By the time an ambitious community initiative achieves critical mass, those driving it will experience the queasiness that goes with high-altitude climbing. Imagine managing that uphill task only to find themselves being swept thousands of metres downhill in an avalanche, and lying alongside the initiative that is now a mangled mess. Resident groups that drove community initiatives admirably and brought them to maturity experienced that sickening thud, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Talk to any residents welfare association, and they would have use for this line: “We did this, and it was running smoothly and the pandemic slammed the brakes on it.” Certain misfortunes cannot be foreseen, much less prevented. Here are initiatives that had to give up the ghost suddenly on account of the pandemic, but reincarnated later putting on fresh flesh and a new vigour and renewed purpose. In some cases, the restart lacks the punch it has, but the residents are labouring to start again the right way