I’ve just read Cooperative Streets – Neighbours in the UK, a recent Co-operativesUK report. It charts the decline in neighbourliness in the UK over the last 28 years. Amongst other things, the average number of neighbours we each know by name has declined from 13 to 7. That’s perhaps unsurprising when you read that only […]
York’s a lovely city any day of the year, but on Friday it was in full sunshine. Perhaps not ideal when you know you’re going to be indoors all day. The World Carfree Network was holding its annual conference: Towards Carfree Cities IX . Friday, day 5 of a 7 day programme, was the day […]
I thought it was time for a more upbeat post on strategy whilst I find the time to edit 2 interviews that I hope to post soon – the first with Kathryn Tulip of Seeds for Change focusing on overcoming challenges in facilitating strategy at the grassroots, and the second with Peter Chowla of Bretton […]
Reading Carl’s recent post I’m seeing some threads developing from our strategy blogging experiment. In some ways I feel a tad guilty – we seem to be posting reflections that support a shift away from the ‘traditional’ strategy tools that facilitators have relied on for I don’t know how long. This post’s no different in […]
I was reading the New Scientist the other day, en route to a friend’s place. Unfortunately, I cannot give you a reference, as I threw away the magazine, but kept my musings. There was an article on scientific peer review. It stated that many more positive research pieces are published, than those that are negative. […]
Here’s one for the film buffs and direct action junkies amongst you. Coming soon, but not to cinemas: Just do it, a documentary to inspire action on climate change. This film needs your help, as this isn’t going to be distributed along the normal commercial lines. So here’s the trailer to give you a taste […]
Simmering away in the background for the last 12-18 months has been a 3-way conversation between facilitators from Rhizome, Seeds for Change and Turning The Tide. As you’ll have seen from other posts in this strategy dialogue all have encountered enough issues with facilitating strategy for activists that they’ve been looking at new approaches. […]
bringing about systemic change is less about trying to control things and force a particular outcome at a particular time, and more about trying to create the conditions for that change to happen. This doesn’t necessarily mean changing what we actually do. It just requires us to be more open to different understandings about the effect we are having – and the effect on us when we do it.
The Climate Camp has unveiled plans for this year’s mobilisation against the causes of climate change. The Camp describes itself as: a place for anyone who wants to take action on climate change; for anyone who’s fed up with empty government rhetoric and corporate spin; for anyone who’s worried that the small steps they’re taking […]
Sunday afternoon was spent at the rather magnificent Seale Hayne, an old country estate and ex- agricultural college near Newton Abbot in Devon. I was working with a small group of Transition Towns folk from as far afield as Paris and Forres at their annual conference. We were looking at ‘structuring and facilitating efficient meetings’. […]
