Step Five: Public Workshops
Two series of public workshops were hosted. At the first round of nine themed workshops based on TTT working group themes (plus others identified) such as Food, Education, Biodiversity, etc., the project was introduced and discussed. Some creative methods to be used during the workshop were also discussed. As a group, the participants identified assumptions about the key drivers and changes they anticipated influencing the future. For example, here are some of the assumptions identified at the Economics and Livelihoods workshop:
- Energy more scarce & expensive
- Cost of all energy – drastic rebalancing / extra costs factored in
- Other resources will become more expensive & scarce
- Lack of capital investments
- Continually escalating oil prices
- Other fossil fuels will influence market dynamics
- Money will drive change- pressure of rising costs
- Any industrial product that uses fossil fuels will be exorbitantly expensive – (true costs reflected)
- Economic climate crisis
- End of neo-liberal financial system
The second part of the workshop was based on future scenarios planning. Participants worked in smaller groups and a scenario was set, such as considering the future of the Local County Hospital over the next 21 years. Participants divided the workshop into two sections, on one side they considered significant changes and developments if we continued business as usual, on the facing side they added ideas if society was willing to change. In most cases, participants found it much easier to imagine a creative future where people were willing to change rather than continue as usual (as can be seen below).
Future scenarios planning
The workshop finished with some visioning as a reconvened group. Participants were invited to close their eyes and imagine themselves in the early morning, one day in 2030. They called out their thoughts and feelings, then put them on post-it notes and added them to the large timeline on the year 2030. The Visions contributed varied from informal and casual such as “warm friendships with my neighbours” to quite specific ones, such as “stronger communities, using alternative sources of energy” (see Appendix V).
A further round of workshops was hosted which started with the Visions from the earlier workshops, and invited participants to suggest ideas for plans and actions which would work towards these, a process sometimes referred to as ‘backcasting’. Participants worked in small groups at tables using visions selected based on the workshop topic(s). Using large sheets and Post-It notes, they worked from the visions sitting in the middle of the sheet and drew 4 concentric circles, the inner space for 2030, the next line 2023, the next 2016 and the outside area for 2009. As you can see from the photos many ideas were put forward through this process. People could move about between the tables as this was organised as a world café / open space interactive and creative workshop.
Participants select visions at the Society & Values, Health & Wellbeing Workshop
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