About us
Blog: Eddington Residents' Association
Pieter Desnerck, Eddington resident and chair of Eddington Residents' Association
I was very lucky to get an apartment at Eddington, especially as I work around the corner at West Cambridge.
In early 2019, I started going to activities, such as Open Door and Eddington Eats, which were organised by fellow residents. By talking to people, we all got the impression that if we joined forces we could help each other out and create a nice community. Therefore, in September 2019, the Eddington Residents’ Association came about, providing a formal voice as residents with the local authorities and organising community events.
The mission statement that we set ourselves is “Build, Connect and Support Community”. Obviously Eddington is a new neighbourhood so it needs to build a community, which is an ongoing effort, as you constantly have people arriving at Eddington and others leaving. Eddington is much more a come-and-go neighbourhood. For most residents, this is their home for only a few years rather than for the next 20 to 25 years. Therefore, building will always be at the forefront of what we do, engaging with new people and making sure that they feel welcome.
The Connect aspect refers to connecting residents with each other through social events that we set up, creating opportunities where they can meet fellow neighbours, talk to them and get to know people who are living nearby. As we know a lot of people arriving here are international – new to Cambridge, new to the UK, maybe even new to Europe. That leads into Support, people may not be familiar with Cambridge or UK systems, so we try to point them to the correct locations that they can find the right information and support.
We are always looking for more volunteers if people want to get involved – be it supporting a specific activity we run or the daily running of the Eddington Residents’ Association. We are very open and happy for people to join. Residents can email us on info@eddingtonra.org if they are interested or have any questions.
We hope that we can create a model community that can inspire others when it comes to being welcoming, supportive and multi-cultural and we can break the boundaries between different cultures, religions and staff categories. We want to establish a community where everyone is feeling comfortable and which they can proudly call home.
