Noticeboard on Northcross Road

[NewWave]

@Jellybeanz In response you know nothing about me

I will not list all the charities I support (with regular donations)

I simply feel there are ample inexpensive opportunities for small buisnesses to advertise their services.

 

[Jellybeanz]

On 24/01/2025 at 09:52, Sue said:

"The community" is all of us.

Are you volunteering to take this task on?

I would happily take the task on but sadly the council will keep the responsibility, which I'm fairly sure means within months of them actually putting any useful information up on the boards it will not be kept up to date and will eventually get vandalised and fall out of use.

Wonder when it will actually have anything at all posted as it was mended last year after around 2 years of me (and James Barber supporting) to ask Charlie Smith and other councillors to have it repaired.

13 hours ago, NewWave said:

@Jellybeanz In response you know nothing about me

I will not list all the charities I support (with regular donations)

I simply feel there are ample inexpensive opportunities for small buisnesses to advertise their services.

 

I'm not disputing that BUT this would also be a very useful place for small businesses to advertise and the last time it was actually in use it had a mix of councillors' contact details (I'm guessing would be in line with you supporting community info being posted there) but also info about give and take sales and also a few small business ads, a whole range really... and now I believe the plan is only to have community group and not for profit group info.

That's my argument really, that we are a mixed area and anything we can do to support local small businesses would also be a good idea.

Anyway I sadly don't have high hopes for this (Northcross Rd) board to be maintained properly or regularly by the local councillors - Monica at Health Matters did her best when it was last in use but even then it had very old info on it aside from local councillors details.

Hope I'm proven wrong.

[Pugwash]

Local councillors,  over the many years that the boards have been installed, have rarely updated them. Details of councillors surgeries were posted by party supporters.

 

 

[Sue]

On 25/01/2025 at 22:59, NewWave said:

@Jellybeanz In response you know nothing about me

I will not list all the charities I support (with regular donations)

I simply feel there are ample inexpensive opportunities for small buisnesses to advertise their services.

 

Jellybeanz  has edited their long post which included their negative assumptions about you.

Luckily for them, nobody had actually quoted some of Jellybeanz' posts on here in their own posts, and they have edited more than one of them, so they have disappeared for ever.

[CPR Dave]

Allowing small local businesses to use them would be the best way to ensure they are maintained and kept current. 

[Sue]

On 27/01/2025 at 10:31, CPR Dave said:

Allowing small local businesses to use them would be the best way to ensure they are maintained and kept current. 

They were never intended for commercial use.

If they were to be used by small businesses, who would decide which of the many such businesses round here could use them? And what would be the criteria?

And would those businesses then have precedence over the  non profit organisations who wanted to use them?

What has East Dulwich become, if that is the case?

ETA: There has been a great deal of editing on this thread, and removal of whole posts, or large parts of them.

Plus  in at least one case, the editing  seems to have  resulted in a  question being asked of one person being answered by another person as if the question had been directed at them.

This is all making things very confusing. If you can't stand by what you have posted, maybe think twice before posting it in the first place?

I could understand this happening occasionally, but there have been several incidents recently, and it seems a bit pointless trying to have a discussion on what is supposed to be a forum if people just go back and remove the posts which other people are responding to, with no explanation?

Edited January 28 by Sue

[CPR Dave]

 

Quote

They were never intended for commercial use.

Agreed, but they also weren't intended to be abandoned and left to rot which is what has happened. Time to try something else.

[Sue]

1 hour ago, CPR Dave said:

 

Agreed, but they also weren't intended to be abandoned and left to rot which is what has happened. Time to try something else.

Certainly it is necessary to put in place a very much better system of "ownership" and upkeep, if they are to be used for information about local non profit organisations.

What do you mean by "try something else"? If for local businesses, that has already been discussed above. 

Quite apart from anything else, it would seem very odd to have commercial enterprises' adverts locked up behind glass in wooden frames!

Edited January 28 by Sue

[EDmummy101]

On 24/01/2025 at 16:56, Nigello said:

The boards are for services provided by the council and/or non-profit groups or state agencies. Private micro businesses are to be congratulated and supported but they are able to advertise their services elsewhere, now more than ever, as part of their business plan. (This also applies to those who insist on plastering lampposts and bus shelters with their advertising, complete with protruding plastic ties at eye height!) 

Yawn.. as I and others suspected the noticeboard is already looking shabby, has the details of local councillors who in my experience are of very limited help with anything at all (e.g. noticeboard took several years of writing to get back in working order and now isn't being kept up to date with any useful local info about food banks or any services as promised). So nothing at all in left hand side. Pointless and a real shame as could benefit so many small businesses.. and no I don't own a small business I just believe in supporting shopping locally where possible and know they often have little to no marketing budget.

[Sue]

Who then would decide on the priority for notices?

There are many small local businesses, and a limited amount of space.

Surely it would be better to put pressure on  the council to use the noticeboard for its original intended purpose?

[EDmummy101]

Feel free and good luck. The noticeboard hasn't been properly used since it was maintained by the lovely woman in Health Matters.

[Sue]

2 hours ago, EDmummy101 said:

Feel free and good luck. The noticeboard hasn't been properly used since it was maintained by the lovely woman in Health Matters.

It wasn't me who started the thread!

Monica no longer lives locally.

I've given my opinion, and so have others, which is that it should remain  a community notice board.

If you think it's better used for commercial purposes, good luck to you with organising that and deciding who gets priority. 

If local businesses have "little to no marketing budget", as you say in  another post above, they surely should have taken that into account before deciding to start up a business which needs marketing other than just having a shop front and/or posting on free  places like this forum?

Edited June 6 by Sue

[Pugwash]

Not just NX Rd  there are other Community notice boards i.e Sainsbury's Local, Charter School/Tessa Jowell Centre. I check the Sainsbury's one when I think about it and remove any old/outdated notices. This is not locked - so anyone can post.

