During the past months we in the enkel collective have met every week to try to understand better why we need enkel in Perth. What is the point for ourselves as individuals, and the collective as a whole, to engage in this work? What’s our vision and mission? What should we do and not do? How should we do it? Who should we engage, inspire and support?

Inspired by a much bigger changemaker collective in Europe — Edgeryders — we’ve summarized the outcome of these meetings here. A check-in and reflection on the path to our future. A snapshot in time. And the launch of enkel v 2.0.

What we have done

In order to understand what enkel is, we started to look back. What have we done so far? Sometimes it feels like we move very slowly forward. Nothing seems to happen. Therefore it’s good to stop and look back on the things we’ve actually have done. To feel good :) In hindsight our actions can be clustered in a few headings:

Exploring new possible futures for WA

• A regular social night was held at various spaces last year — the famous enkel ideas clash! Here 2–3 ideas brought in by random participants were combined into a new idea. The most successful clash was probably the one themed “lighting collaborative spaces” in collaboration with Curtin University Library for Science week.
• We have also explored new future possibilities in our unconferences and hackathons on the future of food and the future of learning.

Tackling challenges in current systems

• Our three-month series of enkel Living Labs — open-research projects focused on collaboratively tackling challenges relevant to the community. We looked at how to create collaborative spaces, automatic food production in urban areas and how to provide free tutoring services to disadvantaged students.

Developing upcoming changemakers in Perth

• We have helped quite a few people now to incubate or accelerate their ideas. In our enkel ideas accelerator, 15 people gathered every Tuesday for ten weeks to help move each others’ ideas forward. Some ideas turned into start-ups, some people learned a lot about themselves and what steps to take next. Some people understood that they were not meant to pursue the ideas they brought to this series of workshops. All good learnings.
• Our ‘Making Ideas Happen’ workshop for changemakers helped the participants to take action on their ideas using project management methodology.
• We also helped incubate two ideas which separated into two new ventures: The Education Lab and Hackerpals. The Education Lab is an evolving support network dedicated to breaking down barriers to create a positive learning community for STEM students. Hackerpals is a community of tech innovators, makers and creative minds who wish to learn, build and collaborate on projects.

Educating the public on various types of changemaking

• We arranged the Perth event for the global OSCE Days; A global event to make a collaborative, sustainable, Circular Economy through Open Source. This gathered many Perth changemakers to network and brainstorm ideas for local transformation.
• We have screened films on various ways to make change happen — through Internet activism, pranks, localization of production, sustainability and more.
• We have co-hosted talks on change-focussed topics such as Simplicity, Transition, Future Pulsing and the Future of Money.

Activating spaces for community experimentation and collaboration

• We were given a 12mth peppercorn lease for a space on Albany Highway by Town of Vic Park in return for activation services. Together with the Vic Park Collective, we have so far held many talks, workshops and other events here. We are currently testing a coworking model in the space, and our popular robotics workshops are held here. Much more is to come before we move out in spring!
• We also won an Expression of Interest for leasing the Old Fremantle Naval Store from City of Fremantle. We’re currently designing this collaboration space together with architects and interior designers.

Building networks with other changemaking organisations in WA.

• We have collaborated with many friends and co-conspirators in other communities for change in WA: Among others the local study group for the MIT MOOC U.Lab, The Nowhere Collective, the Centre for Australian Foresight, the Transition movement, Bloom Lab, the Vic Park Collective, the Home Office peeps and Pollinators in Geraldton. All to build a network for change.

What we have learnt

As we do all this, we naturally learn many things. How to engage people. How to facilitate collaboration. How to keep ourselves motivated. And much more. Sometimes it’s good to stop and think about all this. What have I / we learnt and how can we become better. This sounds quite simple, but is rarely done in a coherent way. So here are some of our learnings:

• Resources are scarce. We need more people with more time and energy to make real change happen in Western Australia. Many people here are locked into a life of working hard and long hours to pay off their mortgages, with little time and energy to help change the unsustainable city we live in. We need more pathways for changemakers, more funding, better methods to attract volunteers and staff.
• Collaboration is a beast. One of the current buzzwords in management literature is collaboration: Collaboration across functions, organisational hierarchies or even organisations and sectors. But as we noticed in our series of Living Labs, this is very hard. Finding commonalities, keeping egos in check, moving projects forward without too much talking and keeping minds open were some of the challenges we encountered.
• Creating communities of change is key. Even if it sometimes is difficult to keep the community together, it is important to be transparent, share information and insights across the group. To do this online is easier — especially in a city like Perth, where everybody is so spread out over a large area. But don’t forget to meet face-to-face regularly.
• Have fun. Working with changemaking and global / local challenges is often depressing. Having fun is crucial to keep the community together and engaged.
• Seeing the whole picture. We are not separate entities. As individuals, communities and organisations, we need to look further out and understand the ecosystem to which we belong. Only then will we see how we can collaborate for the benefit of all.
• Think and Do. We need to think harder, but we also need to do things with more impact. We need reflection plus action to change things. Sometimes we feel that we spend too much time thinking and talking about what to do instead of doing them. But thinking and doing are not mutually exclusive. They can and must be done in parallel.

What’s next and how you can be part of it

New Direction

We believe that we need new approaches and more people to address the problems of today and tomorrow.

Hence, we must create a new generation of changemakers. We need to engage, inspire and support these people, who already operate everywhere in society — they may be social and environmental entrepreneurs, people within government, in universities, our local communities and big business: people who see opportunities to find solutions to today’s problems. People who want positive change.

Our vision is a place of ideas where people are empowered to create a better future. We work towards this vision by consulting to organisations, running innovation labs, organising courses, events and talks, and much more.

All this work is aligned with our values; Courage, Community, Conscience and Creativity.

Projects

We currently work on several projects, and invite you to be part of them. This is an opportunity to test your own ideas in a group of dedicated changemakers, to gain experience and to have impact on the world around you. By joining the enkel community you will collaborate with a group of big picture thinking people with many ideas who get lots of things done.

The enkel collective is now working in three different “arms”: An enkel core, a consulting arm, and a changemaking community arm. These are of course connected and work closely together.

Some of the projects we currently look for paid staff and volunteers are;

• Cathedral Square activation — An activation of the new Cathedral Square precinct in Perth by education and innovation. Together with JumpClimb Events management, we will program events and workshops outside the new City Library.
• The Old Fremantle Naval Store — This upcoming community innovation and learning hub won’t happen without a collaborative effort by Perth changemakers. We need people with skills in fund-raising, design, finding tenants, a crowdfunding campaign. The long-term goal of this space is to turn it into a cross-sector school for changemakers.
• The Vic Park MiniLab is open for experimentation. We need hosts and people doing crazy stuff in our 300m2 backyard. Creative ideas, which have never been done in Perth before are prioritized.
• Our consulting arm needs design thinkers, systems thinkers and experienced innovation consultants.
• The changemaker labs, i.e. the next iteration of our enkel Living Labs, the Media Lab and our new Dream Lab(!) will be run in 2016 and need lots of creative input.

If this sounds exciting to you; if you want to help create positive change around you and make a deeper impact, get in touch with us!