Stroud, September 13/14/15 2024
Seeding a... Festival of Commoning
The time is right for aFestival of the Commons
- A celebration of Commons initiatives, of all kinds
- A collective re-imagining of what can be achieved
- An outpouring of Commons culture
- Birthing a Knowledge Commons of practice and principles
- A movement-building festival
- For Commoners and people of all kinds:
- — those for whom the idea of the Commons feels hopeful
- — Practitioners, activists and workers
- — Writers, thinkers, experts and academics
- — artists and creatives of all kinds
... bring together and celebrate the groups building more convivial places, and encourage more — together!
This can only happen if early crowdfunding raises money. Not much is needed, but we need to move fast to secure venues.
Please read as much as you need to, then click the 'Connect' button - we need to hear from you, whether you are up for crowdfunding or not.
Seeding a Festival of Commoning
Launching a new Festival is not something obvious to do. And certainly not something to do if you are busy working on serious projects already.
But the energy in Stroud, where ‘Commons’ as an idea that brings people together around bringing the basics of local provisioning into community control only kicked off two years ago — and the connections made with other towns — and the number of projects that are popping up all over with ‘commons’ in the name or in the purpose — is just remarkable.
This is not a festival just to ride on the back of that energy — if it works at all, it is a festival AS a Commons — all those who contribute, all those who participate, will be the Commoners of this Festival. This is intended to support us all and bring in new energy - perhaps even birth a movement!
WHAT THIS MEANS IS THAT THE FESTIVAL WILL BE AS BIG AS EARLY CROWDFUNDING MAKES IT
The guiding vision of those few of us who have got it this far is humble — this year, we just want to successfully bring as many different Commons-interested people together, over a few days; to enable conversations, experience sharing, build connections, have a good time - and see what happens!
There’s too much detail about how we want to take this forward to put on this makeshift website. You can read more —- and comment on — a longer document.
What could the Festival have?
Right now, we’re imagining all sorts of things. Some we are confident can happen, others are totally dependent on people coming together to build the Festival as its own Commons.
Here are the key ideas - please, let us know your thoughts!
Common / Open Spaces
Events, workshops, stalls open to everyone - no ticket required. Help people feed their interest — build their confidence and understanding.
Mini Conference
Bring together practitioners, activists, workers and commoners with a sprinkling of experts and academics. Seed a Knowledge Commons of Commoning.
Commons Culture
Music, Art, Comedy, Drama, Literature - you name it! Ticketed and open. Notable performers, writers and speakers - and community groups, too - across on a wide-range: Commons and not-so-Commons.
Exhibition / stalls
Make a showing! So many initiatives across the country are doing amazing and uplifting work (not to mention the hard graft..) to bring commoning to life and back to the forefront of our culture. Let people understand just what is already being done, inspire them to more!
Make a noise!
Put Commoning on the news agenda, seed a movement for Commons infrastructure projects everywhere!
Have some fun!
Commons entertainment is most special when it’s participatory and open to all - at least one Ceilidh. But we can look forward to choral participation, drumming, street dance and more.
...so much is possible - what can we achieve?
Help the Festival become what it needs to be
We’d be grateful if you could spend ten minutes on a survey form, so we can understand what people hope for from the Festival, and what they would like to bring to it.
In particular, and very soon, we need to understand how much crowdfunding support there is, and the survey has questions on that (no commitments asked for!).
If you don't want to do the survey, but would like to be kept up-to-date, use this form - add your organisation named / website and anything you'd like to say, and we'll let you know as we progress.
