Campaign for Community Day

The Trades Union Congress, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Community Service Volunteers, Volunteering England and the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action have launched a campaign for a new bank holiday in late October to be called Community Day.

The purpose of the day is:

to celebrate the contribution that voluntary and community activity makes to the country and community cohesion;
to provide an opportunity for existing groups to publicise their activities, raise funds and/or recruit new volunteers and members; and
to give an opportunity to organise one-off events designed to improve local communities.

The day has been chosen because:

    * Britain only has eight public holidays a year compared to the European average of eleven.
    * This day falls in the middle of the longest current gap between bank holidays, many of which are bunched together in spring.
    * Unlike calls for a bank holiday tied to a particular date, Community Day would always be on a Monday thus giving people a long weekend and minimising disruption for businesses, many of which would not want to close midweek.
    * While it is not necessary to sign up to the government's agenda, the call does chime with recent calls for a day to celebrate Britishness and national identity, but in a way that is inclusive and grass-roots led.

The campaign was launched in May by a joint press release between the organisations and a longer joint statement setting out the policy and rationale in more detail, http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/communityday.pdf.

This was followed up by an Early Day Motion (1859) that has attracted cross-party support in the House of Commons. See A further press release in August highlighted what a selection of groups would do on Community Day

The next stage of the campaign starts on October 29 2007, as this would be the day that Community Day would fall this year.

This will take the campaign to the grassroots, and we are asking supporters, both groups and individuals to do four things:

   1. pledge their support on the Community Day website by answering the question 'what would you do on community day?'
   2. tell their local media that they have asked their MP to back the campaign and explain how they would use the day to boost local community activity
   3. write to their MP asking them to support the campaign by signing the EDM, writing to the Prime Minister and pledging their own personal support on the Community Day website
   4. getting other groups and individuals to join the campaign.