I was up in Birmingham yesterday, at the NEC for the Together We Can Conference. I attended the London conference last year and came away pretty impressed.
Yesterdays event was similarly slick. It was fronted by the BBCs Darren Jordan and featured Hazel Blears and Baroness Andrews amongst the speakers. The highlight of the day though was the ARC Theatre Company acting out the challenges of community engagement under direction from the audience. Steve suggested a few months ago that we try this at a public meeting in Bristol but I was dubious suggesting that it all sounded a bit Legz Akimbo. As it happens it was a terrifically enjoyable excercise that reinvigorated the audience nicely after lunch.
The community engagement agenda is a key one and this particular program has been identified as the flagship for it. It chimes very closely with the thinking and the practical eDemocracy work that has been done here in Bristol over the past two years. It might be useful for us to find a way to get our work built into the next conference. I think I’ll send a couple of emails and see what happens.