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Catalyst working groups and communities of practice
Working groups & communities of practice
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Working groups & communities of practice

A small number of experimental groups are currently testing different forms of organising across Catalyst. Each have a specific task, term, team and things to test. This page is an ongoing work in progress to share what's happening.
EH
Ellie Hale
Stewards for the next phase of Catalyst
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Network Engagement
Design how best to openly communicate how Catalyst is evolving and how people can get involved. This is also an open experiment in decentralisation that can help inform future Catalyst strategy/model/ways of working.
Agencies for Good Slack working group
Define the purpose, identity, audience & next steps of the Slack space used by digital agencies/ consultants to connect & share. Then, manage onboarding of new members and recruitment of a community manager from Collaborative Future work placement programme.
Network Meetup group
Design monthly sharing and networking events with and for digital partners
Collective conversations on Development briefs
Digital partners come together to share knowledge and insight around the themes of two Catalyst-funded ‘Development 2D’ projects: • Hyde Housing: https://www.loom.com/share/8f9e146667504da39c143cf516526958 •VONNE: https://www.loom.com/share/9cc6acbb513b4630aaa9b59762334c16
UK Tech for Good Network (now launched)
Build a community of organisers across the UK and Ireland supporting each other to fuel the tech for good movement
Stewards for the next phase of Catalyst
Initially in the first phase (until new dedicated team is in place), act as a recruitment steering committee, in collaboration with the Network Engagement Working Group. One new team is in place, stewards will support, advise and connect them with the network and key stakeholders.
Initiative leads
Collectively identify priorities for maintaining continuation and momentum of core Catalyst services for the next 12 months, to inform and design conversations with founding funders and subsequent Catalyst continuation/momentum budgets.
LERP: Learning, evaluation, research practices
Establish a learning group/network to explore and understand what LERP we currently do/share across Catalyst and how, and design an approach for embedding individual and collective LERP.
Name
Network Engagement
Task
Design how best to openly communicate how Catalyst is evolving and how people can get involved.
This is also an open experiment in decentralisation that can help inform future Catalyst strategy/model/ways of working.
Workspace
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Miro
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Suggested questions/ things to test
What is the best approach to open working for the new team and stewards?
What infrastructure and rituals are needed for information to flow usefully between different decentralised groups?
How we might avoid a centralised sense-making and move towards a more distributed, collective approach?
What is people’s appetite for autonomous self-organising involvement as Catalyst, without being paid
Understand who this excludes and how we might proactively counter it
Suggested outcomes
Understand what questions people would want shared when, in what format and how
Establish and test processes for engaging the wider network, beyond the working group, in the most equitable way
Establish what content needs to be on the website (or this Coda, or elsewhere) to support two way communication between the network and the stewards group and how this should be kept updated
Deliver input from the wider network, beyond the working group, on the future team and steward qualities
Work in the open so that the wider network can see and input into what they’re working on (and in doing so, model and test the recommended approach).
Who?
Initiated by freelancers Roz Sutton (formerly employed by CAST) and Joe Roberson (also working with Catalyst through the OWLs and Learning Partner). Supported by Tess Cooper (Collaborative Future).
Working with a diverse group of people interested in shaping the next phase of Catalyst:
Ben Holt, British Red Cross
Beth Mukushi, SCVO
Charlotte Newman, Carefree
Dalia Abu Yassien, Comic Relief
Deepum Bhatia, Henry Smith Charity
Doug Belshaw, We Are Open
Gregor Thomson, Founders & Coders
Joe Roberson, freelance
Kate White, Superhighways
Marie Wilson, Salford CVS
Megan Gray, freelance
Nana Parry, Tectonic
Nathan Williams, ProMo-Cymru
Stephen Hawkes, DEV Society
Roz Sutton, freelance
Tessa Cooper, Collaborative Future
Term
4 meetings over 5 weeks
Thu 27th May 9.30-11.30
Break for half term
Thu 10th June 9.30-11.30
Thu 17th June 9.30-11.30
Thu 24th June 9.30-11.30
Time commitment
2 hrs per week, voluntary
Find out more
Contact: roz@thecatalyst.org.uk
This working group’s initial 4 weeks is now complete. You can read about what they did and achieved in
this blog from Doug at We Are Open
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, and some of the
key takeaways in this summary.
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