Wholesome Planning and Effective Action

It has to be said, women are the glue that keeps community, not just together, but stuck to or focused on task.

Whilst your hub continues to stick to purpose (encouraging growth through interaction and good conversations), we will engage with and deepen that theme by checking and appreciating out the role women play in our community.

And so the focus of the next hub is how we can all profit and benefit from the nurturing, holistic approach that is, quite rightly associated with the female way of doing things. We will therefore look at the ways in which we, as a community, can inspire our youth and lead entrepreneurship, in business, work, hobbies or learning – indeed anything that adds value to the group or an individual. That’s profit!

Your hub will also recognise, that healthy planning, which must, by definition, take the needs of all the enterprises stakeholder’s into account (a stakeholder is simply anyone who has an interest in any endeavour) also needs a good dose of masculine ‘action’ to bring the desired ‘result forth or into fruition’, which simply put means ‘get in there’ (or GOAL!)

At the last hub your hosts heard a great discussion about the meaning of healing. For us it is the ‘the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again’ We believe that seeing wholesome goals and taking effective action we make us sound.

Come along to some or all of the day, on the 14^th  of next month https://communityhub.live/wednesday-14th-september-hitchin-community-hub-day-sun-hotel.

The Triple Bottom Line

The Community Hub on Thursday, as part of the ‘People & Business Matters’ program, continued to explore the ideas behind the Triple Bottom Line (‘TBL’) that measure our community success through:

• PROFIT – how we create value through providing goods & services to each other, make £s and build our careers
• PEOPLE – how we interact, support each other, pass on knowledge and skills and share experiences through good conversations.
• PLANET – the way we take care of ourselves now, without compromising the ability of future generations

Underpinning what we do is the idea of ‘Wellness’ or how healthily we approach our challenges and growth. Your Hub Facilitators are seeking your input into how we meet Community and Individual Wellness, building on the key components which we see as:

• PROFIT

o   Engaging in meaningful occupation; business, careers, work or caring

o   Being a valued and respected employer and employee

o   Pursuit of hobbies, academic study, interests outside of occupation

o   Building meaningful and trusted contacts

• PEOPLE

o   Social wellness through connections, closeness, relationships, diversity & fun

o   Emotional wellness by exploring ideas & resolving concerns via resiliency

o   Intellectual wellness through debate, discussion and sharing new concepts

o   Physical wellness through food, exercise and stretching

o   Healthy growth by having a philosophy to life that makes good sense

• PLANET

o   Being conscious of our planets limited resources

o   Taking time to be aware of the beauty in our natural world

o   Recycle, conserve, reuse and nurture

o   Creating a calm, clean environment at home, in work and outside too

What can or would you add?

 

Turn Up, Tune In

One of the enduring qualities of a community is to be ever present, especially during times of change. Indeed, at ‘every turn’ exactly as the Byrds sung for us, there is a time, for example, to heal, to plant and to reap.

The current focus of your Community Hub is on that new growth, by helping us all to:

1. Understand our current situation

2. Dream our (personal or collective) vision for the future

3. Plan the journey forward

4. Take action

If you have ‘good conversations’ with each other, your hosts are confident you will also hold each other to ‘account’ for sensibly delivering on your plans, and in doing so to find that there is a ‘time to laugh, celebrate, mourn and complete’.

Our ambition is that your Community will support you through each of those turns.

Please see the events page on this website for information on where you can find us over the next few weeks!

 

Community Open Day – ‘When in Doubt, Trust the Group’

We had a great time in Stevenage at the Community Open Day, which was more of a Community Hub ‘Lite’ version.

We met a few new people in Cinnabar at the coffee event in the morning, some of whom came and joined us in the BTC Centre later on in the morning, and again in the evening.

The day flowed nicely as we placed ourselves in the cafeteria and met with a gentle stream of people coming and going for drinks and ‘good conversations’.

We have been very pleased by the positive response to the Community Hub idea and have already had a number of requests from people who wish to become sponsors of the main hub in Hitchin from August. It has been pleasing to see people wishing to genuinely engage with Community activity in such generous spirit, with a true understanding of what it is we all wish to achieve.

