Making connections & nurturing community: Sussex Seaside Systems Socials

Over the last few years I’ve been making a determined and playful effort to give connections, relationships, and interdependence - the source of meaning in my life (see this recent exchange with Marcus Jenal) - the focus they deserve. This has been a lifetime in the making, with the death of my Dad in 2019, my move back to Brighton in 2020, and my shift to freelancing in 2023, providing additional opportunities and momentum. ?

In my professional life this has entailed doing what I can to nurture social systems that are more full of life, learning and love, as the things I’ve shared over the last 20 months of freelancing hopefully demonstrate. In my personal life, this has involved expanding my circle of friends with the support of a “web of love” whiteboard, which reminds me of my caring connections, prompts me to nurture them, and encourages me to make more friends.

I’ve done this - professionally and personally - because it feels good to nurture kind, compassionate and loving relationships and in turn to be nurtured and supported by them. I’ve also done this because I think that social learning is enriched, and complex social challenges are best addressed, when kindness and compassion flow through the relationships that constitute social systems, and disagreements, conflict and power dynamics are handled well. I’ve been pleased with my efforts at making new connections, personally and - across an increasingly porous membrane which artificially separates lots of lovely people - professionally.

The impact of my efforts? Well, I'm happier, more creative, more productive, I'm making a stronger contribution to the social systems that I'm part of and the professional conversations I'm participating in, and I've got a growing list of opportunities to get involved in interesting things. And, to throw in some numbers for good (?) measure, more than 70% of my professional contacts, and perhaps 50% of my friends, are people I’ve gotten to know over the last four years. However, with some notable exceptions, most of those connections have been bilateral, with me as the hub, but with, it seems, limited connections between and amongst the people I’m connected to.?

So, at the start of July - feeling that the garden of my connections was in need of some additional attention, and at least on this occasion swiftly turning my feelings into bold adaptive actions - I made some changes. On the personal side, I went to some new events, did some new things, and met some new people. I also - for the first time for many many years, and encouraged by my coach and friend Becky Pfordresher - invited a lovely group of friends to celebrate my birthday together at a local festival.

On the professional side, amongst other things, I decided to organize an informal get together of people living in and around Brighton who are curious about systems (and/or see value in thinking about the world in terms of systems) and what they can do to enhance the dynamics of systems so that they generate better social and developmental outcomes. Out of a much earlier idea for an Open Gov Beach Hut - inspired by the Open Gov Hub in Washington D.C., and germinated, slowly, with Duncan Edwards - Sussex Seaside Systems Socials was born!

I invited about 12 people to the first meeting, with no purpose beyond connecting, and no agenda other than coffee, chat and optional ping-pong. To my delight, I received many enthusiastic responses to the idea, with eight of us eventually meeting up by the bandstand next to Brighton beach. I knew everyone who was there, and most people - through a scattering of historical ITAD, the Institute of Development Studies, and Sophoi connections - knew a couple of other people.

Buoyed by our success, we scheduled a second meeting which took place last Friday, on a gloriously sunny September day. As with our first meeting, we met on the seafront, this time sitting on the terrace around the Brighton Bandstand cafe, 10 metres from the beach. In a new departure, I had let people know a couple of days beforehand that I'd be inviting them to respond to a simple prompt, which they could answer in whatever way felt good to them: "What systems are you interested in, and why?"

My decision to use this prompt was itself prompted by two things. First, by a conversation about facilitation and containers (in, at least for me, the Human Systems Dynamics notion of containers) I had last week during a Sussex Seaside Systems Stroll (a 1:1 chat) with a new participant in our Systems Socials, Bec Davison. And second, by my recent experience in attending a Systems Innovation conference which, great as it was, might have nurtured additional opportunities for connection and learning by adding a little more light touch conceptual clarity to the rich diversity of participants, perspectives and contributions. (See here for takeaways from Joss Colchester, the primary organizer, and here for other participants’ perspectives; mine, forthcoming).

So, on Friday, we had ten people - including seven newbies, one of whom I’d never met before (Hi Jenn!) - come together for a rich, warm and insightful conversation about our various interests, motivations and experience in seeking to shift the dynamics of various social systems, in different ways, for different purposes. By providing some additional points of connection, the gentle prompt perhaps encouraged a little more clarity about those differences, helping our conversation to flow, and supporting our collaborative sensemaking.

Further encouraged by a few kind notes of appreciation over the weekend, and tales of connections nurtured and impacts made, I’m looking forward to our next get together, perhaps in Portslade. It feels great to be part of a growing group of curious and kind folks, exploring our shared interests in nurturing the social and environmental systems we are part of and which play such important roles in shaping all of our lives, and doing so in a way which is about collaborative, compassionate and appreciative inquiry rather than pushing particular answers.

I had prepared an answer to the question I’d posed, but opted instead to listen to the conversation and gently nudge it along. I’d be happy to share my answer if that’s of interest, but perhaps this post is an answer in itself ??

If you’d like to share your response to “What systems are you interested in, and why?” in the comments, I’d be curious to see what conversations emerge. Or, if you’re in the Worthing-Shoreham-Brighton-Lewes-Eastbourne-Haywards Heath area and a Sussex Seaside Systems Social sounds like your cup of tea, please drop me a line. We'd love to have you come along, especially if, like Javier, you bring along some contraband cookies!