[Sue]

15 hours ago, Pugwash said:

Not just NX Rd  there are other Community notice boards i.e Sainsbury's Local, Charter School/Tessa Jowell Centre. I check the Sainsbury's one when I think about it and remove any old/outdated notices. This is not locked - so anyone can post.

There was also a council one on Goose Green, near the gate by the church. I have no idea if it's still there.

But the community notice boards in shops have nothing to do with the council, to the best of my knowledge. The shops provide them on their own initiative.

I think anybody can post things there.

There is one in the Picture House, as well.

Edited June 7 by Sue

[Sue]

On 26/01/2025 at 12:39, Jellybeanz said:

I would happily take the task on but sadly the council will keep the responsibility, which I'm fairly sure means within months of them actually putting any useful information up on the boards it will not be kept up to date and will eventually get vandalised and fall out of use.

Have you changed your mind about taking the task on which Monica used to do, then?

[LordshipPain]

It's interesting how local businesses and the people that own / work in them are not considered part of the "community". The dictionary says "a group of people living in the same place" as the principal definition. Why are we forced to accept a secondary definition where those who don't live in social housing, the vast majority of people in East Dulwich, are told to shut up?

[CPR Dave]

How about the "local" councillors look after it?

They're here all the time anyway, right，so it wouldn't be much of an additional burden for them to update olit once a month.

[Sue]

15 hours ago, CPR Dave said:

How about the "local" councillors look after it?

They're here all the time anyway, right，so it wouldn't be much of an additional burden for them to update olit once a month.

It's probably less of a priority for them than it appears to be for the OP!

21 hours ago, LordshipPain said:

It's interesting how local businesses and the people that own / work in them are not considered part of the "community". The dictionary says "a group of people living in the same place" as the principal definition. Why are we forced to accept a secondary definition where those who don't live in social housing, the vast majority of people in East Dulwich, are told to shut up?

Nobody is saying that local businesses are not part of the community.

But in the context of this thread, there is a clear distinction between local businesses set up to make a profit for individuals and local non profit organisations set up to help groups and individuals in the community.

What has living in social housing got to do with anything?

And who is forcing anybody to "accept a secondary definition" or telling anybody to "shut up"?

[Pugwash]

When I did a Diploma in Community Studies at Birkbeck College many many moons ago, community was defined a group with common/similar beliefs , people living within a defined geographical area,.

[CPR Dave]

I noticed another of these boards outside the leisure centre on the East Dulwich road side.

it has one advert for the “local” councillors in it (lol) and nothing else.

what a frivolous waste of opportunity,

[Sue]

40 minutes ago, CPR Dave said:

I noticed another of these boards outside the leisure centre on the East Dulwich road side.

it has one advert for the “local” councillors in it (lol) and nothing else.

what a frivolous waste of opportunity,

Surely it is not an "advert" for councillors?

Why do you put "local" in inverted commas? Why the (lol)? What is so amusing?

The board  is telling people who their councillors are. What on earth is "frivolous" about that?

If you are so  concerned about the lack of information on the boards, why don't you do something about it (eg contact your local councillor with suggestions) instead of moaning on here?

Edited Friday at 08:59 by Sue

[EDmummy101]

On 22/01/2025 at 19:26, CPR Dave said:

Probably time to just take them away and spend the money on something more worthy like a bike lane.

You could put a bike locker where the notice boards were too.

Not with all the bins currently stored there.

[Nigello]

The board in the Village (just near the pub) is in pristine condition, full of council-related information (though someone had stuck a flyer on the glass, now removed). Maybe the councillors there actually CBA to make use of a facility that took time, effort and taxpayers’ money to instal?  

[Sue]

1 hour ago, Nigello said:

The board in the Village (just near the pub) is in pristine condition, full of council-related information (though someone had stuck a flyer on the glass, now removed). Maybe the councillors there actually CBA to make use of a facility that took time, effort and taxpayers’ money to instal?  

But is it the Village councillors who are maintaining the board, or someone else?

When the boards in East Dulwich were installed, it wasn't the councillors who kept the information up to date, it was Monica from Health Matters, who was greatly involved in various  community matters (eg the building of the community garden at what was then Dulwich Hospital).

I can't remember if it was her who initiated the installation of the boards in the first place.

She no longer lives in East Dulwich, and nobody else appears to be willing to liaise with the councillors and community related organisations  to take this on for the various East Dulwich boards. 

It would hardly take much effort. Basic information doesn't frequently change (and no, I'm not volunteering. I am overstretched as it is).

It's all very well to  get a physical  community notice board spruced up, but not much use if it then isn't being used for its intended purpose.

And I can't see that it is part of a councillor's job to update notice boards which they didn't initiate in the first place. I'm sure they have more than enough to do. 

The notice boards serve (or did do) a useful service, but all the information which could be put on them is surely available elsewhere.

(Unless it is bringing to people's attention things which are of use/interest to them and they weren't aware they needed/would like, or didn't know how else to find the information).

ETA: Oh. I've just read the beginning of this thread.

I'd forgotten how it started.

It's gone well off topic, hasn't it. Probably just as well, reading the OP.

Edited 8 hours ago by Sue

[Pugwash]

One gentleman who kept the boards up to date with community notices i.e. local residents' association events, East Dulwich Community Centre, sadly died a few years ago. He never had the keys to the NX Rd board as this was outside his ward (now known as Dulwich Hill). The council changed the locks on the boards and we do not know who was given the keys. The gentleman's widow carries on with posting community notices but only on the odd couple of boards whose locks have been broken and she can lift the cover. If I remember correctly, it was the Lib. Dem councillors in ED that initiated the boards.