How to Get Involved With Your Community

Before getting engaged or creating any communities on purpose, particularly communities of common interests, it is important to ask yourself a few questions.

Aside from the goals and values that you hope to achieve from these communities, you should consider the type of community engagement you are comfortable with, in terms of crowd size, how frequent is the meet-up and what are the activities involved. Also important is to acknowledge what values can you bring and share to the communities, as going empty-handed can be a bit daunting and may hamper your effort to fit in. From there, you can take several simple steps to join new communities:

Look for local events

Keep a lookout for events such as arts or music festivals near you via social media or newspapers

Volunteering

A lot of local communities have their own charity groups that you can join. If there aren’t, volunteer your time at local animal shelters or retirement homes, or create a charity group for your own community.

Buy from local businesses

Skip those large retail grocery stores like Tesco once in a while, and go to your local farmer markets. Not only are you helping local businesses, you’ll more likely get to know your own community.

Organize gatherings or events

Simple dinner parties with a few locals or people that you know is a good start, or you can be more creative by organizing local events such as a charity car wash. Time banking

This concept of community support system was invented in the 1970s, where an individual can perform a task that is needed by a neighbor, such as cutting grass, creating a ‘time credit’ that the person can then use to ask a favor for from other members of the community.