No.157 Inagi City Connection Square - Building the Future of the Town with the Neighborhood Association -

On February 8th, the "Inagi City Connection Plaza" was held at the Community Promotion Plaza. This event is co-hosted by Inagi City, Tokyo, and the Tokyo Connection Creation Foundation, and serves as a venue for various individuals and organizations interested in community contribution and Community Development, including Neighborhood Associations, to meet and consider the future of Collaboration.

We are very grateful for the understanding and cooperation you have provided in the daily community activities and City Administration operations of each Neighborhood Association in the city. However, recent operations face challenges such as a decrease in new members and membership rates, a shortage of candidates for officers, and an increased sense of burden among officers.

The city has been providing operational cost subsidies and support for the maintenance of Neighborhood Association halls, and recently established a unique subsidy system for street security cameras requested by Neighborhood Associations, as well as starting to subsidize their running costs. However, addressing the current low membership rates remains a challenge.

The Neighborhood Association exchanges opinions through meetings such as the Administrative Liaison Officer Coordination Meeting, and since last year, we have been regularly holding opinion exchange meetings focused on promoting membership.

On the other hand, separate from these discussions, starting from Fiscal Year 2022, we have been conducting pilot projects such as the "Town's Skilled Bulletin Board" and the "Neighborhood Association Support Caravan" in collaboration with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Tokyo Connection Creation Foundation, providing support for Neighborhood Association activities.

The "Inagi City Connection Plaza" held this time was aimed at presenting and sharing the achievements so far, and utilizing the "connections" created through these projects and this event in the Neighborhood Association activities of each district. The chairpersons of the Oshitate Neighborhood Association and Hirao Neighborhood Association were invited to speak. The summaries of their respective presentations are as follows.

Initiatives of the Oshitate Neighborhood Association

Utilize the 'Town's Skilled Workers Bulletin Board',

1. A case where we recruited volunteers to help create a choreography guide to expand the Oshitate Ondo, resulting in a wonderful brochure.
2. We are recruiting volunteers to help create flyers to raise interest in the Neighborhood Association, and a bright design flyer has been completed that contributes to Neighborhood Association PR and membership awareness.
3. We are recruiting volunteers to make the disaster prevention awareness flyer "Preparation for Wind and Water Disasters" distributed to all households in the Neighborhood Association more visually appealing, and we have succeeded in improving the design.

We were presented with three points.

Initiatives of the Hirao Neighborhood Association

Utilizing the "Neighborhood Association Support Caravan",

1. A case study of conducting a resident survey using a web form to discuss what challenges exist in promoting membership in the Neighborhood Association and how to solve them.
2. A case where a user-friendly and bright design flyer was created for the resident survey, resulting in a high response rate using a web form, which led to actual membership, and to disseminate information about Neighborhood Association activities, a free website was created and launched.

We were presented with two points.

On that day, booths from the following companies and organizations will be set up at the venue to introduce their community contribution projects.

• Tokyo Verdy Co., Ltd.
• Suntory Holdings Limited Sustainability Management Promotion Headquarters
• Meiji Yasuda Life Inagi Nagayama Branch
• Inagi City Social Welfare Council
• PayPay Corporation
• Korg Inc.
• Tokyo Connection Creation Foundation

We will continue to tackle challenges through public-private partnerships.