Networking and where is At the Grassroots going?
As we’re in the run up to the Winter Solstice, it’s an appropriate time to take a few steps back to reflect on what this project is about and, more importantly where, if anywhere, it’s going. For those of you who have known us for a few years, you’ll be aware that we do review what we do to ascertain if it’s still effective and worth continuing to invest in with our time and energy. This post is a public part of that process.
This blog has had a few predecessors, going all of the way back to the now archived Alternative Estuary which we ran when we were living back in Essex. Each of these blogs had the same core mission:
To support grassroots, neighbourhood level projects
To offer practical support to grassroots projects where appropriate and feasible
To encourage the sharing of skills, knowledge, experience and lessons learned
To list all of the grassroots projects in the area we cover
To try to facilitate networking among grassroots projects in the region so that what emerges becomes greater than the sum of its parts
It can be argued that this is quite an ambitious set of goals to achieve. They are indeed ambitious because, the whole point of what we’re about is doing what we can to start building the sane, sustainable, equitable and just world we want in the decaying shell of the dystopian one we currently have to endure. Essentially, we’re talking about Prefigurative action 23.10.24.
The anarchist conclusion is that every kind of human activity should begin from what is local and immediate, should link in a network with no centre and no directing agency, hiving off new cells as the original grows.
Colin Ward
As we’ve mentioned a good few times before, At the Grassroots is not a fluffy project. We’re deadly serious about the need for radical change. That change can only come from the level of the neighbourhood upwards. Any change that is imposed from the top down through the means of a vanguard is not at all radical in our view and if anything, should be resisted. Which is why we place a huge emphasis on encouraging grassroots projects that can start building the new world we want in the shell of the old one. All well and good...in theory at least...
It’s when it comes to putting all of this into practice that it becomes clear there are numerous obstacles in the way of achieving what’s set out in the core mission above. Some aspects of the core mission outlined above are easier to achieve than others. Over the years, we’ve found the first two aims of supporting projects and offering practical help when needed have been relatively easy to achieve. Amongst others, these projects take in Hardie Park where we used to live in Stanford-le-Hope in Essex, and the Keynsham Community Veg Plot in the Park where we are now in Keynsham. The harder part is getting people to network and share their skills, knowledge and experience.
There have been a fair few attempts along the way at doing this. Some have met with a degree of success, others have fallen by the wayside. At this point, I don’t want to dwell too much on the attempts that have failed, particularly the more recent ones. That because I’m hoping, possibly naively, that lessons have and are being learned. Over the years, we’ve learned a fair few lessons about working with other groups. Lessons which informed this piece: Our terms and conditions for helping out other groups and projects… 2.12.24.
One thing we have realised is that if you’re seriously involved in running a grassroots project, you probably have more than enough on your plate to deal with before you even start to think about setting up a semi-formal network of like minded groups. Sure, you may have informal arrangements with nearby groups but, having the bandwidth to get stuck into building a network is, understandably, often beyond your capacity. We totally get that. We also understand that people want lives outside of activism and don’t want to be badgered into giving up what spare precious time they have to get involved with the bureaucracy of building a network.
If anyone is thinking about bringing people together with the aim of getting them to network and co-operate with each other, in our experience, it does help to have a framework of what you would like to see emerge. Getting people together and simply hoping that karma will make something happen simply isn’t going to cut it. Trust me, I can tell you that from bitter experience! If people are going to be asked to give up an entire day for a networking event, there needs to be enough of a structure set up before the day to ensure any momentum generated can be carried forward and that a network can genuinely grow.
As for attempts that we think will have some genuine long term potential, there’s this project: We Are Avon. It’s been a while in the setting up, that’s for sure. We attended a first initial scoping meeting back in February 2023. This was followed up by a launch event in the September of this year. They’re taking their time but, our feeling is that they want to get things right and on a solid footing before moving forwards. Yes, there is a sense of urgency about what needs to be done but, there are times when that needs to be tempered by an understanding that we’re building a new world inside the shell of the old and it’s imperative that things are set up in the right way to properly enable that.
It should be noted that there’s room for more than one approach in network building. We Are Avon are at one end of the spectrum. Other, simpler options are setting up a WhatsApp group for projects that are either geographically close to each other or, have similar aims. There’s no one size fits all solution or template that can be applied to this. It’s a case of what’s feasible for the projects involved without inducing burnout.
What we’re trying to do with At the Grassroots and what we’ve been trying to achieve since Alternative Estuary is to create and maintain a directory of grassroots projects in whatever region we’ve been operating in. This is the promotion for The Directory that we’ve used on a few previous posts:
In The Directory there’s a list of all the grassroots community projects across Bath, Bristol and the surrounding settlements that we’re currently aware of who, each in their own way, are doing their best to make the world a better place to live in. Whether they would define what they do as prefigurative let alone anarchist is possibly open to debate.
As for The Directory, needless to say, it's a work in progress that is constantly being added to. Any help in doing this or suggestions as to how we can improve The Directory will be greatly appreciated:) Each of these projects has a different story and background we can all learn from. One of the aims of setting up At the Grassroots is to encourage these groups to talk to each other to exchange experiences, ideas and skills with the hope that what emerges is considerably greater than the sum of its parts.
In an ideal world, what we would like is for at least some of the grassroots activists across the Avon region to contribute the occasional piece about their projects, what has and hasn’t worked and most importantly, what lessons have been learned from any failures. This has been our aim going all the way back to Alternative Estuary. It has never happened. To say this is a source of frustration and disappointment to us is an understatement. We wanted Alternative Estuary to be a collaborative project and that never happened. We’d like At the Grassroots to be a collaborative project and as things stand at the moment, there’s no sign of that happening.
It would be tempting after years of trying to simply say sod it, bin this blog and any pretence at networking, and just get on with the rest of our lives. We’ll be honest and say that there have been a number of occasions where we very nearly did just that. The only thing that has pulled us back from the brink has been the amount of work that has been put into The Directory and the fact that with it, we have the basis for something that could be a very useful resource if other people got involved with helping us. It’s the hope that this may happen in 2025 that’s keeping us going. If The Directory could get some traction, then we would be getting the momentum to hopefully move onto bigger things. Well, we can live in hope, can’t we?
This isn’t the blog post we wanted to write. We’d much rather be writing about some successes in helping to get groups to co-operate with each other on a more systematic basis. However, there comes a point where we have to get things out in the open before we can move on. This is that point. We’re going to take our foot off the gas a bit with this blog until the New Year. That will give us the time and space to think about what a realistic trajectory for the At the Grassroots project will look like. Meanwhile, as a gesture of goodwill, we’d like to offer everyone our greetings for the forthcoming Winter Solstice and the festive season that will follow on from that:)