I'm opening space on Saturday to work on the question "What are we going to do to nurture and nourish community spirit in Guildford?"
I spent some time working on the question - I didn't want to go with the common metaphors for community: building; rebuilding; cultivating; growing; revitalising; regenerating etc. I wanted it to be about the human experience of being part of community associated with a place you live and work in. So much work goes into designing systems that ought to work or intellectual exercises based on interviewing people and turning that into some sort of product, it all feels very mechanical.
So the most human approach I know is to open space (I note from my diary that it's three years today that some of us met up in Leicester for @steemcampuk - what a long time ago that feels!) and to make the question as human as possible I took a suggestion from someone to root it in familial activities - looking after and feeding each other (metaphorically and literally) and so "nurture and nourish" fitted well.
I also came up with the title before anything else "For the Love of Guildford" felt right somehow - the slightly exasperated "Oh for the love of..." tone is intentional :)
I'm having to trust at the moment that it resonates with some people and we can have some interesting conversations and perhaps create some new projects. I know I always come away inspired to do things differently no matter what happens. And I also know that the process works. I'm not aware of anyone close enough to Guildford here to want to come, but if I'm wrong about that here's the eventbrite page
Good luck with the event. It seems like forever since St--mcamp. We need more Hive events. The one in Halifax is a bit far from me.