Commercial Sponsorship & Volunteering

(A joint posting by Zena Brabazon and Alan Stanton)

The issue of commercial sponsorship has provoked interesting debate on HoL.

We were visiting friends on holiday in Southwold and walked past a sign for Adnams Coastal Clean the previous weekend. It's part of a national initiative by the Marine Conservation Society. Adnams - the local brewery - has "adopted" a kilometre of beach and organises a volunteer clean-up four times a year.

You can listen to a Coastal Clean Podcast recorded on 18 September on the beach ─ and in the Harbour Inn afterwards where the company treated volunteers to fish-&-chips and a pint of Adnams.

Maybe we tend to think more about voluntary and grant-aided organisations running this type of initiative. (And no, we haven't forgotten Harringay Passage snow clearance.) So we wondered what members of HoL would make of the Adnams example.

Locally the Green Lanes Traders have been doing something similar ─ especially their involvement in the Festival. But also in helping to develop the Local Strategy.

Are there settings in Harringay or Haringey where similar schemes can involve more private businesses with roots in the local area, and which often employ local people? It could be win/win - for the company, local people and the environment.