The following journal entries were either written by Karen Pilkington or were generated by AI trained on all the team communication over the project's duration. Any AI generated posts are clearly marked with a disclaimer.
Methodology not Ideology
Developing a workshop-based program to learn what kind of understanding and ideas evolve when we start from individual experiences. After the enthusiasm of finding that many people were interested in ...
Who else did we speak to in 2023?
63 people shared who they connect to the most in their work, representing a snapshot of connected life in Plymouth. https://wordart.com/5z5h5h8wx5m9/plymouth-network We shared considerable frustrat...
The People's Assembly Spring 2023.
Turned out to be quite a controversial thing holding a People's Assembly just before Purdah. It was naïve of us to think that a person's political beliefs could be assimilated into community work. Tur...
Hope in The Heart Exhibition Spring 2022
Hope in the Heart brought together artists with lived experience of poor mental health to share their thoughts in a reflective way with professionals. It was one of our first attempts at bringing diff...
Real Big Conversations March 2023
After a host of small conversations carried out in churches and small groups, people in Plymouth came together for a Big Conversation hosted by Transforming Plymouth Together. Topics that were high on...
Neighbourocracy Autumn 2022
28 people, including 6 young people, attended a gathering in Autumn 2022 with Nate Whitestone from A Fairer Society and Joseph Rathinam from the Neighborocracy Movement. Joseph is a South Indian commu...
Engagement with Young People
I've been hearing how hard it is to engage young people. "We create events for them to come to but no one comes." Belong in Plymouth used the following engagement tools with good success: - Built re...
Creativity in the face of Stuckness
It's common for emergent work to become stuck. We had been trying to build momentum for grassroots work in a local community to demonstrate how partnership work could really make a difference at a hyp...
The Party June 2023
You could tell we were up for a party. Despite it being a baking hot evening, we crammed over 100 people together for food and relationship building. Young people and residents rubbed shoulders with p...
Building Cross-Sector Connections
Karen Pilkington said something that’s stuck with us: “Different parts of the system have different understandings of what it means to ‘speak with the community.’” It’s true—and it’s exactly why we’v...
Making Strategic Space, Not Just Meetings
One insight from our June 2023 Ops Update has stuck with us: we don’t have a strategic space. Karen said it simply: “We recognise we have reflective meetings (sprint review) and operational meetings…...
Maximizing Filming Days Beyond Footage
On 13 June 2023, Karen reminded us of something special: our upcoming filming days weren’t just about cameras—they were about connection. “We have some interest from people in high places and low pla...
Filming to Share and Connect
In June 2023, we invited a filmmaker to capture some of the story of Belong in Plymouth—and to spark new conversations about what it really means to belong. Karen shared her excitement: “We have some...
Building a Network: Inside Our Neighborhood Pilot
What happens when you try to connect a neighbourhood without putting one person in charge? That’s exactly what Belong in Plymouth set out to explore with its one-year pilot in Stoke. Instead of a tra...
Rethinking Onboarding
Joining a big, multi-layered project like Belong in Plymouth can feel overwhelming—especially if you’re new. That’s why we’ve been reworking how we bring people in. As Stuart Jones said: “We often fo...
Piloting a Trust-Based Neighborhood Model
When we started talking about a neighbourhood pilot in Stoke, we weren’t interested in setting up another ‘hub-and-spoke’ model. As Matt Bell put it: “We want to try a truly networked approach that e...
Strengthening Local Networks, Neighborhood by Neighborhood
We’ve always known that social isolation and loneliness are local issues. So we began thinking: what would it take to build neighbourhood networks that actually connect people? Karen Pilkington propo...
Building Everyday Belonging
The idea of a “care economy” keeps showing up in our conversations—not just as policy, but as practice. As Karen Pilkington put it, “If community groups aren’t funded properly, they can’t keep their ...
Rethinking Social Prescribing as an Ecosystem
In our conversations about social prescribing, something kept coming up: it’s not enough to send people to community groups if those groups are barely staying afloat. Karen Pilkington put it bluntly:...
Building a Functional Care Economy Through Social Prescribing
We’ve been revisiting social prescribing—because the cracks in the system are becoming too wide to ignore. In one conversation, Karen Pilkington got to the heart of it: “If there’s no community group...
Beyond Referrals: Enhancing Social Prescribing
Social prescribing has been praised as a bridge between health services and community life. But what happens when the bridge has no foundation? Belong in Plymouth’s Core Team has been grappling with ...
Local Pilot, Big Lessons
The idea was simple: what if we tested Belong in Plymouth’s methods in one neighbourhood, deeply and slowly? In early 2023, a pilot took shape in Stoke. Karen Pilkington began connecting with council...
The Limits of Social Prescribing
Social prescribing has been a hot topic in Belong in Plymouth discussions—but not without critique. In early 2023, team members revisited the model’s limitations. Karen Pilkington summed it up: “If t...
The Importance of Onboarding in Complex Projects
When people join the Belong in Plymouth network, they’re stepping into a web of stories, relationships, and evolving projects. But that complexity can be overwhelming. As Stuart Jones reflected, “We ...
Creating Inviting Onboarding
Joining Belong in Plymouth should feel like being welcomed into a community—not like reading a manual. That was the feeling behind our conversation in late 2022, when Stuart Jones said: “We often for...
Belonging: Ancient Roots, Modern Relevance
In an August 2022 email, Matt Bell offered a surprising take on collaboration: it’s not a modern invention—it’s a survival instinct. “Cooperation is a fundamental human characteristic,” he wrote. “Fr...
Stories Shaping System Change
By August 2022, the pressure on Plymouth’s Emergency Department (ED) had reached critical levels. But instead of pointing fingers or seeking quick fixes, Belong in Plymouth asked a different question:...