Stand up and be counted for One Bolton

Date:

Mon, 22/03/2010

Background

Bolton Council and partners have been working closely with key organisations and groups over the past two weeks to launch the One Bolton pledge.

One Bolton was introduced last summer with an eight-week programme of events and activities that celebrated all that's great about Bolton. It encouraged people from all different backgrounds, beliefs and values to get together to enjoy events and cultural activities and to simply have fun.

The pledge has been introduced to raise the profile of One Bolton and, in light of the demonstrations by the English Defence League (EDL) and Unite Against Facism (UAF), to offer people an alternative means to voice their commitment to Bolton as a welcoming and tolerant town.

The pledge

The words of the pledge reflect a commitment to community cohesion:

“We celebrate the diversity of Bolton and unite to create One Bolton, recognising differences, celebrating communities and commit to encouraging harmony”.

To date, faith groups, organisations and businesses across the borough, Bolton Wanderers Football Club, Bolton at Home and some of Bolton’s most famous ‘sons and daughters’ – including Dave Spikey, Sara Cox, Amir Khan – have all said they’d like to stand up and be counted in Bolton’s biggest ever campaign to celebrate community cohesion.

In addition, the pledge is directly linked to the Big Bolton Fund (BBF) and supporters of One Bolton are being encouraged to pledge money to the fund, which in turn will be used to support local community programmes across the borough.

What you can do

There is a dedicated One Bolton site set up where visitors are able to show their commitment by becoming a supporter. We want everyone to stand up and be counted by visiting www.boltonlife.org.uk , clicking on the One Bolton image and filling in their details.

There is also a dedicated Facebook page (search for One Bolton pledge) where, again, people are being asked to show their support. A total of 30,000 pledge postcards have also been distributed across Bolton over the past week and politicians, Bolton Wanderers players, faith and community leaders have all been signing a pledge board (photographs are available on the One Bolton site).

We are encouraging all partners to also show their support by adding the ‘One Bolton’ artwork to their email sign-off. The artwork is available to download from both the Facebook site and the One Bolton pledge site, simply follow the instructions supplied.

This year will see a series of exciting One Bolton events and activity, visit www.boltonlife.org.uk for the most up-to-date information.