Freedom Breakfast – 2 eggs, 2 mushrooms, 1 tomato, 2 hash browns, 2 bacon pieces, baked beans

This morning I decided to celebrate my new dentures, which are so comfortable that I can easily forget I am wearing them. I have been walking much more recently, and so it was that I arrived at Wetherspoons in the High Street at about ten past eight, just ten minutes after opening time. I deliberately avoid walking between 8.15 and 8.45, when the local school is preparing for the day’s activities and the roads become clogged with parents delivering their offspring. The resulting confusion is something I prefer to leave well alone.

On entering Wetherspoons, I was surprised to discover that I was the only customer. I am so accustomed to seeing the place bustling with people — how on earth did we manage before it came along? — That finding it virtually deserted was an almost eerie experience. Instead of the usual hum of conversation, the loudest voices belonged to members of staff chatting among themselves as they prepared for another working day.

Anyway, I ordered what I consider to be the best-value breakfast on the menu, the Freedom Breakfast, accompanied by a bottomless coffee. The total came to the very reasonable sum of £6.39, which struck me as a rather satisfactory way of celebrating my return to the world of comfortable eating.

Where is everyone?

I paid a visit to our local library and took a little time to study the notices displayed outside the main entrance. I was struck by the sheer number of small groups advertising their activities, ranging from social gatherings and health improvement to cooking classes and all manner of other interests. What surprised me most was how many of these organisations I had never even heard of, despite living in the area.

This set me thinking. Having made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a comprehensive directory of local activities and events in Chard, why not apply the same idea to my own area?

A very overcrowded notice board outside the library in Midsomer

In Chard, the local authorities had apparently been considering something similar: an all-singing, all-dancing information resource that would bring together everything happening in the town. The difficulty, as I saw it, was that the person entrusted with developing the idea was a volunteer working on a part-time basis. However willing and enthusiastic she might have been, I could not see how she would find the considerable number of hours required to bring such an ambitious project to fruition. See my book ‘Chard – a town in conversation’ available from Amazon.

The challenge is not simply one of collecting names and addresses. You have to identify the organisations, establish relationships, encourage participation and, above all, create what I call a *critical mass*. Unless enough groups are represented from the outset, the resource will struggle to gain the momentum and credibility necessary for people to regard the resource as their natural first port of call.

Recognising this, I offered my services to help bring the whole enterprise together, drawing on my previous experience of community networking. Unfortunately, my offer was ignored, and the opportunity, at least as far as I was concerned, went nowhere. I guessed that the local inhabitants resented ‘outsiders’ interfering with the way they do (or don’t) do things, but hey – that’s human nature for you.

So why not turn my attention to my own home territory? The need is evidently there, the organisations already exist, and the information is scattered in all directions. What is missing is someone willing to bring it all together into a coherent and accessible whole.

And if nobody else is going to do it, why shouldn’t I give it a try?