Personal commitment

In contrast, there were also voices across all case studies that saw their practices defined through significant personal commitment, including investing their own financial resources and their personal time, as well as taking personal initiative and responsibility.

5.1.2.1 Money and time

Across all the case studies (except busking) there where organisers prepared to invest their own financial resources into their project – in some cases, hundreds of pounds. Interviewees spent their personal money on printing materials, on hiring cars to transport materials or on travel, on buying shelves, materials for the refurbishment of a phone box, on acquiring plants or containers or gardening equipment, buying food, drink or rain clothing for workers involved in the project, as well as paying others to do manual labour, such as removing posters from walls or doing tiling. In most of these cases, interviewees were prepared to bear the costs because they did not have anyone else to pay for it.

In other cases, they did so, because they were reluctant to engage in a laborious fundraising or grant application process, as this quote illustrates:

“I probably spent about £500 on it, and [a woman from a local community association] said ‘Do you want us to do a fundraiser?’ I said ‘No, don't’. I couldn’t be bothered. I thought, ‘I’ll just do it.’ […] I like the fact that it’s just totally non-procedural.” (BS10, interview, 2015)

Even where organisers raised external funds, they were willing to take a financial risk. As one interviewee from a spot fix project explained to me, at the

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beginning of the initiative, he asked himself the question, whether he could sustain it with his own resources, even if no donations were made. Since he was able to positively answer this question, he decided to embark on it.

In addition to investing financial resources, many devoted considerable amounts of their personal time to the initiative – several hours each day (or more) in some cases. Since many of the participants had another occupation or job at the same time, this time was often spent in their lunch breaks, working late at night or very early in the morning, and on weekends. Arguably, the initiatives where people spent most time on, either involved regular events (for example, daily distribution of free books) or larger scale (for example, running a large guerrilla garden and community space).

5.1.2.2 Taking responsibility

Another important principle for many interviewees was that they took responsibility. Interviewees emphasised that rather than complaining or getting annoyed that things were not getting done, they wanted to act and do something about the issue they were concerned about – whether it was about encouraging neighbours to get to know each other better by initiating a guerrilla gardening project, setting up a safer cycling initiative, or cleaning up a railway station. According to one organiser of a book sharing initiative, the most important factor is a willingness to try:

“Something that’s worth emphasising […] is that it's very easy to look at what we do and think it's something very special about us. ‘Oh, these guys have something I don't have, and that's how they did what they do’. Really, there's nothing special about us. What's special about us is that we bother. And this is a really key fact, that I think people must really understand this, that…that the difference between making something positive happen and nothing happening is that you must try. If this could really be understood by more people, then more would try. And if more people try, then more people will succeed, because that is all it takes to succeed, is that you have to try.” (BS8, interview, 2015)

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Taking responsibility was also seen as crucial in keeping an initiative going. As one interviewee from a guerrilla gardening project put it, each project needs at least one “obsessive” who takes responsibility for maintaining it (such as consistently watering plants in the summer, pulling out plants when they have died or sorting a book swap at a regular basis).

As a result, several interviewees developed a sense of ownership for their initiative in particular, and their community at large. As one interviewee from a spot fix initiative explained, when he cleans the streets or station, he understands it as cleaning his own home. As argued in section 4.2.1, this sense of ownership often goes hand in hand with an emotional attachment, and – on the flipside – a feeling of offence or hurt, when “bad things” happen, such as plants being stolen, tree pits plants being sprayed off by the Council, or people spitting or urinating on a freshly painted or cleaned wall. Interestingly, a small number of interviewees from a guerrilla gardening project opposed this view, arguing for the need to keep some slight distance to the initiative and not get

“your heart invested in it too much”. This is because they saw their practice as a

“tougher kind of gardening”, where one could not expect people to show the same respect or attention to plants being put on private property.

5.1.2.3 Attitudes and behaviours

For many interviewees, the sense of ownership and attachment was a direct consequence of the personal attitudes and characteristics that were, in their eyes, required to make such an initiative happen. Interviewees from across all case studies emphasised the need to have a real passion for, and interest in, whatever they are doing. They emphasised the importance of feeling very strongly about their cause and having great clarity of purpose. This, they argued, is essential as otherwise any opposition or criticism will quickly wear them down, while competing priorities will soon lead to the failure of the project.

Instead, organisers felt that they require great determination to complete the task, even if there is no support from others. ‘Persistence’ and ‘dedication’ were other terms frequently used to describe this requirement. This is particularly

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important when dealing with public authorities, as one interviewee from the Equal Streets case study explained:

“We have to be patient; we have to have tenacity, and perseverance.

I think these are the three things that are very, very important.

Otherwise, we can’t last, not even a day. We’ll crumble, frustrated, angry, et cetera. That’s what the system wants sometimes. They’re testing you with time. How soon will you be crumbling, and collapsing?” (ES5, interview, 2015)

Other interviewees emphasised the importance of being assertive and confident. For instance, one of the guerrilla gardeners argued that people who take the initiative tend to be “bolshy, annoying people” because they are the

“people who have the oomph”. A couple of book swap organisers who had set up their book swap when assuming to have tacit approval, but not having received official permission by the land owners, argued that you needed to be fairly “forceful” and “confident” to go ahead in these circumstances. Confidence was also highlighted by several buskers as a key component of becoming a successful street performer. This is because of the particular relationship that buskers have with their audiences: compared to other concert situations, buskers are much more exposed as a performer. A busking audience is made up of people who have not come intentionally to listen to their music. Thus, the busker needs to try and hook them, ideally making them stay and listen for a while. However, if things do not go well, people may feel disturbed by the music or as if the busker intruded in their space. The implication of this is, as one busker explained, that the audience’s reaction is completely unpredictable and, therefore, buskers need to be “thick-skinned” and prepared to deal with, and recover from, bad criticism straight away.