Big Society and church toddler groups

David Cameron mentioned the Big Society about ten times in yesterday's party conference speech, so it is clearly still alive and kicking, in his head at least.

Today I also read youth worker Jon Jolly on how the Big Society agenda is playing out in West Sussex , with council cuts leading not only to a shrinking statutory youth service but a lack of support for the voluntary sector to redress the balance.

My own impressions of the Big Society idea have been informed by my move from an inner-London borough where the majority of children's activities we accessed were local-authority run (based in libraries, museums and children's centres) to an Essex town where, it seems to me, the majority of children's activities are run by voluntary organisations, mainly churches. Every church in the town (and there really are a lot of them) seems to run a toddler group. There are children's centres of course, but there is not one within a reasonable walking distance when it is a three year old doing the walking, whereas the churches are everywhere. We checked out so many groups in our first month or so here that when a vicar asked if I had any church connections I said evasively "We have certainly visited a lot of churches".