OUR LEICESTER DAY 2011

At Leicester Market for Our Leicester Day. This is an opportunity for Voluntary and Community Sector organisations (and a few others) in the city (some from the county too) to present themselves to the general public, to the media - and to each other.

There are more than 110 organisations listed as taking part (described as "Promoters"), but it doesn't look to me as if all of them have turned up. The wind is probably a big factor in that. No one reckoned with the effects of the tail-end of Hurricane Katia. Some groups have had their display material virtually wrecked by the wind. There are leaflets flying everywhere, banners blown over and torn from their moorings and so much stuff being tossed backward and forward, it's a wonder no one is injured.

We share our space with Cooke e-learning Foundation and Menphys. Jim Matthews is helping run the Menphys stall. Jim worked as a reporter with the Leicester Mercury for 35 years. I introduce Gracie to Jim and ask her to tell him what she would like as a career. She makes a good impression on Jim, the outcome of which is that she gets a discount on a bunch of jigsaws (that's my girl!)

Today we're getting people to sign up to our forthcoming email newsletter, that we intend to launch during Community Media Week at the beginning of November.

Our Chair, Councillor Manjula Sood, and I get to speak for a few minutes live on BBC Radio Leicester about the Council of Faiths participation in today's event. I think I respond quite well to being asked live on air if I am Welsh.

A variety of media outlets covered the event, including Citizens' Eye Community News Agency and Pukaar News.

There's going to be a follow-up meeting for debriefing purposes at Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre, Thursday 3 November, 1730. I think that there's been a mixed message about this event, because of the date on which it's been held. On the whole, it's not being taken on by the "Promoters" as being about the tenth anniversary of 9/11 but it's been too convenient and easy (for which, read "lazy") for the media to present it as being so, leading to some skewed perspectives about who is here and what the event is for. Certainly, when I got to speak on BBC Radio Leicester, I wanted to say something different. This is not an event about how Christians and Muslims can get along. I reckon that's a bit of a cheap shot, actually. I haven't seen anything on the promotional material for today's event that would warrant that sort of conclusion. A look at the list of Promoters shows that very few indeed have got anything to do with that angle - even the Council of Faiths itself is not about dialogue and relations between just those two sections of the community. Going on the informal chatter to which I've been privy, the inaccurate emphasis on the Christian-Muslim aspect hasn't gone down well in general and led to a number of people who would have benefited from attending (as visitors or as Promoters) staying away from what appeared, to them, to be an event overtly favouring particular groups who actually turned out to be in a tiny minority here today.

I think that today's event was a success, despite the effects of Hurricane Katia and the tenth anniversary of 9/11, which couldn't help but cast a shadow over anything and everything that goes on today. If Our Leicester Day is to be held again, then hopefully neither foul weather nor the hand of history will set the tone as they have today.

Thanks for helping out today to Ajay, Alastair, Clare, Grace, Harry, Manjula and Rosemarie.

In the photo above: Councillor Manjula Sood (Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths) and Ajay Aggarwal (Leicester Council of Faiths Co-ordinator). Note how the the wind is playing havoc with our pop-up banner!

BBC WORLD SERVICE LIVE BROADCAST FROM GURU TEGH BAHADUR GURDWARA

An early start today at Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara, East Park Road, where BBC World Service is broadcasting live. The World Today is running a feature in which presenter Kumla Dumar is travelling up the M1, stopping off at cities and towns on the way and considering issues to do with identity - encompassing a variety of aspects such as culture, language, faith, values, loyalties, parochialism and nationality. Their first stop was Luton, next is Leeds and today they're in Leicester (with some recorded inserts glancing eastward to Peterborough).

Knowing that Guru Nanak called the time before dawn "the ambrosial hour" and that it has a special sweetness and significance in the devotional life of Sikhs, I eschew the easy option of going by taxi and resolve to walk from home to the Gurdwara. I reckon it should take about an hour to do so, tweeting merrily as I go, along with the dawn chorus. But the curse of Googde Maps strikes again and I arrive with only a few minutes to spare before we go live on air. We start at 0600 (although BBC World Service abides by Greenwich Mean Time, so the programme is going out at 0500 GMT). Already seated around the small table in the vestibule of the Gurdwara are Kumla, his producer, Mr M. S. Sangha (President of Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara - to the right of me in the photo below) and Cllr Manjula Sood (Deputy Lord Mayor of Leicester and Chair of the Council of Faiths).

The main part of the show is broadcast live from London and it cuts to us every few minutes. In our first segment, Kumla announces that he's on a quest to investigate the meaning of Englishness. Then he points the mike at me to ask my opinion. Well he's come to the right guy to answer that question, obviously!

