The Community Brain is a community interest company that works with communities to develop their cohesion using the widest range of the arts, education and local history.
We aim to create more engaged, inclusive, resilient communities that enjoy stronger social networks and more fruitful commercial relationships. It is all about giving place and people renewed importance and pride.
Our established and growing network of on-the-ground and online communities, partners and volunteers have already devised and delivered many one-off projects and a busy calendar of now annual events, raised tens of thousands of pounds for charity and inspired and encouraged numerous homeworkers and small businesses to launch and grow. The Surbiton Food Festival alone, currently planning its third annual celebration, has already yielded nine new startups.
However, although our work has already helped to build a locally shared sense of place that is now regularly celebrated with great pride, metropolitan suburbs like Surbiton are facing distinctive challenges to ongoing growth and development as there is a high density of commuting residents. Unlike those who work or spend day time locally, the commuter population customarily spends limited time shopping or socialising in the high streets near home.
We now want to overcome these obstacles by harnessing, adjusting and expanding engagement to develop and deliver a new vision that shapes a more positive, inclusive future for Surbiton’s communities and local businesses.
“At one of our recent events we discovered eleven people who had made the decision to move to Surbiton because they wanted to be actively engaged in our community” - Robin Hutchinson, The Community Brain.
