In which I put my faith in humans

This is the write of up of the session I ran with Davy Jones at CityCamp Brighton in which we asked three questions: What is the simplest thing we can do to connect all the many excellent civic networks we can find in Brighton? How can we give that network of networks a stronger voice? Is the process of connecting these networks repeatable in other places – what can we learn? These questions form the basis...

Build relationships not structures

The Fremont Troll – Community co-production at its finest. I went to hear Jim Diers speak last week – it was brilliant – many thanks to Colin Miller and BHCC for arranging it. I am still trying to get hold of the slides and will share them when I do but I wanted to blog about the event while it was still fresh in my mind. Jim Diers  was Director of the Office of Neighbourhoods in Seattle,...

We Action Research Here

One of the items we have put in our proposal for Creative Councils is the suggestion that we host an Action Research network looking at the emergent changes in the way in which officers and members are interacting with citizens.  Following a fascinating meeting with some local community engagement experts and councillors last week I wanted to let more people know what we are up to as there are lots of opportunities...

Brunswick community meeting and the promise of cake

Last night we held our second community meeting for We Live Here in the lovely Electika Cafe on Western Road (yes – that was a plug – it is lovely and they were kind enough to open for us in the evening – they also followed through on our project meeting promise of cake at every meeting). This was for the Brunswick site – which was originally Brunswick and Regency until we realised (though...

Identity and Democratic Deliberation

This post is partially a write up of the identity session I curated at #UKGovCamp and partially a framing piece to help take forwards our discussions about how we handle the question of identity within the We Live Here Project and Citizenscape development more generally. Huge thanks to everyone who participated in the session. The UKGovCamp covered a lot of ground and was fascinating for me – not the least because...