Manjula and I feel obliged to challenge the assumption that as the fortunes of one of the city's communities (whether defined by faith, culture, language, heritage, geographical origin or something as basic as the colour of their skin) rise, it means the fortunes of another inevitably sink. That's certainly not the way it happens in Leicester. We've never been hostage to the crazy world of political correctness, where Christmas is replaced by "Winterval" (I could go on, but surely you, faithful reader, will know your own examples). It is possible and practical for all to rise together. As Leicester's celebrations of Diwali, Eid or Vaisakhi have grown year by year, so there is also greater prominence given to Christmas and Easter (see later blog entries today for more on public celebration of Easter). Leicester just had its first ever St Patrick's Day parade and in a couple of weeks there's a St George's festival lasting several days (nothing much for St Andrew yet though). I mention a few of these when I'm asked to comment on an insert of three young white women recorded at a bingo session, saying that there's nothing for the white community in Leicester, that they're forgotten and neglected in favour of more recent arrivals and incomers.

By the end of the first hour of the show, we've attracted a small crowd round our table. As worshippers begin to arrive at the gurdwara in number and the main door behind us is left open, it becomes rather chilly. We're offered cups of sweet milky tea to keep warm. I got up very early to come here today, leaving home to walk halfway across the city before dawn. Guru Nanak's writings describe the time before sunrise as "the ambrosial hour" and Sikhs are urged to rise early, pray and listen to the hymns of the Guru Granth Sahib at this special time each day. I wanted to get in the spirit and be a wee bit more attuned to this place rather than rushing here by taxi. It was lovely to hear the dawn chorus on the way here, with very little traffic to drown it out. I haven't eaten anything yet, so pick up a piece of pakora from one of the plates left for us on the table. We're not on air at this moment, the show has cut back to London for the news on the hour. Something spicy goes down the wrong way and all of sudden I have hiccups! I haven't had hiccups since I was 12 and here they are, when I'm about to go live on the World Service - broadcasting to the entire planet! Thankfully, a few gulps of tea and panic's over as the hiccups subside.

At seven, we're joined by Barry Naylor, Urban Canon at Leicester Cathedral, who speaks about some of the innovative work being done there. A little later, Baz Kanabar (from the Cooke e-learning Foundation) arrives to talk about teaching English language and Citizenship to adult learners in the city. The show also features an interview with one Sikh who gives all his time in service to the gurdwara as a Seva Dar. He describes a typical day in the life of the gurdwara and gives an introduction to its varied services.

Kumla puts me on air four times in all, Manjula a few times more. She is asked to speak about her own story arc in Leicester, of how she rose to become first Asian female Lord Mayor of any English city (even if she's not given sufficient time to do it justice for those of us who have heard her tell it before). I'm there till eight, when I make way for the first in a new wave of guests for the last half hour on air.

Involvement with the media is a mixed blessing. On the upside, they give you and your cause a prominence that it would be impossible to achieve on your own. It's a good thing to have one's profile raised - if that's a good thing for one's profile. On the downside, the media may approach you with assumptions and preconceptions (even prejudices) about who you are, what you're doing and how the rest of the world looks upon you. On the whole, it's a good thing Manjula and I were able to get this opportunity to talk about the diverse nature of Leicester, even if we weren't able to say much about the Council of Faiths itself. We're glad that Barry Naylor was with us; while not a member of the Council of Faiths himself, Barry is certainly one of our most supportive fellow travellers. Since this occasion was all about diversity, I'll sign off this entry by saying that it's always instructive (in the words of Robert Burns) "to see ourselves as others see us!" Mind you, if folk see me like I am in the photo below, I don't know what they'd make of me. Am I having a stroke there or something?

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE IN THE VOLUNTARY AND COMMUNITY SECTOR

At Action Deafness, Welford Road, this morning for a breakfast networking event with the theme, "Social Enterprise in the Voluntary and Community Sector in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland". Round the table are nine organisations:

• Action Deafness
• Action Homeless
• Cooke e-Learning Foundation
• Domestic Violence Integrated Response Unit
• The Emerald Centre
• Leicestershire Aids Support Service (LASS)
• Lighthouse Learning
• Network for Change
• Tomorrow Together

I'm here today speaking not only for the Council of Faiths but also for the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP).

Jenny Hand, from LASS, chairs the meeting. It is facilitated by Jacqui Tilyard, who has worked with Business Link (amongst others) and is a freelance business trainer and consultant. She's particularly interested in the "social entrepreneur". I first met Jacqui at the launch of the Jewish Voices book, exhibition and website. Her husband, Glen, took the photos for that book and has long worked for Writing School Leicester, for which I've taught from time to time.

This meeting, and the informal network of contacts invited to it, are supported by the Modernisation Fund, which promotes collaboration and merger. The former is appealing to the VCS, the latter not necessarilly so. A few organisations which have obtained some funding from this source are committed to the network that has grown out of their involvement: how is it working? is it a network of organisations or of individuals? can it be expanded? should it be expanded? Today we discuss some of these, and related, issues: sharing resources, experience and expertise; consolidating back office functions; making joint funding bids; identifying best practice; overcoming isolation; retaining and transmitting values; tapping into our network of networks (a brief explanation of the relevance of REDP fits in here). We consider how to use the more positive aspects of our common anxiety about the future - how it is making many in the VCS world come out of their shells and reach out to others. Plans are made for moving forward, which should be taken up soon.