Hosting a community

U.lab is a global movement of change-makers where action and self-organization begins locally. In order to make a bigger impact, we notice hosting the community that is emerging through u.lab as a very relevant hub-role. This might be within a local area, an organization, a country or even a continent. Hosting a community asks for a longer-term focus, beyond the 8-week u.lab course, in order to establish, grow and sustain it. In order to apply the learnings in the real world.

Establishing a community

Communities exist and function offline, in 'the real world', and online. So, in addition to organizing meetings in person, it is good to provide opportunities for people to connect online through for example a Facebook group/page, a twitter hashtag, and a hub on the presencing.org website.

An example from Scotland: #ulabscot had a lot of intention and attention for establishing and hosting the u.lab community within the country. In summer 2015 they began with inviting interested people and bringing them together to talk about what the potential of u.lab might be.

To give you a flavour of what these gatherings were like, here are links to a few videos:

Things to think about when establishing a community

  • What is your intention for yourself and for the community? These questions might be framed together as hub hosts by going through the process outlined in the sample 3-hour session.

  • Who is your community? Who are you serving?

  • What is the value for the people joining the community?

  • What tone do you wish to set when establishing and serving this community?

  • What are the conditions that might ignite enthusiasm?

  • How do you pique curiosity in people to find out more and/or register for u.lab and for your hub(s)?

  • How will you harvest and share stories from the community?

  • Who are the people 'on the periphery' of u.lab and what do they need to be able to take a step closer to participating? Go to where the energy is rather than trying to recruit or convert. (see more below)

  • Who are your key influencers, and technical and creative partners? Nurture relationships with the people who are enthusiastic and want to contribute their talents and passion to the process.

  • How might the community grow and sustain itself? How can you do this in the ethos of the U process? How will you let go of preconceptions and let things emerge?

An important question is: who can help you in creating and holding this? As with the hosting of the actual events, you don't have to do it alone.

Growing your community

U.lab is a learning experience. It's transformational power comes from its implementation. By intentionally hosting a community you can influence the way people are introduced to u.lab, to its approach and potential impact.

In our experience, people can have different responses on the invitation to participate in u.lab:

1."I've been waiting for this all my life!" (people who are ready)

2."Hmm, this looks interesting, but I'm not sure what it is or if it's worth my time." (people who are on the periphery)

3."Not for me, thanks."

You can think about a way how to respond to those on the periphery. What are the next steps you can offer? You might want to:

·just pique their curiosity: What is u.lab? Where can they find out more information?

·offer an experience, a taste of it: What will it feel like? How will they benefit from it?

·bring in stories/testimonials of people without an agenda. Stories they can relate to.

·demonstrate the different ways in which people can participate. Some people like to experience it for themselves at first, others like to learn with others.

Sustaining your community

While the u.lab 1x course lasts a certain amount of weeks, you might want your community to exist beyond this. 2x supports in sustaining your community, hubs are using video-material to reconnect and to continue the dialogue.

Create spacesfor the community to get together and find each other:

1.In-person gatherings

2.Online spaces and social media are a powerful force for people to find each other. Some suggestions: a Facebook group, twitter hashtag, perhaps a blog to share stories & as a way of contacting people in your community.

How can you make the most of the resources within the community? We have found that when people feel passionately about something, they are incredibly creative and generous with their time and resources. Some people offered up a room in their building, others offered their facilitation skills for free. Others brought tea and coffee.

Be prepared for questions.

Be prepared for the long game

. You are aiming for a self-sustaining, self-organized movement in which you will eventually no longer be needed. At some point, you will lose control over the message, as it becomes a collective and co-created one, which means that it is important to do what you can at the start to embed the core idea, intention, and values in the foundation. People will come up with their own ideas and solutions.

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