Community Resilience Live Talks

I have worked in Community Project Management and as a Therapist for over 20 years - living my passion for supporting people, and creating heart-felt responses to challenges. I've always thrived on looking at the needs of the community, and engaging in ways to support the communities in being able to respond to those challenges collectively. 

I was a busy bee, like so many of us! And then the pandemic hit, putting pay to everything I was doing instantly. Like many, I've had to adapt my work, and what I am able to create, working virtually while the pandemic continues. 

I attended an online course last autumn, called Deep Adaption, which began a shift in my thinking and my work towards serving our potential to face the challenges of our time, including climate breakdown and issues like food shortages. I had been contemplating what I could do to be of use to people in this time. 

What felt important was for us to have spaces for these conversations, so we can face these challenges together, to forge a heart-felt, resilient response, to regard this as a moment of opportunity. Maybe there is a gift in our self-destructive trajectory being interrupted, and that by working together collaboratively, we can build community resilience responses to the challenges of our times.

I came up with the idea of inviting inspiring people onto live Facebook conversations, exploring different topics each week, offering a format where people could engage and interact live from across the world, providing a source of support for people in these very changeable and unpredictable times. We did a pilot in December 2020 and immediately had a great response.

So "Community Resilience Live Talks" was born, I’ve put a lot in to setting everything up including the social media platforms, YouTube Channel and learning about Podcasting. We launched the live conversations on 11th of Jan 2021.

 There’s been such an incredible response to them, and we are already reaching hundreds of people each week, plus an unknown amount through the podcasts that go out across 12 platforms ever week including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts and many more.

I've had 2-3 speakers on each week, and already we've explored resilient responses to important topics such as Embracing Chaos, Nature and Mental Wellbeing. I already have speakers lined up for the next 6 weeks and beyond exploring topics including Food Resilience, Intentional Community, Faith and Work & Money with some really inspiring people who are all generously giving their time free.

So far I have self-funded the project and given all the time I have to getting it off the ground. It has been a labour of love! Creating it on the tiny amount I'm living on after losing my job has got me this far, but to keep the project going I now need help.

I’m requesting funding for 25 hours of admin time a week, to cover my basic living costs so I can run this project. In reality It takes at least 40-45 hours per week, the other 15-20 hours per week I will offer voluntary. 

My admin time includes: 

• Sourcing 2-3 speakers for each week’s conversation.
• Technical support and coaching for the speakers.  
• Communicating with each week’s groups, supporting them to be able to come together on the chosen topic and join the call as a cohesive group.
• Facilitating group conversations together before the live call, to look at how we want to approach the topic.
• Building a library of resources on each topic.
• Collating data from the speakers to put together the event description with their information.
• Social media posting, marketing and networking.
• Video editing for YouTube upload, and audio editing for podcasts.
• Following up individual communications with people who would like support from what we talk about, including signposting.
• Researching data and reading for each week’s topic.
• Creating and running the website, to share global resources to support the resilient responses that are challenging communities all over the world. 
• Building a resource library on the website. 
• Facilitate a web based community, connecting people to work on solutions together.

I’m asking for this amount to fund the project for 1 year - 52 weeks of live conversations and more behind the scenes, as detailed above...

To enable to me dedicate myself to running this, and to be able to create and run a website platform for the resources and collaborative work that is already starting to grow out of this project, the costs are as follows:

Breakdown of costs to run Community Resilience Live Talks for 1 year

Media Costs:

• Podcasting and mastering fees -     £240 
• Zoom License -                                  £173
• Marketing Budget (£30 per month) £360 
• Website with Domain & Hosting -   £88
• Audio recording equipment -          £150

 Sub-Total: £1011.00

My Costs To Run It:

• Live Hosting Fee @ £30 per hour (52 weeks x 2 hours per week) - £3,120
• Admin @ £12 per hour (52 weeks x 25 hours per week) -                £15,600 

 Sub-Total: £18,720

Crowdfunder Fees

Funding platform costs 1.9% + 0.23p per transaction (estimated) -   £450

Grand total £20,181

Please help us support people to navigate resilient, community-based, heart-felt responses to the challenges of our times.

Thank you for making this possible.

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See our YouTube channel for videos recordings of the conversations so far:

Community Resilience Live Talks - YouTube

Here is out Spotify Channel for the weekly podcasts:

https://open.spotify.com/show/7GdKMBCV1bHh4m29f7Uh0J

Each conversation is Live on our Facebook page, every Tuesday 6-7.30pm GMT:

https://www.facebook.com/communityresiliencelivetalks