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‘Feeling Harvested’ Co-creation Weekend February 2012

We set out to look at ‘this thing’ that we have been developing over the past few months with fresh eyes. We wanted to test, enrich and modify the concept, drawing on the diverse perspectives, expertise and enthusiasm of people we admire and resonate with before we head full-steam into the next stages of planning and development.

And what a rich day it was! 

Buzzing conversation, warm-hearted challenges, burned soup, sparking ideas, synergies between people that went far beyond the project, and overflowing generosity ~ it seemed that 23 unique people bought their gifts, their particular way of knowing the world, pouring this into ‘this thing’… 

Since our co-creation day on Saturday we have been busy harvesting, digesting and changing.  

Below is another go with describing what we do. What do you think?

But first of all, we want to send thank-yous and our appreciation to all of you who have joined us on a Saturday morning, and to those who couldn’t make it but send us their warm wishes.

The day has served ‘this thing’ to deepen and accelerate, and we hope that our harvest is a reflection of it. We are excited to share it with you!

Our reflection comes in two parts: ‘The Harvest’ collects everybody’s insights, questions, and proposed actions from the Open Space sessions we ran. ‘Harvesting the Harvest’ is about themes and insights the team generated on Sunday, based on the storytelling feedback, the open space, and all conversations that happened in between.

Here you can view online or download our harvest. You can also comment on the document if you want to add or critique.

What is the core / the essence

Key Insights

  • Essence is different from different perspectives: passionate about being well in transition (Simone), learning for change (joh).
  • These spaces become lifeboats (or epicenters), that drive the emergence of the new economy; they work towards resilience and sustainability.
  • The physical space acts as an anchor, and a canvas/ platform.
  • its an  practical alternative to mainstream higher education system (or a complement?), in order for people to thrive in the future (more like a MA/MSc rather than BSc/BA).
  • The intergenerational piece is important: allows people to give back & connect
  • Its addressing the underemployment of people (use yourself better) and resources (use stuff better)
  • The core is the underemployment of resources (of people, spaces, networks).
  • “Utilisation is important to you guys”
  • It does not matter what the activity it VS yes it does! Something that is related to creating a livelihood, its not enough to impart experience

Any next steps

  • Look up Design for change school, and the Hunger Project. 
  • Keep checking-in on “This project exists to…”

Any Unanswered questions

  • Is this thing an educational philosophy? Which can be applied in many different ways?
  • How can we provide the philosophy AND the means to have it applied?

THE QUESTION: As we are all describing the essence of ‘this thing’ all differently, are we looking at the same thing from different perspectives, or are we looking at different things?

Relationship of ‘This Thing’ to existing institutions

How could this project benefit from engagement with existing cultural/educational institutions? From this question came a conversation about why participants would choose to come on a course without an existing reputation, and what is it that people are searching for in educational programmes, and how This Thing could tap into the resources (libraries/access to online journals/space) of other institutions and whether it should align itself to more established entities to start off, or if it offers enough in itself?