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Following on from the workshop of February 19 2009 - reports here - a small group of staff and Fellows are meeting on March 6 to discuss next steps in development of RSA networks, and general networking among Fellows and friends.

The main idea is that of a “toolkit” that would help Fellows self-organise connections online and face to face.

Tessy Britton outlined the idea here.

Posted to the Google group by Tessy Britton
Meeting outline 6th Mar 2009 11:30am

This is intended as an initial meeting with interested Fellows and staff members from the Fellowship team to discuss ideas concerning taking pro-active steps to help Fellows initiate activities or events by creating interest groups and/or meetups. The idea originated from an understanding that Fellows currently feel that initiating activities and groups within the network feels like a high risk proposition. Fellows might wish to initiate something themselves, but lack confidence in managing the process from a practical perspective.

Some Fellows may:

• have concerns about contacting local Fellows
• worry about people not turning up
• have financial concerns of setting something up unsupported
• assume there is lots of red tape
• feel unsure how to sustain interest
• lack ideas or experience of possible different formats e.g. Open Dinners, Meetups, Open Space etc;
• lack IT skills

As an initial starting point this meeting would hope to:

• Outline the scope of the project: Needs, perspectives, long term possibilities
• Look at process challenges: Crossing/incorporating other projects, RSA/Fellow collaboration
• Examine possible methodologies for community design: discuss methods that ensure the project crosses geographic challenges and all fellows have the opportunity to give their advice or input.
• Next steps, including: strategy, time-scales, responsibilities, funding

Diverse Fellow perspectives are essential, so any Fellows who are interested in developing the project, but can’t attend this initial meeting, will have opportunities to input further into the project, both online and offline, should it proceed.

Hi Everyone

As mentioned we are having an initial meeting with RSAN on Friday 6th March (this week!). We would love to have some thoughts from you before the meeting if possible :)

As an initial feeding in of thoughts on these issues we wondered if you could give some thought to the idea of ‘participation’ and RSA networks and prepare one slide to form part of a collaborative slide presentation for the Toolkits meeting?

1. Proposition - What works in the current proposition? What do you think is missing for you? What would help you recommend RSA Fellowship to someone you knew ….. Join RSA because it will …
2. Current Barriers - What are your current barriers for participation? Conceptual, Practical, Psychological?
3. Tools - What could the RSA do to help you participate more? What could Fellows do to help Fellows participate more? [By tools we mean both technology but also community building and network strategies and ideas - including space etc ]

We would need your slide by lunch time on Thursday 5th March to be incorporated - creative approaches welcome (please) …: not necessarily bullet points

I might put the slides up on Voicethread so that we can enrich with further comments …. we like doing stuff like that….

The lively online discussion continues on Matthew’s Blog and Jemima Gibbons Blog too..

Slides to Tessy Britton brittons100@btinternet.com

Update: the meeting was very positive, and we’ll shortly have further news on the Google discussion group - see link below. There was strong support from RSA staff for the idea of connecting toolkits, and encouragement for Fellows to take a lead - David Wilcox

Discussion also continues on the Google group: you can see the archive and sign up here.

For further information contact: Tessy Britton brittons100@btinternet.com David Wilcox david@socialreporter.com

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