Action Briefing Dec 2005 - Jan 2006
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Birmingham Sustainability Network

Birmingham Sustainability Network (BSN) lets individuals and organisations concerned with sustainability in Birmingham share ideas and information and representation.

Devolution has made life difficult for a lot of people and organisations outside the public sector to know which of the many partnerships and processes to focus their efforts on - particularly those who have to do this in their spare time. Meanwhile newcomers can have no idea how to get involved.

The point of the network is not to create yet another body to take up our time, but to provide a forum for sharing information on how we can best make a difference, what seems important, and how we can share representation with each other. For example, if Mr Green is representing sustainability interests on the Northfield District Partnership then Mrs Leavitt-Wilde can leave that to him and spend her time responding to the community plan consultation instead, and so on. Equally members can share requests, offers, news and notices of events.

There may be BSN meetings in the future, but the point of the network is to be able to function without them. It was agreed at the group's first meeting that, owing to lack of resources, the network would be quite web-based. If you’d like to take part but have no web access, contact me on 0121 632 6909 and I'll see if there's anything we can do.

How to join
There are two parts to joining BSN: both are accessed from the website www.bcen.net/bsn. Joining the online community gives you access to the community website where you can post notices of events and enter into discussions. Click the "community" button for this. You can also join as members of BSN by filling in the membership form (click "membership form"!) which gets your organisation’s details listed in the directory.

Development of the network is being provided over the next few months by Localise West Midlands and funded by Birmingham Community Empowerment Network. Bear with me if progress is slow - I'm still learning my way round the back end of the BCEN website!

Karen Leach