Forest Hill Society

The Ragged School Blog congratulates The Forest Hill Society now available on Blogspot. I attended their first AGM recently because despite this blog starting off about Deptford, I do actually live in Forest Hill (gasp!). A short clip from the AGM is on YouTube. Given this unique opportunity to follow the creation and development of a new civic society I will widen the coverage of The Ragged School Blog to include all Lewisham borough, hopefully a chance to contrast and compare local amenities and culture within the same borough. I will also be introducing the topic 'Community Futurology' to the blog. I coined the term as I intend to create a new branch of Futurology which looks at how local communities interact using technology. Continuous research (using mini focus groups of around 3 people at a time) will discover how using such things as video blogging and Google Earth can enable better civic forums. I will be developing a new research model based around Open Source and the Creative Commons to publish and peer review my research. Anyone participating in the 'focus groups' will agree to the findings being published (using privacy adjusted data). The data will then be used to create and continuously update briefing packs and instructional material for new groups wishing to start using technology as a civic forum.