Roisin Markham

The week was a mixed bag of frustration, enthrall and a reality check from home near Gorey, to Dublin, Belfast and Lough Neagh and diggity jig, back home again.

The highlight of the week was of course the DTNI and Carmichael Conference, meeting Søren from Samsø Academy and getting to facilitate a discussion on community assets, future ownership of Lough Neagh and broader learning of community ownership.

It was a week where I was very engaged in the moment and present.

Søren’s keynote was excellent with so much inspiration and food for thought. On how and why a small island in the middle of Denmark became the first island to be fully net zero. He lives in a low carbon world already. Samsø began moving away from fossil fuel dependency after winning a competition.

He is a great orator and communicator, funny, though provoking and inspiring. I am so grateful to have heard him speak.

Søren spoke about how they brought people to conversations, explorations, new models of ownership, lived community uncoupling fossil fuels from their lives. Creating new energy community assets, local procurement, local economies of scale, revitalising their island.

Love this slide from his presentation. We got to chat more about what it meant and his approaches to holding spaces for people to come together on our journey to Belfast.

The Conference on ‘Collaboration and Transformation’ was a joint endeavour of Development Trusts NI (DTNI) and the Carmichael Centre (CC).
The Conference is the final output of the Shared Island Civic Society funded programme of work led by DTNI & Carmichael.
The Shared Island Civic Society Fund is managed by the Department for Foreign Affairs and is an initiative of the Shared Island Unit at the Department of the Taoiseach.

The research presented by Deiric O’Broin DCU and Brendan Murtagh, Queens University Belfast spoke of new economies of local scale ~ I look forward to reading it in more detail.

I also had more normal work stuff working on sustainable supply chains, circular economy and resource use piece of work.

Reflection

Some of my communication, which I pride myself on seems to have been a little off this week. I began the week with a push back email on some feedback I’d sent. The person did not appreciate it. In hindsight I should not have wasted my time on writing the email, we don’t know each other, I was fairly direct. My policy, I’m always open to feedback. No matter how tough it might be to hear/read, it’s always worth the learning. I love positive feedback but it’s the constructive sort I grow from. Lesson learnt. I take responsibility for it.

Bugbear #1 PAY ME ~ I get very pissy when people assume I do stuff for free! If you are a business or organisation expect to pay me when you ask me to contribute to your work. I run my own business, I’m pretty much self employed. If I am working on something for you who do you think is paying for it, if you are not?

Last year I spent several months working pro-bono, it cost me & our business, I’m still in catchup.

If I want to offer the work at a reduced rate or pro-bono that’s my choice, not yours. Do not make assumptions.

If you ask me to do some work for you or your business, consultancy, advice, mentoring or coaching, public speaking, a workshop, project, training, program development, ideation,, different thinking… hire & pay me.

Our economy is functioning exactly as designed. For most of us it does not work, it works for the 1%. If it is created, a construct, we can create something different. Economic literacy is important.

To create pathways for a just transition we need to move away from business as usual and move towards

• Building society rather then building an economy at national level
• Create local new economies
• Prioritise Local procurement
• Development of Community assets and wealth (more on this to follow)
• Deliberative democracy and participatory practices for civic society to come together

Doughnut Economics offers us more than a framework to hold and test ideas of different economies of scale. We can begin to have conversations about what kind of economies work for us in our communities. We need lots of smaller experiments to test and see what works in our place in our communities.

I took some of Friday off to enjoy some different time in part play and game play experimentation. The first a zoom meeting was lovely, I finally opened that bag of clay and made two small pots while having a love;y slow conversation.

It was amazing to join Dr Astrid Schultz to test her systems startup game, lots of fun playing test digital games that are actually designed as a physical board game.

insight

They are just people, it’s no big deal.

Occasionally, increasingly more often, I find myself in situations where I take a moment and wonder:

“How did I get here..”

When you have 6 minutes on a panel you have to be very focused on what you want to say. Refining, simplifying is critical but if you have to explain doughnut economics first, I have to do it succinctly.

I’ve a lot of experience with Miro and how to layout tests, this comes from workshop facilitation during Covid and digital design research in challenging situations that needed adaptive instant solutions.

Pace yourself for the work. Down time and play is important.

A question for you?

Are you open to feedback? I mean do you invite it, do you seek it? What about unsolicited feedback from someone you don’t really know?

Resource

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