Merci's Vision
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Merci's Vision
- A positive example of sustainable living.
- An example of joined up thinking e.g. not just environmental but social angles as well.
- A first point of contact for interested people.
- A base for all sorts of people to meet, new ideas to flourish and projects established.
- Home to a small number of projects linked to spaces in a building e.g. small school and educational garden.
- Self-financing i.e. generating enough money to cover costs like insurance and utilities.
- A long term, stable centre with access to cheap resources.
- Enabling groups to work in an environment that reflected their ethos and meant not giving money to a private landlord.
- Offices, meeting rooms, educational space, café, garden, renewable energy, library and resources, green shop, business units, grey water system.
- Not a social centre or community centre - more focussed on political change than these kinds of centres usually are.
- Focussed on social change - and making things easier for people working on social change.
- A place that would lead to the development of Manchester as a sustainable city.
- An inspiration to others.
- An alternative to capitalism.
- Something that would never be finished - always changing and improving.
Achieving the Vision
We set out to establish MERCi and Bridge-5 Mill with the following vision:
- We didn't want to latch onto existing initiatives and change them - we wanted to start from scratch with others who shared our unique perspective.
- Cheaply and by getting people to give us things rather than having to buy them!
- The priority was establishing a Centre - not wages or getting involved in running projects.
- By maintaining a balance between core elements of sustainable living (education, economy, community, society).
- Believing in the idea that how we get there is as important as where we are going -but process should not get in the way of getting things done.
- We had a clear idea of what a Centre for Sustainable Living might look like - within that framework we consulted groups about their priorities and needs.
- By getting potential users involved early on - as a Management Committee and as an Advisory Group (now merged into Management Committee).
- By extending and sharing ownership - members, events like Manchester meets Manchester, AGM, and consensus built into constitution. Balanced by concerns about being taken over and ensuring that a radical interpretation of sustainable living remained central to MERCi.
- Vision was to be steered by its members.
- By straddling the need for funding with the need to remain independent - so e.g. turned down land offered by council.
- By owning a building rather than renting a space which could be taken away at any time.
Although much has happened since MERCi was first dreamed about these principles remain at the heart of the work we do and continue to guide the strategic decisions taken in order to promote sustainable living.
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