What we do
Who we are • What we do • How we do it • Join our CAN
Our CAN exists to stimulate, strengthen, and co-ordinate the community response in Stroud to the threats posed by the present climate, nature, and sustainability crises, and thereby also make more resilient and fairer our local communities.
Some of our efforts will be hands-on, where we run our own projects, but mostly we aim to help local community groups achieve their goals for themselves, according to our Vision and our Mission.
Vision – the Stroud we hope to see
Stroud Town CAN is for helping to bring about a better Stroud for us all. One that’s here for the long-term – for our grand-children’s grand-children. A Stroud that’s adaptable, sustainable, resilient and resolute, that whole-heartedly plays its fair part in meeting the challenges of the day – where our current climate and natural-world crises are being overcome.
A Stroud that does far more that’s good than bad for the people who live in it, for the people who rely on it, for its neighbours in the Stroud Valleys, and for the natural world around us all. That’s inclusive, fair, safe, and enjoyable; proud and protective of both its natural and human heritages. We see Stroud as a good town.
We see it as a self-sufficient town with its own unique local character, that responds to and serves all of the people who live here, especially those who need the most help. But also a connected town, a centre for our Valleys neighbours, and linked to the entire world, sharing freely the ideas and innovations we see being imagined and developed here.
We see Stroud as a place where a better future is made.
Mission – what we’re doing to make it happen
Stroud Town CAN is a Community Action Network: it brings together all the communities of the town of Stroud, to achieve things that they can’t manage apart.
Our Vision for Stroud means that right now we need to concentrate on the connected sustainability crises rooted in our changing climate and threatened natural world. That’s the emergency that needs dealing with first and fastest.
Our role
We need to understand the changes at work in our climate and natural world, how they affect us locally, and how locally we respond to make things better, both here and in the broader world outside our Valleys. Our part is to imagine and choose the best actions to try out, and to bring them to the communities in and around Stroud, explain and justify them, and then enable neighbourhoods, families, businesses, organisations, friendship groups and individuals alike to adopt them to the best possible effect.
What we will do, and how we’ll do it
So, we will, with the people of Stroud:
Create, share, and champion this Vision.
Map a route to it.
Find, encourage and start projects and actions that’ll move Stroud forwards along the route-map, following a clear action plan.
Help those projects and actions be as successful and swift in arriving as possible.
We will need to:
Get support for our Vision, and enable others to help bring it about.
Work with local people, community organisations, businesses and other institutions around Stroud.
Co-ordinate the efforts of the groups and organisations around Stroud, so they can help each other and get the most done.
Create a single big voice for these groups, to get a bigger and better impact than they could achieve apart.
Plug into District, County, regional, national and global efforts, and steer into those in the most helpful way.
If we do this, we will:
Help bring the communities of Stroud together.
Share information, experience and learning about local actions with everyone who needs or wants it.
Make it easier for groups and individuals to get together and start new projects.
Help local institutions and organisations protect our world.
Be a source of support, encouragement and know-how to our neighbouring towns and villages, specifically other nearby CANs.