Lab Partners
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Pioneers of social change often bravely choose to leave organisations and institutions which seem no longer able to address the problems they were set up to solve. These pioneers step out to the edge and create new alternatives. While carving out more freedom to develop the cultures, mindsets and connections which serve their work, they face a whole new set of challenges. The authors of Walk Out Walk on explain that:
Old habits and ways of thinking constantly rear up on their path. It’s easy to get yanked backwards, or to doubt that this is the right direction. It takes vigilance to notice when these old ways of thinking block the path ahead. Pioneers have to expect to feel ignored, invisible and lonely a good portion of the time. What they’re doing is so new and different that others can’t see their work even when it’s staring them in the face.
A few people hungry to adopt and cultivate new mindsets, approaches and ways of working feel able to do this (to varying degrees) while remaining in existing organisations and institutions. They are trusted to set out on explorations, and supported to bring back and experiment with new ideas. They instinctvely take on the role of bridging between thier own organisation out to diverse initiatives, organisations and communities elsewhere. As June Holley talks about in relation to network weaving, they form connections to unique resources at the edges of their networks, way outside of their own organisation.
CoLab Dudley team members are a magical mix of brave pioneers who left safety and security behind, and employees of organisations who are investing in experimental approaches. By working together we have found comfort and support when the different challenges we each face at times feel overwhelming.
In creating and developing a social lab in Dudley and carrying out early stage social research we haven’t (yet) needed to set up more organisational structures. We have simply put into practice an insight from ecology and systems thinking that the relationships between things are as important as the things themselves. Lab team members have worked together to cultivate relationships between each other and our organisations. Our lab has therefore found itself having three organisational partners: Gather Dudley (a Community Interest Company), Dudley CVS (a charity) and UnLtd (a foundation and charity).
Gather Dudley CIC
Gather Dudley is a Community Interest Company incorporated in March 2016.
Work towards the social mission of building a resilient community within Dudley began with establishing a coffee shop on Dudley High Street. When gather coffee shop opened in November 2016, founders Loraine Stockton and Stu Homer said on their Facebook Page:
“We invite anyone and everyone to gather at 65 High Street, Dudley, to bring their ideas, their projects, their visions for their community and make them happen. So many people have so much to give and we want to bring them all together to help make Dudley the place where things happen. Based in a friendly, vibrant and inspiring repurposed venue, we have all you need to start things off: comfy surroundings, great atmosphere, fab food and beverages, and a network of like-minded people who want to make a difference. If you just want a place in Dudley to meet with friends or business colleagues, this place is for you too. With all of the above and free wifi thrown in, come and get settled in. You won’t regret it.”
If you’d like to know more about Gather Dudley CIC, drop in to the coffee shop at 65 High St, Dudley, DY1 1PY, or contact Loraine and Stu via Facebook
In imaginatively repurposing a large retail unit on Dudley High Street which had been sitting empty for 9 years, Gather Dudley founders have created an anchor space in the town centre. Through thoughtful, intentional design they began to model a different future for Dudley. The welcome and authentic invitation from the founders (who are locals) inspires people to work towards a radically participatory new future together. gather has swiftly become a hub of connectedness for local creatives, makers, doers, dreamers, activists and social entrepreneurs.
gather coffee shop is the key convening space of CoLab Dudley.
Locating CoLab Dudley in gather premises on the High Street in the centre of Dudley sends out a clear message about the work of the lab. This isn’t work which happens in offices, at desks or in meeting rooms. It happens where people can overhear it, ask about it, see it, feel it and be part of creating it.
Invitations to help repurpose other spaces inside and outside the premises reinforce this, and have resulted in the co-creation of further functional, flexible, shared spaces for the variety of activities nurtured through the lab and by Gather Dudley. These include a workshop and a garden, and a room which was an Inspiration Lab for a year, then a public Living Room, and is currently being re-invented as a studio space in response to experiments by local people.
The space a lab occupies or creates can make an important statement, and our craft is represented in part by how we repurposed and design space to enable our work.
From Labcraft, edited by Hendrik Tiesinga and Remko Berkhout.
Dudley CVS
Dudley CVS is a charitable company and local voluntary sector infrastructure body with a strong commitment to working in partnership. Having been firmly rooted in Dudley borough for over 40 years, staff and trustees have a palpable passion for the borough’s amazing people and places.
Dudley CVS helps people and organisations that want to make a positive difference in communities across the borough. It is governed by a board of directors elected from and by 350+ members, which are voluntary and community organisations operating in Dudley borough. Dudley CVS also acts as a trading company, with assets being DY1 in Dudley town centre and Brierley Hill Civic Hall.
Dudley CVS’s vision is for caring, vibrant and strong communities where everyone can fulfil their potential. Strategic pillars of Dudley CVS’s work since 2017 have included:
- Collaborating; demonstrating a difference through bringing people or organisations together.
- Innovating; creating opportunities to do things differently to create change or movement.
In Autumn 2016 Dudley CVS directors committed resources to CoLab Dudley which facilitated the invovlement of Associates, enabling a range of skills and talents to be drawn into the lab team. Partly as a result of CoLab Dudley activities and research, Dudley CVS’s business plan for 2017–18 included a priority to “evolve our participation work and blend our offer to citizens”.
In 2018–19 sustaining CoLab Dudley is an organisational priority relating to Dudley CVS’s aspirations to help cultivate connected, resilient communities.
If you’d like to know more about Dudley CVS’s work or involvement in CoLab Dudley, get in touch with me: Lorna Prescott
UnLtd
UnLtd is the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, a UK registered charity set up in 2002. Their job is to reach out and unleash the energies of people who can transform the world in which they live. They call these people social entrepreneurs.
Social entrepreneurs seek to solve social problems through entrepreneurial solutions. This can be anything from improving your community, breaking the cycle of re-offending, closing the attainment gap in education, solving health issues we face as a nation, or reducing isolation amongst elderly. UnLtd helps social entrepreneurs at the early stages of their journey.
UnLtd’s vision is for a world in which people act to make it better. They believe social entrepreneurs are one of the keys to solving some of the biggest problems faced in society. Thanks to the ideas and action emerging through CoLab Dudley, UnLtd selected Dudley to be one of 27 places in their Resilient Communities programme. Over the next 5 years £20,000 per year has been allocated by UnLtd to support social entrepreneurs in Dudley borough.
If you’d like to know more about UnLtd’s work in Dudley, contact lab team member Adam Hall
