The Prototyping journey - January to June 2017
From January 2017, once the main U.Lab course had finished, a smaller group continued to meet with a desire to create a prototype project centring on the theme of Reinventing Democracy.
The whole unfolding of this project and story is based on the principles of emergence. See the U.Lab page to get an idea of the methodology.
As we met each Monday it became clear in our group that there was an appetite for 2 kinds of meeting. There was a core of participants that wanted to create a social project. They wanted to devote time to planning and working out the project logistics. There was another group that felt they had benefitted so much from the U.Lab processes such as the coaching case clinics, the empathy walks, mindfulness, social presencing theater and creative group practices that they wanted to continue with these enriching and life affirming activities.
This dichotomy was resolved by alternating weeks with one devoted to a logistical meeting and the following was a Vivencia evening - which referred to the enlivened group experiences we shared. It was important for us to incorporate both aspects as in our discussions it was clear that if the idea of Reinventing Democracy meant anything, it had to include the elements of relationality and transformational learning and fun.
In this way we were also learning-by-doing a different way of being democratic that involved co-sensing: feeling into a situation together with all of our senses and our intuition as well as our intellect.
Exploring the idea of a G1000 in Kings Cross
As we discussed possibilities for a prototype, one idea that came up was to organise and set up a G1000 in London. This is a large one day convention of citizens that started in Belgium and Holland. The aim is for a representative sample of up to 1000 local people to gather and deliberate in a respectful environment, and decide together what is best for their community. It is a way to strengthen a community and discover the considered opinion of the local people as a whole.
Exploring this idea brought us into contact with Brett Hennig, an expert in the field of Sortition - inviting randomly selected citizens to come together and work on issues that affect their lives.
Maria and Andy went to Cambridge to meet the founder of G1000s Harm Van Dijk and learn about it from him. Another member of our group Mila travelled to Holland to witness one of these large scale events. She was struck by amazing atmosphere created by local people, who before the meeting didn't know each other, now getting along and discussing issues of local importance. She reported back an almost tangible buzz in the room created by human connection and interaction. This was clearly inspiring stuff!
Our dedicated group continued to meet into the Spring and the initial feeling was that we would go for organising a G1000 in the locality of Kings Cross as a way to create local cohesion as well as demonstrating an entirely different way of doing democracy.
We also started to reach out and make connections with local networks and Andy attended the Bridging Cultures Roundtable event organised by Mela social enterprise that invited in a diversity of local organisations and local communities including the Kings Cross Knowledge Quarter .
Coming to a decision
One of the great things about the U.Lab methodology is that it enables individuals and groups to sense into a situation with one's whole being rather than with the intellect alone. So during a Vivencia meeting in March 2017 we did a case clinic to explore how we felt about the project and what we were trying to achieve. Eight of us shared our thoughts and then reflected back our embodied sense of what was needed in the area by making a physical sculpture that represented what was trying to emerge.
And as we unpacked the felt-sense of what we had each experienced in the sculpture the following came up:
There is a great sense of loneliness in Kings Cross and society in general which needs to be addressed. Before people can work on bigger issues of local democracy there needs to be a transition. We should as a first step simply enable a process of connecting with each other through sharing of food and sharing stories.
From January 2017, once the main U.Lab course had finished, a smaller group continued to meet with a desire to create a prototype project centring on the theme of Reinventing Democracy.
The whole unfolding of this project and story is based on the principles of emergence. See the U.Lab page to get an idea of the methodology.
As we met each Monday it became clear in our group that there was an appetite for 2 kinds of meeting. There was a core of participants that wanted to create a social project. They wanted to devote time to planning and working out the project logistics. There was another group that felt they had benefitted so much from the U.Lab processes such as the coaching case clinics, the empathy walks, mindfulness, social presencing theater and creative group practices that they wanted to continue with these enriching and life affirming activities.
This dichotomy was resolved by alternating weeks with one devoted to a logistical meeting and the following was a Vivencia evening - which referred to the enlivened group experiences we shared. It was important for us to incorporate both aspects as in our discussions it was clear that if the idea of Reinventing Democracy meant anything, it had to include the elements of relationality and transformational learning and fun.
In this way we were also learning-by-doing a different way of being democratic that involved co-sensing: feeling into a situation together with all of our senses and our intuition as well as our intellect.
Exploring the idea of a G1000 in Kings Cross
As we discussed possibilities for a prototype, one idea that came up was to organise and set up a G1000 in London. This is a large one day convention of citizens that started in Belgium and Holland. The aim is for a representative sample of up to 1000 local people to gather and deliberate in a respectful environment, and decide together what is best for their community. It is a way to strengthen a community and discover the considered opinion of the local people as a whole.
Exploring this idea brought us into contact with Brett Hennig, an expert in the field of Sortition - inviting randomly selected citizens to come together and work on issues that affect their lives.
Maria and Andy went to Cambridge to meet the founder of G1000s Harm Van Dijk and learn about it from him. Another member of our group Mila travelled to Holland to witness one of these large scale events. She was struck by amazing atmosphere created by local people, who before the meeting didn't know each other, now getting along and discussing issues of local importance. She reported back an almost tangible buzz in the room created by human connection and interaction. This was clearly inspiring stuff!
Our dedicated group continued to meet into the Spring and the initial feeling was that we would go for organising a G1000 in the locality of Kings Cross as a way to create local cohesion as well as demonstrating an entirely different way of doing democracy.
We also started to reach out and make connections with local networks and Andy attended the Bridging Cultures Roundtable event organised by Mela social enterprise that invited in a diversity of local organisations and local communities including the Kings Cross Knowledge Quarter .
Coming to a decision
One of the great things about the U.Lab methodology is that it enables individuals and groups to sense into a situation with one's whole being rather than with the intellect alone. So during a Vivencia meeting in March 2017 we did a case clinic to explore how we felt about the project and what we were trying to achieve. Eight of us shared our thoughts and then reflected back our embodied sense of what was needed in the area by making a physical sculpture that represented what was trying to emerge.
And as we unpacked the felt-sense of what we had each experienced in the sculpture the following came up:
There is a great sense of loneliness in Kings Cross and society in general which needs to be addressed. Before people can work on bigger issues of local democracy there needs to be a transition. We should as a first step simply enable a process of connecting with each other through sharing of food and sharing stories.
So the idea of a G1000 style event was put on the shelf and we focussed on the first step of Connecting Kings Cross which then became the name of our project. The first element was to create an event (or events) in which we would bring together a microcosm of Kings Cross in its diversity so that people could simply connect as human beings across social, economic, ethnic, religious etc divides. Then the second phase would be to see what would a voice of the community as a whole look like, what would it want...
The Story continues with Connecting Kings Cross - the project.