A surge of peer-to-peer learning through multiple, intertwining movements?
Imagining: a regenerative civilisation and the continued evolution of Huddlecraft
This post contains:
- Some personal musings (below) about why now feels like the right moment to ask: What contribution could Huddlecraft make over this next ever-so-crucial decade? And how might we place collaboration at the heart of our approach?
- A link out to an emerging vision and proposal for how this evolution might look, and how we could collaborate to make it happen. This is deliberately more raw than things I usually share. It’s a google doc so that anyone can contribute ideas, builds and suggestions. Please do!!
Why now feels like the right time to ask: What contribution could Huddlecraft make over the next decade? And how might we place collaboration at the heart of our approach?
I remember sitting with a mentor of mine at St Pancras station, not long after Huddlecraft started (then Enrol Yourself). She asked me whether I wanted to start a mediocre social enterprise, or a movement?
I don’t think I understood the question fully at the time. I felt that I had an idea and I was doing it, and I didn’t much care about the wrapping. I didn’t realise that what I thought of as wrapping was actually scaffolding, which could change the shape of everything that grew from it. How could I have known? I was doing almost everything for the first time.
At the time I associated ‘movements’ with direct, out-on-the-streets-with-a-placard activism. I also felt icky about how grandiose and naive it sounds when someone says “I’m starting a movement”. I didn’t want to be that guy. Besides, there were more than enough challenges in just understanding how to run peer groups, and how to sustain a financial model so they could simply continue. In many ways my thinking was short-term. But inevitably so, because I didn’t have funding or resources to extend my horizon.
> 5 years later and I can now see the value in the question, and the value is not the choice between 2 binary options — social enterprise or movement. The value is in the provocation to look for even more potential in what we’re doing at Huddlecraft, to look beyond the myopic destiny of so many small initiatives that become locked in a cycle of sustaining themselves. The grip of this cycle can feel real for us. We rely on our own revenue, and we’re often in survival mode. This creates many limitations.
Since we began Huddlecraft has evolved in lots of ways, some predictable, some unexpected. Last summer I was cautioned by an ex shareholder for my ‘elastic’ mind — the reason, they said, that they invested in Enrol Yourself, but something to be wary of. What were they worried about? That we stretch so far in new directions that we cannot rebound to our original shape, like an old pair of pants?
Joking aside, it is a fair challenge, especially because in the early days I think I really struggled to hold a sense of coherence when faced with so many directions we could go in. But this caution came at a time when Money Movers (a peer support network for women to take climate action with their personal finance) was becoming a larger part of our work at Huddlecraft. Perhaps from the outside it was becoming harder to see how the different pieces of our work fit together. But as their confusion grew, so did my clarity.
The coherence that was crystalising for me was that peer-to-peer learning (P2PL) works by creating social ‘microclimates’, within which the conditions are different from the surrounding environment, making it possible for different things to grow and thrive. I had seen P2PL evoke mindset and behavioural shifts, and I had seen the flexible way it could be plugged into many different contexts and purposes.
After Money Movers it was Do Better Food. After Do Better Food it was the Neighbourhood Doughnut learning journeys. We were plugging the same methodology into different movements, from climate finance, to food system change, to Doughnut Economics and the new economy. Our Hosts — through the Host Fellowship — were plugging in too; connecting locals in Sheffield to be pioneers of change in the area; connecting men to explore fatherhood and patriarchy; connecting a group of leaders to raise their capacity for leading in uncertainty and complexity. And our Huddlecraft 101 training participants were learning peer-led approaches and applying them within their organisations and initiatives.
By plugging into multiple movements, we were using P2PL as a tool to enhance efficacy, depth, impact, scale, spread, propagation, learning, etc. And by doing so we were leaving behind new or strengthened relationships, new mindsets and capacities, and often new behaviours, initiatives and projects.
Huddlecraft isn’t a movement, and I hope we can be more than a mediocre social enterprise. How might we create a mycelial cross-movement infrastructure, using P2PL to amplify the movements that are building towards a regenerative civilisation at this crucial moment? This feels like a different intention to running a small, sustainable business. But this moment is shouting loudly, that this is a time to depart from old ideas about which direction to travel in.
The climate crisis shouts loudly too. The vibrations are powerful! I once read that if a speaker’s volume button got stuck on the up setting, with no upper volume limit, it’s still impossible for the volume to increase indefinitely. Simply because the sound vibrations would eventually be so strong that they would destroy the building the speaker was in, and the ceiling would fall on the speaker and destroy it. And if the speaker was outside eventually the vibrations would destroy planet earth — which would destroy the speaker!
A little bit like our own fate if we do not get a grip on the crisis volume dial.
So perhaps the next evolution of Huddlecraft should be about unearthing as much of our own potential as we can: now, soon, and over the next decade. P2PL has so much to offer to these times, and there’s little point moving gingerly. Surely more of us should be thinking about how we go big or go home? The impact of movements that shift us toward a regenerative civilisation aren’t needed later. They are needed now.
Could we amplify the movements that are building towards a regenerative future, by instigation a global surge of P2PL through those movements? Could this be done over the next decade, by convening an alliance of P2PL providers and movement partners?
From a theoretical, logistical perspective I know the answer is yes. I can imagine it, therefore it can be built. From a resourcing perspective… Well! I don’t feel anywhere near as confident. A bold approach would require bold resources! Large investments that we do not currently have access to.
So how to proceed?
a) Pipe down, quickly, before I propose something that we might fail to put into practice?
Or, b) Take some gentle steps forward and see what sharing these ideas makes possible?
Of course it’s b). But I’m noticing how uncomfortable and uncertain it feels!
So if you’re reading this and it interests you, I’ve collected more thoughts about what this might actually look like and how it could work, in an evolving google doc. I’d like to actively invite your thoughts, comments, questions and contributions to this doc, via the comments. When people contribute, I’ll add a credit for their input in the appendix at the bottom.
Collaboration is at the heart of this idea, so really, whether you know us well or not at all, I genuinely welcome your input, here’s the link.
- All images in this post were created using Dall-e (an AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language). It’s fun to play with!
- If you want to reach out to me directly you can find me via zahra@huddlecraft.com
- If you want to learn more about peer-to-peer learning and peer-to-peer approaches in general, check out Huddlecraft 101 training
