This category explores the power of working together — from co-creating ideas to building partnerships and shared ownership. Posts here highlight collaborative approaches that drive change, foster creativity, and strengthen community ties.
Young Voices Lead the Way
For too long, young people have been invited into community conversations only at the very end—after decisions are made. So we flipped the script. In 2023, a group of young people in Plymouth took th...
Streamlining Collaboration: From Reviews to Strategic Flow
Back in June 2023, the Belong in Plymouth team held a bi-monthly Operations Update that revealed something important: while the work was full of energy, it lacked a clear space for strategic thinking....
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...
From Ideas to Action: Many-to-Many
On June 3rd at the Village Hub, we gathered a small group of collaborators to ask a big question: What’s next for many-to-many? We didn’t come for consensus. We came to co-create next steps that felt...
Weekly Updates: A Quiet Game-Changer
In June 2023, Matilde floated an idea that seemed small at first: “As many of us have limited time, I thought… sharing weekly updates might be more accessible.” That simple suggestion turned into one...
Building Relational Work — Even When Messy
On 31 May 2023, Matt Bell dropped a message into our thread that captured the spirit of our journey: “Love this coming together. Just musing… and connecting.” We were juggling so many moving parts—st...
Designing Usable Governance Tools
Let’s be honest—governance tools aren’t always the most exciting part of a project. But what if they could be? In our many-to-many group, we’ve been designing and testing playful governance tools—car...
Effective Community Workshops That Work
Hosting community workshops sounds simple—until you try to make them truly inclusive, practical, and human. At Belong in Plymouth, we’ve been learning by doing. In St Budeaux and beyond, we started w...
Building a Community Research Network
Over the past year, our community researcher network has grown into something powerful—and deeply human. It's not just about collecting stories. It's about creating the conditions for care, curiosity,...
Rethinking Community Meetings
We’ve all been to community meetings that felt like a box-ticking exercise. Long agendas, top-down updates, not much listening. So we’ve been experimenting with a different approach—one that’s less a...
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...
Building a Collaborative City
If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that collaboration in Plymouth doesn’t happen by accident—it’s something we grow, together. At a recent gathering, over 50 people from across sectors and comm...