About the campaign
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
http://www.tuc.org.uk/work_life/tuc-13325-f0.cfm
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
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=33703&SESSION=885.
A further press release in August highlighted what a selection of
groups would do on Community Day
http://www.tuc.org.uk/newsroom/tuc-13630-f0.cfm
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:
- pledge their support on the Community Day website
www.communityday.org.uk,
by answering the question 'what would you do on community
day?'
- 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
- 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
- getting other groups and individuals to join the
campaign