s own constitutional objects or the legal limitations upon trading activities by charities;
The danger of over commitment – whereby community organisations frequently find themselves carried away by their own enthusiasm, but then find themselves unable to deliver their promises. A particularly insidious form of this danger is the incremental rise in demand when one initial commitment leads inexorably to another and another and yet another …

Developing the existing or starting afresh?

Sometimes, new activities can be incorporated within existing groups and organisations. At other times, a new group or organisation will be called for. The decision as to which approach is most likely to be fruitful is rarely straightforward, since many factors will need to be taken into account. They will include the following.

Legal and constitutional issues – e.g.: Do the organisation’s objects and powers permit the proposed activity? Would it constitute unlawful trading? Is planning permission required? (etc.)
Group culture – Would the existing members of a group be willing and able to make the necessary changes to incorporate this new activity or move in this new direction?
Resources – Does an existing group have the financial and/or human capacity to extend itself in this new direction? Is there space within the building? Would existing activities suffer in consequence?
Equal opportunities – Does the organisation need to be challenged to see the introduction of a new activity as a way of implementing its equal opportunities policy?

Consideration of questions such as these may help in determining whether a new group or organisation is desirable or necessary.

For more information

To find out more about how to develop activities, which licences and permissions are needed and how to trade legally select the links below to download our set of publications.

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