We have had a busy but very productive time. Last Saturday 2 trainers from Seeds for Change (www.seedsforchange.org.uk) came for a day of consensus decision making training. Games were mentioned early on to which several of us internally went ‘oh no!’ but even the games were great. The day, while long, was a day of activity and training in a very safe environment. We also had a great laugh as ever! Its really important to do this sort of thing to remind yourself of first principles which can get lost when you are in the thick of a huge project.
Thank you also to the Royal Festival Hall. We have met there since the beginning and what a fantastic resource for London. The only rule was don’t stick anything on the wall. So we used tables and chairs and it was fine.
Then Wednesday, Dee, Alison and I went on a day visiting neighbourhood communities with Glasshouse (www.theglasshouse.org.uk). So inspiring to see what people have done. We first went to Vine Street Co-operative , another successful community project to have come out of squatting. They have been going since the 80s and have transformed the area. The second set of projects were in Dalston and were much newer but no less exciting. We talked about many issues of running projects, volunteers vs paid staff, public /private projects, reaching ‘the community’ and what does that mean and most importantly, what lift not to buy!
