Firstly, a big thank you to all of you for following Crowborough Shield on Facebook, the website and through other channels. We are aware that many people have asked who we are? do we all live in Crowborough? in-fact, are we real people at all?
Well, we can assure you we are and we have around 35 key group members who have been instrumental in making this happen.
We only formed just over a week ago, and it has been full on since then. Just over a week ago, none of us in the Crowborough Shield group had even met each other.
Crowborough Shield – here’s our story;
30th October: A number of us met at the community meeting on the 30th October in the Pine Grove Community centre with similar intentions and feelings. We agreed to offer up our time for
volunteering services for the benefit of Crowborough and like-minded people.
3rd November: The initial group of volunteers and other Crowborough residents who had reached out, met up with the very simple alignment; we wanted to try to do something to challenge the possibility that the Crowborough Army Training Camp would be used by the Home Office to house 600 unvetted, male Asylum Seekers. The key outcomes from that meeting were;
1) A core committee was formed,
2) A wider working group was committed to, with roles and responsibilities assigned.
3) Agreed on immediate actions, including agreeing to support a separate peaceful protest
4th November: By virtual vote of the working group the name “Crowborough Shield” was born.
Significant work on a number of fronts was undertaken, but establishing a group to challenge this scale of issue has been tough.
We’ve cried, we’ve laughed, we’ve disagreed, but here we are.
9th November: The Crowborough Shield committee set up another all-hands in-person meeting for the working group to discuss existing actions and agree on next steps.
10th November: Crowborough Shield attended the Wealden District Council Public scrutiny meeting, in person and virtually, as well as Nus Ghani’s community meeting, where some of you will have met Kim, Andrew, Nancie and others from the Crowborough Shield.
11th November: We attended the Rotherfield Parish Council Extraordinary Parish Council meeting to discuss with Councillors and locals the impact the camp will have.
Crowborough Shield members offer our apologies if the sudden appearance of this group has unnerved anyone, and we are aware that this is an acute, sensitive and incredibly impactful issue for Crowborough. We have tried to hit the ground running, but we are normal people, with normal lives, jobs and commitments.
We aim to provide facts, keep you abreast of what we are doing across all the avenues we are working on. Some are already providing results and making genuine progress.
However, we do not intend to give out false hopes, just the truth as we discover it.
Some are asking about legal representation, we will be able to share more in due course, but for obvious reasons, we have to be limited at this moment.
The Group hope you will appreciate that there is a lot we are working on currently, which we would love to share right now, but believe if we did so before completion, it could jeopardise the outcome.
The most important message we can leave you with is that we are here for you; our like-minded neighbours, our community and for no other reason, and we respect ALL opinions.
Thank you – Crowborough Shield Team