The Bridge to Regions

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Comment by Jonathan Jewell on November 3, 2011 at 11:07

Hey all - great to see how this group is growing! 

 

I wonder if Matthew could give us an update from RSA central, about what to expect next...

Comment by Jonathan Jewell on June 3, 2011 at 12:06

Hello John Adam Street/Fellowship Council/Matthew and Luke,

 

Do we have an update on what is going on here? Can we have one?

 

Thanks,

 

Jonathan

Comment by Jonathan Jewell on April 2, 2011 at 23:21

Hi Tessy, has Bob set up his group yet? Could you link this forum to it?

 

Jonathan

Comment by Jonathan Jewell on March 15, 2010 at 22:10

The two questions I am sure that can be answered (by someone) with little effort are:

a) are regional committees 'representation committees' or not (i.e. do committee members represent the regional fellowship or not - and if so, what is their role?)

b) are regional committees strategic or operational? and is that supposed to be the case?

Jonathan

Comment by Ruth Churchill Dower on March 15, 2010 at 20:13

Blimey - that came out much longer than intended - sorry guys! I'll try using paragraph breaks next time. :)

Comment by Ruth Churchill Dower on March 15, 2010 at 20:10

Hi there, I may well be going over some slightly old ground here, so forgive me if so as am new to this thread, but wanted to offer my support and ideas on building networks and connecting up the regions. I run Earlyarts, a national CPD network for creative practice in early years that was started in 2002. Three years ago we were only operating in the north of England and despite a strong vision we were still struggling with dwindling funding, disparate membership, and finding our members own local networks and projects constantly cut short for the same reasons. Really innovative practice was falling through the holes in the funding and research net - everyone was experiencing it but no-one had the capacity to do much about it. We invited the Paul Hamlyn Foundation on board who helped us to start thinking more clearly with our members about future structures that were more suitable to capture and support the work of our sectors (arts, culture and early years). They funded a small piece of national research, firstly exploring how we could better connect up our knowledge, skills, cultures and networks across the country (and beyond), and secondly looking in depth at different models of sustainable enterprise to ensure such a network could last for a long time yet. Three years later, we have established the first national social franchise model for creative early years professionals, launched a national growth programme and brought on board 23 Pathfinder Partners. These are established organisations (some operating in consortia) who met our criteria for track record, links into the local networks in this sector, understanding of the issues involved, and capacity to run regional hubs. We invite them to contribute 8 days per year of their time to recruit new members and run the four CPD events per year as part of the national network (using our tried and tested models) in return for a significant investment from the central team in marketing, admin, central event bookings system, IT and social media, and so forth. To cut a long story short, we help them do their jobs better, meet their strategic objectives for creative learning, and enable a national network to flourish by combining the power of the connections, skills and small resources each one is able to bring. So far our combined efforts have almost doubled the membership and the income isn't far behind, we are all much better connected (and represented at national level) than before, understand our fit within the bigger picture, have increased our confidence in using social capital, and our Pathfinders are proud of their contribution to making a big difference to children's lives by helping to raise standards in creative training for those that are closest to our children. By 2012 we intend to have have replaced all grant aid and by 2015 to have built up the reinvestment pot that our regional Pathfinders will then have the decision making power over in terms of how and where it is spent to underpin the work of our local networks. The result - we reduce competition between each other for project funds in the sector, we help build up a stronger mixed-economy culture, we offer a social enterprise business model that underpins their own work be they a large local authority or small freelance musician, we share a huge amount of intelligence in small, local, meaningful ways, and we connect people into something that makes them realise how special and important their work is in an increasingly poorly paid and undervalued world. We are hoping to achieve this with extremely low overheads through a strategic balance of both human networks and online networks, as it is crucial to recognise and nurture people's humanity and identity in an increasingly homogenous online society. Its not all roses and by no means easy, but we have learned a great deal and I would be more than happy to share more on this model with RSA groups if you think it might be useful. An outline of our social media strategy is here on slideshare (click on Network Navigators), including a few characteristics of our networked learning community, which is what brought me to this as it rings true with many of the characteristics Susan talks about below. Many thanks for bearing with me! Just hoping some of the lessons we have learned might be of use to others. Ruth

Comment by Paddy Deans on March 15, 2010 at 17:58

Re: Jonathan's comment about issues that have clouded the role of regional committees. I think there are a number of regional committees in a quandry as to what their future practical role is and this has caused some discussion within ours in the North East.

With the RSA's re-structuring and the introduction of regional managers, we are still finding our way as to how best to collaborate with them for maximum shared benefit etc.
It would be interesting to share experiences with other regions and to see what useful 'best practice' ideas drop out as a consequence.

My other concern is that the RSA is flourishing with a plethora of on-line interaction, ideas and discussion groups, but in order to sift the wheat from the chaff, those very few worthy grains need to be recognised and managed via some simple well understood mechanisms so that they can be fertilised and grown on to reach a meaningful outcome.

Talk is fun, cheap and easy. It's what you do with it - that counts. Managing it is time consuming and therefore expensive whether in free-time given up or bought-in help. This is the crying-off point and with the click of a mouse button it's gone - like now!

Comment by Susan Jones on March 4, 2010 at 12:44

Thanks Bob
An when it comes to 'representation' there are another raft of qualities to define. I was sharply told by someone in my own sector last week that an individual can't 'represent' others in their profession within wider contexts unless there is a formalised mechanism in place - "otherwise they are putting only their own views forward".
New approaches to delivering representative structures that are inclusive and participatory are also something we are examining in detail - for a network of13,500 locationally disparate individuals.

And as an FC member voted in by NE RSA, I need to identify the ways to 'represent' this region's wider views as some have expressed concern that this isn't in my remit.

Comment by Susan Jones on March 3, 2010 at 13:53

Adding some trains of thought to this thread - that also cross-relate to the thread around building networks, I guess I feel the 'secret to success' in terms of creating synergy amongst people who intend to work together on achieving common goals and aspirations is in part to do with examining the their characteristics. Some reasearch we did to form a 'new network' in 2004 (that is stronger and better in 2010) defined the Critical qualities and characteristics of successful networks as:

• Access into other networks
• Alliance (rather than membership)
• Aspirational
• Capacity for change
• Constantly updated
• Dynamic
• Challenging stereotypes
• Focused on activity
• ‘Give to get’
• Informal, organic
• Knowledgeable
• Mutual respect
• Openness to change
• Pooling resources
• Practical and artistic support
• Proactive
• Quick information exchange
• Self-managing
• Social and professional
• Trust and generosity
• Welcoming

Whether regional networks or interest-group networks would it be useful to create some kind of sign up amongst participants in this way?

Comment by Peter Churchill on February 27, 2010 at 16:47

Bob

Tessy pointed me at the Regions work, and I believe Susan Jones from this area has good relevant experience of building networks. A group of us in the NE became interested in the subject about 3 years ago, and did a bt of work on how on-line tools might widen and boost what could be achieved on the ground. Whilst it is a bit dusty we would be pleased to share it, in particular a short descriptive paper (which Tessy made a contribution to).

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