Lorna’s Week Notes: Cycles of lab life

Week Notes #9 TL;DR We closed the first phase of an enquiry with Dudley Council and the NHS with a wonderful celebration of collective learning, and started the beginning of a 4 year enquiry with collaborators in Watchet, Minehead and Derbyshire’s Amber Valley. Plus my sharing of our work is helped along by Learning Out Loud hour.

It’s interesting to reflect on where we are in doing-learning cycles across different enquiries we’re holding and part of. Much as we love to align with seasonal cycles, some work inevitably runs to organisational and funder schedules, so we find ourselves dancing with beginnings, middles and endings of things all in one month. As I’ve been struggling to carve out time for sharing through Week Notes, here I’m lifting up a celebration of learning from the end of January, and the beginnings of a new enquiry and collaboration using Understory through February. There’s also a little bit about Learning Out Loud Hour, which has helped me to get these notes written, and a brief roundup of other activity between the end of January and now.

A celebration of collective learning

On 28 January members of the Evaluation Enquiry jointly convened by Dudley MBC, the NHS and CoLab Dudley came together in our lab space for the final session of this phase of their learning journey. During the session they were invited to reflect on and document what has changed for a result of the collective learning. In relation to their skills, knowledge, experience of evaluation, and ways the learning enquiry had impacted on them as practitioners? Reflections were captured on an Appreciation Waal (photo above).

When enquiry member Becky had learned about appreciative inquiry and learned that during the session there would be dream element, she was eager to make a dream catcher for everyone to hang thier dreams on together. We’d hung this from the ceiling in advance of the session, and it quickly filled with responses to two questions Dan asked: Where do you want to be in September 2025, and what will you be doing more of?

Dionne shared that an intention for this enquiry had been explore how a community of practice model and learning enquiry approach to enable cross organisational learning. The group reflected on their collective journey by recording the strengths, opportunities, aspirations and results on the Appreciation Wall. They also discussed and noted anything to leave behind. The two things they wanted to leave behind were connving online, they prefer in person sessions, and the online lunchtime drop-ins which had been scheduled to support learning.

Reflecting on changes as a result of the collective learning journey, capturing dreams for the year ahead in relation to evaluation

The next invitation was to dream about the the future possibilities of this community of practice, adding more to the dream catcher in response to prompts such as:

• What are core activities we do together as a community of practice?
• What new ways ways of working are we trying create?
• What policies are we trying to change or establish?
• How does this help and support practitioners?
• What impact does this have on our local community?

I then led an activity to help everyone rapidly generate ideas for ways they might ripple the learning from this enquiry so far. Dionne and I had decided to use the idea generation activity (Crazy 8s) introduced by Gemma from Common Knowledge in a Dudley Time Portal co-design session (I write about it in this Week Note) This is just another example of tools and tactics in the lab cross-pollinating.

A couple of my key learnings from this enquiry have been:

• Don’t underestimate people’s ability to wade through complexity and hold many ways of thinking, being and doing. They know their context best and can apply what works for them. Give them agency, don’t try to only offer one flavour. Ignore all of the voices that say it’s important to simplify, keep things simple, people will only understand if it’s simple. That’s just not true.
• Our lab space and practices have been critical to cultivating conditions for creativity. One enquiry member noted:“CoLab Dudley space is important, the energy is different, feel excited on the way here, the creativity” We work hard to create time and space for reflection and learning, and encourage experimentation. It was noted that people “don’t usually have this”.

Learning Out Loud Hour

In January I received a newsletter from the Transformational Governance Project, which included an open invitation to Learning Out Loud Hour. I hadn’t made space to participate previously, but now that I’m documenting lab activity through Week Notes I decided to commit to these sessions when I could, to cultivate some learning out loud alongside this working our loud. The first session I could get along to was on 29 January. The invitation is straightforward, as Siana shared in the Transformational Governance Community Slack workspace:

🤓 What do we mean by ‘Learning Out Loud’? We’re thinking and sharing in the open about our work-in-progress thoughts and what we’re learning in real-time. None of it has to be perfectly formed and polished, but we recognise the need to document our work and often we need some gentle accountability to feel able to do so. Hence this dedicated space.

⏰ What to expect? 10mins of landing and sharing what you’ll be writing about and reflecting on. 40–45mins to write. 5mins to close things out.

