Like many others before us, we were surprised at how little we and others around us knew about the voluntary work that was going on behind the scenes in our local villages. We were also surprised how little many of those volunteers knew about what other volunteers were doing just down the road. As reported on Idea#01, we had a reason for thinking about this sort of thing and that led to the simple thoughts that:
- it would be good if there was an easily-accessible source of information about what was going on that would be useful to The Public in general but to community-support groups in particular; and that
- community-support groups should support each other better than they do.

Are there not others already doing this sort of thing? Not in the way we think is needed. Over the years National & Local Governments have indeed developed various organisations to support community-development (HVOSS comes to mind) but lack of resources has too-often led to such 'top down' ventures losing touch with many local communities. Nevertheless, the recent revitalisation of WISH is most encouraging and we anticipate working closely with them over the next year or so. Ours is a 'bottom up' grass-roots initiative, aiming to help our local communities look after themselves and reach out to others in the community and, when appropriate, reach up to those public bodies. We are trying to help our local community-support groups develop a structure of contacts and a means of communication & co-operation between them that will last for many years.

The main thing we are providing is this site. We offer it to 'the Community' as a focal point for making people aware of what community-support activities are going-on in and around the Golden Valley (see Directory). We will supplement & support the site with various advertising and/or marketing campaigns and the occcasional Event (see Events). We have had various Ideas about what we could/should do, we have developed a flexible 'plan' of how to work on some of those ideas (see News Item #03), and we are open to suggestions.
       Question 1: Who are we targeting this at?   Answer: Everyone who lives in and around the Golden Valley which, for events in our 'Friendship Area' (see the Where? tab) covers most of South-West Herefordshire and part of Monmouthshire, with attention being paid to every group in the area that may reasonably be identified as 'community supporting'.
       Question 2: Who do we think will benefit most from this initiative?   Answer: Those people who give up their time to support the many community-support activities that are going on in the area. They should benefit because more people will know about them & what they are trying to achieve AND knowing what other community-support groups are doing should make it easier for them to do whatever it is they are trying to do. If support-providers benefit then those who need their support should also benefit.
       Question 3: What are you working on at the moment?   See the 'What Next?' tab.

Please note that we are keen to:
- avoid 'reinventing wheels';
[Where we find that others are doing what we think needs to be done, we will welcome them and either try to support them or simply leave the relevant issue to them and see how else we could be of use.]
- avoid expanding our brief beyond what we can sustain.
[We are not seeking to become a significant provider of anything other than simple ways of supporting Communication across the Community. We are merely 'bridgers', aiming to make things easier for those who seek information/help from others whether that is for their own benefit or for the benefit of others. You may see us returning to that 'bridge' concept from time to time.]

Who are we? We are just some local people who are operating under what we call 'The Golden Valley Groups Initiative'.
* This Groups Initiative was founded by and is being led by Peter Barns-Graham who is a Trustee of Dore Community Transport and a Visits Secretary for Golden Valley Probus Club. He lives in the parish of Abbeydore, nearer to Bacton than to Abbey Dore, and may be contacted at Peter@GoldenValleyGroups.UK.
* This Initiative will be kept small, only ever involving a few people at a time, for we wish to ensure that it is sustainable on a minimal budget. However, we aim to punch above our weight by judicious targeting of objectives & choice of issues to be involved in and due co-operation with appropriate organisations (including several linked to our Local Authorities). Much of our work will be done by simple facilitation of communication between relevant parties. We do not need many people to do that - although we would be happy to hear from anyone who is interested in working with us.

Who are we aiming this site at? The Public in general and community-support groups in particular.
* What do we mean by "community-support groups"? We do not define that strictly. As reported on our Home Page, "social, charitable, health-supporting, hobby-supporting, educational, religious, sporting" are certainly included and that (particularly the "social" and "hobby-supporting" bits) covers many things! Why should we limit it as long as it is legal and generally supportive of 'the community'? Even 'for profit' organisations may be included although we will normally not include activities that are predominantly business- or trade-related or of personal rather than communal or at least social focus. Our main criterion is that, to merit our support, a group should help others to enjoy their lives more or at least survive Life a bit more easily.

Although this is still evolving, our present plan is that we shall establish our area-of-coverage at 2 levels:
* Our ‘Friendship Area’. This is our wider ‘Communications Area’. It covers most of South-West Herefordshire plus a spur into Monmouthshire to include Grosmont. We aim to ensure that everyone in this area is aware of (and hopefully supports) the many Community Groups in it. This area applies to our Societies Fairs and our Online Directory. It will probably also apply to certain of our Discussion Groups.
* Our ‘Operations Area’. This is where we hope to help some Community Groups develop closer ties with each other so that they benefit from Co-operating (and possibly even Collaborating & Co-ordinating) with each other. Although this will start with a small ‘Core Area’, just parts of the Golden Valley, once we have gained experience and made progress with that initial area, it will be enlarged (in stages) into a much wider area. We have yet to identify exactly what that will be but the HR2 postcode, probably with southern HR3, gives a reasonable first approximation. [HR2 covers most of the area covered by Dore Community Transport which is of particular importance to us (see here).]

The Dore Valley follows the River Dore from its rise in the foothills of the Black Mountains, not far from Hay-on-Wye, close to the border between England & Wales. The river flows south-southeastwards for about 12 miles (19 km) going through or close to the villages of Dorstone, Peterchurch, Vowchurch, Abbey Dore, Ewyas Harold and Pontrilas before reaching the Monnow near Llangua. The Monnow itself flows into the River Wye at Monmouth. The name Dore probably derives from the Welsh word dwr which means "water". The story is that dwr was misheard or misinterpreted by the Norman French who thought it was "d'or", meaning "golden" (perhaps they thought it was so-named because of colourful crops or flowers), so the river valley became known as "Golden Valley".

Now! The basic concept for this Initiative germinated in November 2017 (see Idea#01) but it was not until 12th February 2018 that there was a "Let's get on with it" moment. Developing this web site was our First Step on this journey and holding the SOCIETIES FAIR, on Sunday 18th November 2018, was our Second.

For how long might GVGI continue? We do not know. We will have to see how it evolves over the next few years. We hope to have another Societies Fair in 2020 and possibly another in 2022. After that, it will depend on how much support GVGI (or whatever it has evolved into by then) obtains from people we have probably not met yet.

We are not trying to change the world. We are simply trying to make it easier for others to help themselves through simple Communication and Connection. It is up to them whether or not they take advantage of that. We are keeping what we do very simple partly so that it has a good chance of being accepted by others as being sensible (as well as useful) and partly so that it is sustainable.

Following the modest but real success of our SOCIETIES FAIR 2018, we thought about the future and, taking into account the limits of our resources (human, financial, technical, etc.) and our wish to keep expectations realistic, we decided on a modest approach that keeps clearly in mind that our role is not one of dramatic exploits but one of facilitating communication between willing parties. We aim to help with the building of bridges between prospective partners but we will probably produce better results by pointing people to where the bridging materials can be found than we could by trying to do the building work ourselves. We will use the EVENTS and NEWS pages to keep people advised of what we are up to. We will support that by producing at least one hard copy BROCHURE every year.

If you would like to work with us in any way, it may well be worth your while to have a good look around this site, not forgetting the IDEAS section which includes some ideas we have had that are presently smouldering gently rather than catching fire. After that, feel free to contact Peter@GoldenValleyGroups.UK and he will respond as soon as possible. He is open to suggestions (and to sponsorship, help with marketing & advertising, etc.) and hopes to build GVGI into something that will outlast his own involvement.