Community Organisers Blog

Amazing CO meet up 2018

by | Aug 14, 2018

We recently returned to our ‘Mothership’; Yarnfield park, to reconnect with all of our fellow Community Organisers.

For Katrina and I we really love this; not just for getting away for a few days but for hearing about all the projects that are happening across the country.

We always seem to come away invigorated and energised and this year did not disappoint.
This year was particularly great for us as it is the first year we have taken some of the people we have been working with to enjoy the fun- one of which was Emma.

Emma first met Katrina five years ago when Katrina was door knocking in her first year of CO training, and then met Alex at a local park where she was engaging with some local young people.

We always loved Emma’s enthusiasm and were really sad when she moved away from Devizes.

Five years on and at an Introduction to Community Organising training day in Swindon; who should walk through the door but Emma!

Since reconnecting Emma has been a star; supporting the set-up of a local group and helping others with their projects in Swindon. She has even come out and supported us with different door knocking projects. We felt it so important that she come along to the CO meet up.

Emma said:

“I had never been to an event like that before, so felt very nervous which was totally unfounded. The entire event was welcoming and inclusive; workshops came from the heart, everyone wanted to participate and get involved.

I left feeling like I had not only learnt so much, but also made friends for life!”

We are so glad to see people who had done the one day training as it really illustrated to them the strength of the network and also (hopefully) helped them feel better connected. …we get lonely sometimes out here in rural Wiltshire!!

We were also happy to be reunited with our former colleague Alex North, who was running a workshop around Community Organising and ABCD. It is great to see Community Organising is being recognised in so many different organisations. Stay in touch ‘Alex-Boy’ 🙂

A highlight for me was getting to see Eve Harper Barrett- my ‘long distance art-soul-mate’.

A year ago we started a piece of artwork to illustrate what CO meant to people. We gathered a quote or a sentence from people and used our very different artistic approaches to create a collaborative piece to gift to COLtd.

Time was short last year and so it became a long term project. After a year of waiting we finally got back together at the meet up and finished the piece.

We would like to thank everyone who got involved and would also like to thank Nick Gardham for accepting it!!

The meet up is always a really diverse and exciting event and I’m not sure if it can be completely summed up in a blog post, but I wanted to try!

Many thanks to COLtd for another cracking annual meet up… Here’s to next year!