It all starts with a cup of tea...

How changing the world sounds big, but starts small

The stories we’re sharing through ANTIDOTE showcase the big changes that are possible when we come together in our communities and build part of the world we want to live in.

Unfortunately that does run the risk of making change feel overwhelming. If it feels impossible - on top of paying the bills / feeding the kids / surviving - to build a wind turbine like the folks in Lawrence Weston, or buy your own farm like the community in Fordhall - can you really join in?

One of the things we keep learning is almost all of these project start small, often over a cup of tea*

*or a pint, or some food

Start small and human scale

In a moment where the big systems that we’ve idolised for decades are fracturing, it’s inspiring that these projects started at a much more human scale. Whilst they’ve all achieved big things - from crowdfunding a locally stocked greengrocer and then influencing national food policy in Carrickfergus, to getting all of the boroughs of Hull to co-create a better future - they started much more down to earth:

• Carrickfergus greengrocers started with a handful of residents coming together over a meal cooked by 14 volunteers in the village hall, which revealed a collective frustration at overpriced flavourless food, and a desire to re-establish the greengrocer that used to exist on their high-street - but tied to local farming that helped the soil.

• Ambition Lawrence Weston started with a handful of residents frustrated at the demise of local services, deciding to door knock every house in the area and ask what they really wanted from the area - and start building it.

• Cooperation Hull pivot all of their activities around their weekly “Waffle” events - with free food to catalyse community and conversation about what they hope for from the Hull of the future.

Got a kettle? Change the world

The great lesson that has come out of the stories we’ve told so far is that, apart from time and energy, you only need three things to create big change:

• 1: A handful of people:

  It’s never one person - always a chance conversation between a small group, which then grows rapidly as conversation flows.
  

• 2: A shared frustration - and a creative way to overcome it:
  Change often comes when a few people identify the same problem, and decide to do something about it with creativity and imagination
  

• 3: A cup of tea / a pint of beer / some food:
  So many of the stories we’re telling have a moment where a few people decided to meet up for a chat over some food or drink - where an idea turned into a plan to ask more people and things snowballed.

Caring beats control:

It also makes sense because when people come together to take on an issue they care about, they’re more likely to commit with creativity, determination and and irrepressible energy than they are when change is forced on them from outside.

There’s a reason change brewed up over a cuppa by people caring about the same thing probably sticks more easily than change cooked up in a board room or cabinet room and pushed on the public.

If energy can be unlocked, and skills pooled, the resulting change can be huge - as the projects we’re sharing show.

Good ideas spread:

And collective action can lead to systemic change when some of the ideas that communities create work out well enough they inspire others to repeat and replicate them.

Currently just over 1% of the UK energy system is powered by community owned energy generators, but in Germany that figure is 20%.

Small groups can generate big ideas, and big ideas can spread.

So?

Have access to 2 other people, a shared frustration and a kettle? GREAT. You have the key ingredients you need to change the world…..

…as change inevitably starts small, and personal. As Immy Kaur puts it at the end of this film about Civic Square creating a neighbourhood fit for the future in Birmingham - “If you want to create change…

…put the kettle on!” 💪

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