Summer Gatherings - Deep Listening

May-October 24

This project, facilitated by David Lees, aims to assemble a series of gatherings across Scotland, engaging folks who are active in their communities to better understand what issues are live for them, and how they interact with ‘power’.

The next dates are:

  • 4th August. The Nav School, Stromness, Orkney

  • 18th August. Hapworks, Dundee

  • 25th August. Boat of Garten Hall

  • 22nd September. Venue TBC Hawick

  • 5th October. The Stove, Dumfries

Please contact David on david@galgael.org to book a place

The assemblies take the form of a gathering; participants are invited to share food together, before coming together to give their thoughts / inputs / answers to three provocations: an INTRO, who are you and how do you relate to PLACE; what do you CARE about, and how does this show up in your work; how do you understand COMMUNITY; (finally) How do you interact with POWER? Who are ’THEY’ (here)?  

Responses are documented by the facilitator, and participants are encouraged to take notes too. These are kept by the facilitator, and used to sense check / give other perspectives on what’s been discussed. Folks active in their communities will often pick up subtleties that can be missed by an ‘outsider’ so this method aims to bridge that gap. 

The outcome of the project will be a paper that details the common and place specific themes that are identified through the gatherings. This will be shared with folk who have participated in the gatherings, and more broadly through partner organisations. A final gathering will be help in October 2024 inviting participants from previous sessions and new folk to meet and discuss the themes that have been identified.

A subsequent piece of work that could be initiated is a series of national assemblies convened around themes; for example, on housing, on culture, on belonging (these are almost placeholders at this point, the themes will arise from the summer gatherings). The long term vision for this work is to empower folk to iterate, prefigure and enact the country they want to live in, on the basis of the work that is already being done at grassroots level.