💥 Anything else? It’s mostly a quiet space, but if you wanted to hold some discussion with another willing participant in a breakout room and learn out loud that way, this is also fine.

I was welcomed into the Zoom space by members of the Transformational Governance Stewarding Group, Siana Bangura, a writer, producer, performer and changemaker, and Eulla Jackson, a presenter, film-maker and creative producer. They were curious to learn a little about CoLab Dudley, and then we set our intentions for writing. I was eager to start drawing together some of the learning from the Evaluation Enquiry session the day before, as I was in the CoLab Dudley space and surrounded by collective documentation from the session. My writing from two Learning Out Loud Hours (and time polishing) is in the Lab Notes….

I shared the following feedback in the Transformational Governance Community Slack chat:

Just popping by to say a huge thank to @Siana Bangura and @Euella Jackson for the very warm welcome to Learning Out Loud and the Transformational Governance community. I’m dipping my toes in again here as I design ways to explore regenerative governance more intentionally over the coming year. I love all the writing folk have been doing, and appreciate the newsletter updates.My feedback at the close of the lovely Learning Out Loud was that:

⏰ I liked the time constraint. I wouldn’t usually try to start a blog post in a 45 min slot in my day (I like at least 2 hours). I also choose to write in coffee shops or on the sofa, not usually with team around. But actually it was great, the time constraint and accountability really focused me.

📝 I think as a result, I found myself writing in a totally differently to the way I usually do, I got lots down and didn’t worry about writing in paragraphs, I just worked on key content and looked at how the structure was emerging.

🍰 I think Learning Out Loud hour will help me write punchier, more bite sized posts than I usually do, which will be good to mix in to our working out loud.

🤸‍♀️ I’m really looking forward to joining more Learning Out Loud sessions in the current series.

In the second Learning Out Loud Hour I managed to get the piece below about Understory written 🙌

Sharing my work with Dudley CVS colleagues: slides about Understory and a pop up exhibition of Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice work

Venturing into the Understory

Back in Autumn 2023 I invited people active in communities across Dudley borough to take part in an Understory workshop. At that point in time Understory was a partnership between social enterprise Onion Collective and design studio Free Ice Cream.

Understory is a digital mapping tool that allows communities to reveal the hidden connections that bind them together…

Understory’s mapping tools enable communities to explore interdependencies between sectors; the community’s goals and how these change over time; the organisations that are collaborating effectively and those that are working in silos. It is for anyone who cares about people, thrives on connections and desires a collective approach to change.

~ Onion Collective

Thanks to a Reaching Communities grant, Onion Collective were able to work in 30 places across the UK to generate Understory maps which explore the various forms of social capital that help communities to be connected and resilient. We were chuffed that Dudley was one of those places, and our workshop and people from our network feature in the 5 minute video introducing Understory below 😊

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In 2024, Onion Collective asked if CoLab Dudley would like to become a lead from one of four places they wanted to develop more Understory work in. We jumped at the chance, and we’re now a partner in their successful National Lottery Community Fund (UK Fund) project which will run over the next four years. Over four years, with local networks, we’ll be exploring attachment as a means to mobilise: from our rootedness to the dream space (that’s the title of this phase of Understory).

In mid January the contract from the funder arrived in Onion Collective’s inbox, meaning we could get started! I’m aiming to cultivate an Understory Stewarding Group in Dudley, so have started by asking a few folk from different parts of our local network to join initial conversations as we get started. At the end of January we checked in with Georgie and Sally from Onion Collective, then on 4 February myself, Holly and Deb from the CoLab Dudley team, Becky from Dudley CVS and Keeley from Black Country Foodbank joined an online session which marked the opening of this phase of Understory. We met Zara, Jim, Ray and Maya from Minehead and Coast Development Trust, reconnected with Rachel Smith from Make/Shift based in Amber Valley, south Derbyshire, Georgie and Sally from Onion Collective (who are based in Watchett) and Simon and Sam from Free Ice Cream.

Sally and Georgie explained that, in a nutshell, this Understory project is about fostering community and nature attachment, and how that will lead to action. They wanted to work with each of us because they like our work, we’re rooted in places with rich and interesting histories and we’re all quite different organisations. They are interested in pairing Derbyshire and Dudley, Watchet and Minehead, to look at similarities and differences between us.

