Lightning talks 2023

We asked some of our Notwestminster 2023 participants to give a short Lightning talk on the day. These quick-fire talks are aimed at getting us all thinking about the context for our work together. You can also see all the videos and presentations here after the event.

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Towards Community Power?

Andy will talk about some of the work he’s been involved in locally in Kirklees which seeks to move decision making closer to local people. There’s been the development of the Shaped by People shared outcome, the Working Alongside principles and various other strategies that recognise the importance of communities and people influencing the decisions that affect them and their families.

Andy Petrie | Local Services 2 You & TSL Kirklees

Andy works for Local Services 2 You (LS2Y), a group of community businesses based in Deighton and working across other parts of Huddersfield. LS2Y employs around 50 people, the majority from the neighbourhoods it works in. It supports and delivers a wide range of community based services including three nurseries, it owns and manages several community buildings, runs the local library and supports groups for young and older people, organises the Deighton Carnival, and much more. Andy is also Chair of Third Sector Leaders Kirklees, the voluntary and community infrastructure body for Kirklees and is Chair of the Trust Partnership for North Huddersfield Trust School.

Democracy Friendly Schools:

Stories of trust

What is trust, where does it come from and where does it lead us? Hear stories of what happens when citizens of all ages are invited to take part in local democracy through our pioneering Democracy Friendly Schools programme.

Find out what happens when we learn together and are provided with the tools to make the places where we live, work and study even better.

Michelle Ross | @KirkleesYC | Kirklees Council

Michelle is a Children and Young People’s Engagement Officer with the Democracy Service at Kirklees Council. With a passion for children’s rights, she started her career over 30 years ago as a Residential Social Worker supporting children and young people to speak up and speak out for themselves and for others. More recently she has taken a lead role with Kirklees Youth Council, working with young citizens to develop local democracy learning resources and engagement approaches which have now formed the foundations for the pioneering Democracy Friendly Schools programme.

When can tech help connect council and community?

There is an awful lot of bad tech around. Why? And is there any hope?

Spoiler: Yes!

Jonathan Flowers | @jonathanflowers |
@jonathanflowers@mastodon.social

Jonathan has a really varied set of experiences in public, private and voluntary sector. A recovering senior local government officer, he has worked alongside many councils in a range of roles and is fascinated by the necessary diversity of approaches to public sector change – a lover of localism. He currently chairs dxw – an employee owned digital agency, and social justice charity In2scienceUK. He’s a governance geek and is a council’s independent audit chair amongst other roles, many of which involve helping sparky public service-oriented organisations to grow.

Putting peer relationships at the heart of change

In this talk, Daniel will share some examples of different movements for change which have experimented with putting peer-learning at their heart. This approach builds the social fabric, strengthens relationships and develops trust needed for the depth of change that people are aiming for in their places.

Daniel will share examples such as the Neighbourhood Doughnut, Money Movers and Huddlecraft’s purposeful peer-led pop-up groups, Huddles, to show what can change when we focus on relationships.

Daniel Ford | Huddlecraft

Daniel is the Learning Ecosystem Lead at Huddlecraft, an ecosystem of support for peer-led learning and action. Daniel spends his time supporting people to put relationships and learning at the heart of change. At Huddlecraft, this is through supporting hosts in the Host Fellowship, training people in Huddlecraft 101 and applied learning design through our Studio projects. Before Huddlecraft, he worked on collaborative system change projects at Forum for the Future, and trained in Lewis Deep Democracy and Healthy Human Culture as pathways toward more regenerative cultures.

Imagination Activism in local government

What happens when you train 32 council officers in Imagination Activism? What are imagination activism and municipal imagination – and how are these relevant to local government?

Over the last year, Phoebe has been working with Camden Council to train a cohort of council officers in imagination activism. In this talk, we’ll learn more about what this means and hear how it has unleashed a wave of energy, excitement and practical changes to the council.

Phoebe Tickell | @PhoebeTickell | Moral Imaginations

Phoebe is a renegade scientist, systems thinker and social entrepreneur, passionate about creating opportunities for transformation of people – and through that, transformation of society and the planet. She has been raising awareness around the importance of collective imagination practice in the UK and beyond through her organisation Moral Imaginations, making an evidence-based argument for why imagination is key to creating a political and economic system that works for people and the planet. She has worked with leaders, government, boards, investors and multinational corporations to effect change.

Trust is all about Relationships

We listen, we stand with, we laugh, we cry – we share in the whole human experience of being and flourishing in the place where we are all together and all connected.

Billy Dasein | East Marsh United

Billy helped start East Marsh United (EMU) nearly six years ago and has been an official community gobshite ever since – EMU are growing to become a sustainable entity by way of community-led housing and run projects in outreach, arts, education, finance and well-being. They are currently negotiating for a community pub, so perhaps you can come along for a couple of pints sometime…

Networking for local democracy

The Democracy Network is a network of people and organisations who are working to build a stronger democracy in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, by connecting people and supporting collaboration. Calum will share some of the network’s progress and activities so far. You’ll also hear how the Notwestminster community and the Democracy Network can support each other in our work to strengthen our local democracy.

Calum Green | @CalumDGreen | Involve

Calum is Director of Advocacy and Communications at Involve, where he works to make public participation and deliberation a fundamental part of our democracy, to help meet the challenges of the 21st century. Before Involve, Calum was Chief Executive of London Community Land Trust, and a Senior Organiser at Citizens UK, amongst other roles.