The current sponsors wishing to offer bite sized advisory services to attendees as well as seminars and workshops, within the hub include: HR advice for small businesses and employees; Business Banking; Financial Planning; Insurance Advice; Business Advice; Personal Coaching & Counselling.

We are also delighted to have someone coming to the hub to offer short Reflexology treatments throughout the day and we, will have Sports Injury and Fitness Specialists on hand at some of the days offering support.

The link4Business event in the evening was a very fruitful meeting. Many of the participants had been at parts of the Hitchin Hub Day the previous week and so we took the opportunity to review the needs of the group, going forward. During the meeting more collaborations were formed and supportive friendships are beginning to grow. We will also now have a photographer and videographer attending the hub days to record and document the journey.

In addition to our Ska-Tea party in August, the Community Hub games night was also born as we believe that friendship is key to building a supportive and nurturing environment for growth in all ‘people and business matters’. Our motto says it all ‘Cum in Dubium, Fiducia Coetus’ or ‘When in Doubt, Trust the Group’.

All in all, we can safely say that it has been a very good and productive start to the first month of the hub. Watch this space for more news of the social events we will be holding in addition to the monthly Community Hub days. It is very exciting news.

If you wish to find out more about sponsoring the hub, please contact us via the contacts page on this website, with your query.

In you wish to talk with one of us, then please call Emma on 07791 520388 or email emmajaynes@virginmedia.com

We look forward to seeing you soon !

Developing your Community Hub

People & Business Matters
Thank you for attending the Community Hub Day. Like all good collaborations it was both interesting and useful to receive and appreciate your aspirations, wishes and challenges. The Community Hub Day is an opportunity to invest and share time, skills and insights and build your personal and professional resilience. This what you conveyed:
1. In general
It seems you all appreciated the laid back, informal, ‘plenty of time’ approach that allowed you to have good conversations and start to get to know each other. It seems that leads you to feel more confident with each other, which will of course lead to even greater sharing. So making connections and allowing both time and content for those connections to be deepened will be an essential component of all of your Hubs.
Sharing basic business skills, experiences and stories seemed to help you all start to imagine a new set of ways of doing things or new friends to do them with.
2. People
As social creatures you enjoyed exploring hobbles, health and wellbeing and local news. Many of you found you already had common interests and connections. You liked the idea of building new skills and some have asked to explore the meaning of ‘Empowerment’ which will be the theme of the next workshop.
3. Business
As commercial creatures (and be clear running a home is vital business for humanity’s prosperity) you liked the idea of having access to trusted advisors and mentors with whom you could explore your doubts, express your dreams and develop new skills. You wondered how you could go about deepening connections and making reciprocal contacts. That pleased and inspired us and we propose to explore that further too.
Conclusion
Good Conversations enabled us to identify themes for the next Hub being empowered and confident enough to share and reciprocate seems a great way to deepen community. Thank you and see you on the 11th August in Hitchin.

Keith

 

Peer Support for Businesses and Professionals – Community Hub Launch

 

The first Community Hub Day in Hitchin was a resounding success! We started early in the day with coffee and conversations.

During the first morning session, we discussed the benefits of building a resilient community using Peer Support. We described the ethos of the hub and the development of an effective Peer Supported environment. For a summary of that discussion see https://communityhub.live/2016/07/17/community-peer-support-in-action-hitchin-hub-launch/

In brief, Peer Support is rooted in the principles of partnership whereby each participant gives and receives attention and mutual support. They are able to identify, engage and make use of their own resources, in order to get their needs met within the safe space of the group or partnership.

Structured Peer Support is used in many fields. We use it in both structured and informal ways, to support Business and People Matters.

In the afternoon session at the Community Hub, we explored the theme once again, with an emphasis on Career, Business and Study. Within the group, were individuals currently engaged in a cross section of occupations including – Business Startup; Sole Traders; Researchers; Community Project Planners; and others in Employed roles. It gave us an opportunity to demonstrate how the hub will be useful to a wider range of people within the Community.

As a group we thought about and discussed our current needs within our Business, Career, and Research Projects. The list we produced was fairly extensive and included a broad range of suggestions. These included: Contacts sharing and Referrals; Strategy – planning and realising a visions; Mentoring, Learning and Education opportunities; Sharing of resources/ office space; IT support; and Affiliate and Incentive schemes.