Following introductions we were invited into a Miro board to begin recording and sharing work we have on the go or planned, which might be directly related to Understory activity or which might feel adjacent at present. We also jotted down any fears we have about the project, our hopes and what we’re excited about, and any inspirational reading that has informed our thinking. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s wonderful writing was mentioned more than once, as was June Holley’s Network Weaving and David Erlichman’s great *Impact Networks* book.

The session was brought to a close with Simon excitedly sharing a number of playful ideas of activities we might consider in our places, to help people to explore and think differently.

A couple of weeks later I took an opportunity to very briefly share an overview of the Understory work with colleagues from Dudley CVS at a session in which we share our forming plans for the year ahead and identify collaboration opportunities between teams and projects. There will be lots more to follow on Understory in my Week Notes and Lab Notes.

In our first fortnightly drop-in, Simon shared some thinking that he, Sam, Georgie and Sally had been developing around cycles / spirals of activity through this work over four years. I was delighted as it reflected exactly how we think about our work, and was rooted in shifts through seasons, with gatherings of all partners to be planned roughly around the equinoxes and solstices. It will be really helpful to have our longer enquiries rooted in natural cycles and the different energies of designing, doing, learning, reflecting and celebrating flowing through the lab in a stream each year.

A brief roundup of other activities

Local creative leads in an Urban Rooms Enquiry session at CoLab Dudley

Urban Rooms Enquiry Session on 29 January

12 local creatives came together to share stories of thier Urban Rooms Dudley experiences so far. This session was designed to call attention to who gets to imagine and create the futures of our town, and referred back to research CoLab Dudley undertook and shared between 2021 and 2023. We then revisited the creative documentation and data zine introduced to creative leads for Urban Rooms Dudley in November (shared in this Week Note). Creatives discussed in pairs how they would generate data and creatively document their Urban Room activities.

Collaging at Time To Make, CoLab Dudley

Urban Rooms Dudley sessions

There have been a further 8 Urban Room sessions since my last Week Note. Local filmmaker Soheila has been bringing together people keen to explore Dudley through photography, and they have been sharing contributions to an exhibition of Collective Photography for Hope. Hannah has continued working with a family using embroidery and textile art to create pieces holding Memories of Dudley. She also led a Memories of Nature session in half term. Laura led the final of the three Mapping Relief workshops.

Mapping Relief and Memories of Nature workshop pieces created by local people

Sarah hosted her second Playtime in Dudley workshop. It was an absolute joy hearing her inviting children to time travel with her to taste the 1980s (they taste like Wagon Wheels and Swizzels Parma Violet sweets, in case you were wondering), and to travel to the future and draw image of their bedrooms in the year 3000. She has been making audio recordings of conversations, and is yet to decide what form the workshops will be creatively documented through.

Rick led a fishy Time To Make session, inviting collages to be created in response to fish poems.

Considering all things fishy at today’s time to make session 🐟 Led by the super talented @willis_designs_shop who shared his poems for us to use as inspiration for collage making.

Really interesting to consider the impact human actions have on national and local waterways and wildlife.

~ Time To Make on Instagram

Scenes from Time To Make

Co-working

I’m enjoying a gentle monthly rhythm of spending time in our CoLab Dudley space co-working with people from our network. It’s a nice way to help relationships to gently develop.

Kith & Kin Living Lab

We’ve been initiating what we hope will be a new cycle in support of learning through our climate justice work; an annual Living Lab co-created and facilitated by people from our fields of practice, but not directly involved in our work.

We’ve been delighted to begin conversations with two amazing fellow travellers who will be leading Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice partners through a Living Lab process in March. Bridget McKenzie is the founder of the wonderful Climate Museum UK and Culture Declares Emergency. Bridget leads the Earth Talk course and community of practice which I’m part of. We’ve introduced Bridget to with Raechel Kelly, founder of Planet Cheltenham, who I met when we both hosted Doughnut Economic Learning Journeys in 2022 with CIVIC SQUARE and others.

Through two online sessions we’ve seen that Raechel and Bridget have really complimentary skills and experiences, and have quickly seen how to draw on and respond to each other’s strengths and comfort zones. We’ll share more on the Living Lab later in spring.

Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice

We’ve been having great conversations around this work, drawing together and responding to learning and data from 2024, and making plans for 2025. We’re in a tentative phase of our annual cycle with this work, thoughtfully initiating new collaborations, and making plans to deepen others. We’ll be moving into action in spring and summer, so lots will be revealed!