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Christchurch Neighbours Forums

Join the Neighbours Forum nearest your area for locally based discussions and information exchange.

These Neighbours Forums connect you online to a real-world local community. We can talk to people who live near us about what's important to us. We can talk about what is and is not working. About what we need. About what we can do for each other.

The Twenty-Five Christchurch forums were established two years ago in response to the earthquakes. They have become forums where people expect managers to post information. That is unfortunate, and needs to change. This is a grass roots forum. The members run it.

The forum is yours to use. Here is how.

What do you need? Do you require help or advice, that someone on the forum may be able to give you? Ask.

Are you in a club or church or interest group, that's doing something special next week? Should your local community be informed about that? Write to the forum.

Are you having a garage sale? Tell the forum about it.

Garden giveaways. Do you have too many plants? Do you have green waste, or compost to spare? Do you need some? Do you need to borrow a tool, like a second ladder, or do you need advice?

What's happening in your street? Is that news the rest of the district should be interested in?

We hope that 3-4 times a year, YOU will want to post something to the forum.

Of course if there is a local issue. Something in the Press, or one of the local papers you want to discuss, the Neighbours Forum might be a suitable place.

How Do I Post to a forum? First you have to JOIN, one or more of the 25 forums. Then all you do is write an email. The email address you write to is cc-xxxxxxxxxx@forums.e-democracy.org as in "cc-woolston@forums.e-democracy.org" for the Woolston Forum and "cc-papanui@forums.e-democracy.org" for the Papanui Forum.

Active neighbours forums will allow us to make our own community stronger.

Remember:

These OPEN forums are open, to everyone to join, and open for you to have a say. There are no experts here. You have the knowledge you have, and that's all any of us know. When we share our knowledge sometimes we can see more clearly what our options are.

Th earthquakes have weakened the social structure of our community. Rebuilding that is a task we can do, where each of us has a part to play. We need to help each other to do it.

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador
One of the Six Forum Moderators

Select Nearest Forum

These public online forums use real names to build neighbourly trust and to promote the spread of useful information.

Visit the volunteer-led forum most relevant to you, then click "Join the Forum" to register: E-Democracy Forums use real names.

Please encourage new members to join. Participation rate here is important to how quickly Christchurch recovers from the earthquake. We dream of 500+ people in each forum. We can't make that happen, but you can.

Christchurch Forum FAQ

Aranui (54+)
Avonhead 85+)
Banks Peninsula (16+)
Beckenham (33+)
Belfast (48+)
Burwood (66+)
Cashmere (42+)
Christchurch Central (68+)

E-Democracy Background Slides

Halswell (49+)
Hornby (55+)
Kaiapoi (39+)
Linwood (62+)
Lyttelton and Bays (69+)
Marshland (41+)
New Brighton (68+)
Papanui (133+)

Opawa and St. Martins (38+)
Redcliffs and Mt. Pleasant (51+)
Riccarton (54+)
Shirley and Richmond (63+)
St. Albans (76+)
Sumner (68+)
Sydenham (42+)
Wainoni and Avondale (26+)
Woolston (44+)

Canterbury Issues Forum (291+ members) - Since 2007, a place for policy discussions, hosted on E-Democracy.org run by local volunteers
More Christchurch local online communities - Local "placeblogs," e-lists, forums, Facebook pages and other two-way discussions in the community.

Join the forum that is closest to where you live. Some forums could be re-named, and based on demand we can open more forums and or if necessary consolidate others. The first task is to get the existing forums working.

We've also got a Facebook Page for this concept and each of the Neighbours Forums will probably develop a Facebook page and perhaps a blog or Wiki to support their work.

You can read our participant FAQ.

Supporting Websites, and Organisations

E-Democracy.org	Creating Public Discussion Forums around the world
Placerama	Join Now. News posted by neighbours or by you about local things.
Street Groups Limited	Creating densely connected small groups at the street level.
Rebuild Christchurch	The best information about the Christchurch Earthquake.
CanCERN	How to help organise your own local community.
OnlineGroups.Net	Providing excellent easy to use Electronic Forums to the world. (Christchurch based)
IOPEN	We design, implement and deploy open standards based solutions to suit your business.

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