The idea of Peer Support was envisioned quite clearly, the potential to create a genuinely collaborative environment wherein people can exchange their specialist knowledge and skills with each other. Somewhere people can go to whether they are brand new to business or well established, both to give and receive support in areas in which they may require some assistance or the advice and guidance of a well ‘informed friend’.

Again, when we trawled the room and focused back on the general needs of the group, it seems that, regardless of whether we people are currently running businesses, growing careers, or researching community projects, our general needs are the same.

People wish to have access to more people. We wish to be having good conversations and building resilient and trusting relationships with each other. People are interested in fostering a genuinely collaborative environment rather than feeling in competition. We want to put a friendly face to business.

Ultimately the role of the hub, as we have already said, is to support people to grow within their Personal, Business and Career lives. To share information, knowledge and skills and to know that there is somewhere we can go where this will all happen.

I was very pleased that the sessions throughout the hub day corroborated the current Community Hub vision, and went some way towards clarifying and demonstrating how this all might happen as the months unfold! It is exciting stuff !

We would appreciate your responses, comments and feedback regarding aspects of the Community Hub which you can leave here and also on our contact form: https://communityhub.live/contact/

Please contact Emma Jaynes for more information on : emmajaynes@virginmedia.comor 07791 520388

Our next event is on 21^st July: https://communityhub.live/stevenage-community-open-day-21st-july-2016/

The next Hitchin Hub Day will take place in the Sun Hotel on Thursday 11th August from 8.30am. More information and schedule to follow.

 

Community Peer Support in Action – Hitchin Hub Launch

The day got off to a great start at 8.30am in the Sun Hotel. Given that this event had both changed days, venues and times, I was very encouraged to see an enthusiastic turnout for the early informal coffee event!

It was encouraging that many people also decided to stay for most of the day and others had made plans to come and go to fit in with their own schedules. I was pleased, having planned the day, that this ‘pick and choose the relevant bits for me’ feeling had been transmitted. People selected the parts they wished to attend and came and went accordingly.

The initial workshop session was called ‘Building Resilience – How Peer Groups (or Communities of Practice) are providing the environment within which personal, business and community development can take place.’ What does this mean? Well, within this workshop we wanted to demonstrate and lay down, the way in which we consider Peer support to be a fundamental attribute of a successful Community Hub.

Peer Support is rooted in the principles of partnership whereby each participant gives and receives attention and mutual support. They are able to identify, engage and make use of their own resources, in order to get their needs met within the safe space of the group or partnership. We wanted to explore the ways in which this might translate to the Community Hub environment.

In an exercise, the group were asked to think about their current needs for support; help; advice; and/or guidance within their own lives, and what the Community Hub could potentially provide for them in order to get those needs met.

I was gladdened to hear the responses and suggestions which ranged from sessions on Social Media and Basic Business skills; Flexible Social and Health related support outside of mainstream services; Information and Resources for local groups, charities and organisations; and Hobbies/ Leisure related activities.

However, it was hearing that people mostly wanted to come and find ‘connection for connections’ sake’, to ‘talk about our passions’, and to ‘find empowerment’ that really inspired me. The individuals in the group described what they would like to experience at the hub – ‘Optimism’; ‘The experience of others’; ‘Pass it On’; ‘Pay it Forward’; and ‘A feeling that something good is going to happen’.

For me, the ethos of the hub was encapsulated within these responses. The core of the Community Hub vision resides in creating a strong and resilient base within which members of our community can come and get their needs met on a Personal, Business and Community level.

Later on in the day, we focused more specifically on the needs of people in business. However, fundamental to the development of a successful hub it appears that the ability to have ‘good conversations’ and build robust and strong relationships, to foster the ‘feel good’ factor in a true Peer Supported environment is going to be the driving force behind both People and Business Matters.

We would appreciate your responses, comments and feedback regarding aspects of the Community Hub which you can leave here and also on our contact form: http://communityhub.live/contact/

Please contact Emma Jaynes for more information on : emmajaynes@virginmedia.com or 07791 520388

Our next event is on 21^st July: http://communityhub.live/stevenage-community-open-day-21st-july-2016/

The next Hitchin Hub Day will take place in the Sun Hotel on Thursday 11th August from 8.30am. More information and schedule to follow.

Creating the Community Hub

I have long held personal dream of mine has been to create a space where people can come together in a community environment to gain information, support and resources which may help them to resolve challenges which they are facing. My earliest ideas were borne out of my experience of having managed projects both within statutory and voluntary health care sector services, as well as having had experience of being on the receiving end of such services some years hence. It seems that, as the past couple of years have passed, this vision is gently becoming a reality.

In January this year, we began developing and facilitating programmes within the community via our Social Enterprise. Fundamental to these programmes is the principle of Peer Support http://positivewayssite.wordpress.com/peer-support/ and of Building Resilience http://positivewayssite.wordpress.com/emotional-resilience/ and http://keithabrahams.com/  . We use a simple and effective coaching and counselling model called the Human Givens http://positivewayssite.wordpress.com/human-givens/ which is based on learning how to deploy our innate resources in order to get our essential human needs met.

In addition to having unmet needs, I would argue that many of the challenges faced by the individuals with whom I worked in health services were compounded by two major concerns: vulnerability, caused by a lack of resourcefulness/ personal resources on the one hand, and loneliness and isolation, on the other. I believe this extends out to many people within our Communities, including mothers, sole traders and senior executives.

It would only seem right, and make logical sense then, that resolution would come about by finding solutions to these challenges. So, our programmes coach people towards that place of resourcefulness and resilience, and the group itself, provides a strong and well-structured Peer Network within which people can safely grow and develop.

We recognise that people have multi-faceted lives which can be generalised to, say, work; study; home; relationships; and life overall. Within any one of these areas we may require some specific guidance and when one is out of balance it may unsettle some, or all, of the others.  So, we like to take an holistic approach and support people across all these areas of their lives and this is where the Community hub serves such a brilliant function.

In thinking about, and planning how it might work in practice, we know that it needs to provide opportunities for people to engage in activities which will enhance the varied aspects of life – Personal; Business and Career; Social and Community.

As a group, my colleagues and I are all very much engaged in a variety of charitable and not-for-profit ventures within the local community. One of these, Link4Growth, is a community building organisation, and will be represented throughout the hub day, providing Community and Business Networking events for anybody in the community to attend. We believe that good Community Building, Business Success and Personal Growth, begins with having Good Conversations. These events provide the ideal environment within which that can happen.

Interspersed between the informal networking events will be the opportunity to engage with a variety of workshops covering the aforementioned areas of Personal, Business and Career development. Going forward, it is our desire that these slots will provide ongoing collaborative group programmes that will be driven by the needs of the Community. In addition, there will be experienced and qualified people with backgrounds in Counselling, Business and Life Coaching, and Mentoring on hand for one to one guidance and support throughout the day. These slots can be booked in advance, or on arrival.

The space is currently being sponsored and funded by the businesses Just Clarity Group and Positive Ways. However, it is our intention for this to be a true Community Hub and we welcome interested potential sponsors to come forward, who wish to be involved in helping to host events and contribute to keeping the space open with meaningful and quality engagement.

I see the Community Hub building on the work of the smaller and focused Peer Support groups. Within the hubs we can help each other to create personal, business and community resilience at the same time as offering a dedicated space for developing a larger Peer Group within our communities. These groups can also develop into Communities of Practice for local business as well as providing the model for other, more ‘niche’, groups if required. I believe the potential is limitless, and I will enjoy participating in further discussions around these possibilities.

In a society currently perceiving itself to be in flux, I believe that by taking responsibility for a small corner of our world, in this case, within our local community, we can start to make a tangible difference in each other’s’ lives. Where many of our ‘systems’ are falling apart or bowing and distorting under the strain, it only takes a few individuals, prepared to give of their time, effort and expertise, to enact small initial changes, and then bear witness to what may unfold – it is an exciting prospect !!

Our next Community Hub Day is in Hitchin in the Sun Hotel on Thursday 14^th July – please see links below.

If you would like to discuss any of the above, or would like some more information about the Community Hubs, please contact Emma Jaynes on 07791 520388 or  emmajaynes@virginmedia.com

Or visit our meetup group for the Hitchin schedule : http://www.meetup.com/North-East-Herts-Community-Business-Colloboration/events/231886009/