Category Archives: Training

Utopia and Failure

Abstract for the conference Failed Again – The Fault Lines in Utopia Newcastle University – part of the Fail Again, Fail Better? Recuperating Failure in Utopian Politics and Research Project

Weaving Failure into the Utopian Fabric – Artistic Engagements within Creative Care Café Structures

Kirsty Lumm and Heather McKnight

This paper addressed the question: “…what if failure was intentionally built into the fabric of utopia, if ‘fault-lines’ were purposefully incorporated to promote reflection, revisions and renewal?” Expanding on the paper given at the Edinburgh event in April, this paper focuses on the use of creative methods in the Brighton (UK) based funded Creative Climate Cafes project and Menopause and Mind projects.  It will offer visual case studies of these two projects which use arts within the traditional conversational care café structures. They utilise the transformative potential of creativity to incite the utopian impulse within participants in the “darkness of the lived moment”.

The initial paper at the Edinburgh Conference has set up café spaces such as this (and others that such cafes have grown from such as grief and death cafes) as spaces of anticipatory failure. In a sense these café spaces are also Microutopias (events and projects that are small, planned resistances and social experiments) which set out to embed and identify failure as part of the action and being within their spaces. There is a focus on finding ways to live with the crisis as well as finding ways to combat it. It is possible to view these café spaces as heterotopias where the normal rules operate differently. Here we are seeing human failings as a necessary and inherent part of life that we have to ‘be with’ rather than escaping or resolving our failure.

Both projects have anticipated failure in their inception, it is at the heart of their being as they have started with the faults. Given the prevalence of failure within our species being, we can see the spaces as representative of different structures of failure. The Creative Climate Cafes tackle climate crisis, a result of concurrent and collective failures under a patriarchal and capitalist system which is destroying our lived environment. The Menopause and Mind cafes tackle the failures of which menopause related mental health struggles to be adequately supported, and the medicalised construct of failure of menopause where there are persistent narratives of the failure of the body and mind and the perceived end of ‘usefulness’ of the feminised body, despite the critique of these narratives within the spaces.

In these spaces hope can be reconfigured by grief. This applies whether it is for our loss of our lived environment and each other, or for the multifaceted loss of self (socially constructed or as part of a transformational process) that can accompany menopause. These café sessions are structured so people can explore their thoughts and feelings through the artistic forms, not just discussion, bringing forth unconscious as well as conscious thoughts and feelings. Using simple and accessible creative activities such as collage, expressive painting or use of clay or inks there is an exploration and expression of feelings bringing to the surface what is hidden and allowing for world-building in the cracks of our society. Weaving failure into the fabric of the utopia, the images and artistic creations from these sessions are both hopeful and critical, allowing for expression of failure and also new hopeful structures to be emergent from the chaos.

Workshop Images (2023) – Menopause and Mind – Collage/Painting/Clay

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Workshop Images (2023) – Creative Climate Cafes – Natural Paints/Charcoals/Ink and Windmills

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Reconnect! Free Eco-Arts and Gardening Workshops

Magnetic Ideals has a series of eco-conscious, free, family-friendly events coming up, including gardening sessions (whether you have a garden or not!), Creative Climate Cafe building bug hotels, and beginners weaving classes with recycled materials. Please share with anyone who would be interested! We’re booking new events all the time, so follow our Eventbrite for up-to-date info, and please share with anyone who might be interested…

These workshops are part of a programme to help build community through creativity and skills sharing. The programme is here to help you Reconnect with your life and purpose, and we look forward to sharing this journey with you!

Places are limited so please ensure you book online via Eventbrite! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/magnetic-ideals-8356623738 

A huge thanks to The National Lottery Community Fund and Sussex Community Fund who are making these events possible!

Train the Trainer Courses – Delivered in-house for Students’ Unions, Charities and Community Organisations

Train the Trainer Courses

All our train the trainer courses are delivered in-house at your organisation over 2 days for up to 12 people. They all involve practical application of skills and an opportunity to deliver and receive feedback on training in practice.  They build skills, confidence and knowledge about training resouces and networks!

 

Level 1 Course – For new trainers with little/no experience of training

Includes: Basic theories of learning, creating a safe learning environment, dealing with challenging behaviour, access and inclusion, delivering presentations with confidence, preparation and reflective practice, giving and receiving feedback on training.

Level 2 Course – For trainers looking to advance their practice

Includes: Theory and design, writing learning outcomes, differentiation of materials, facilitation skills, equality and diversity law and policy, advancing your training plan, evaluation and analysis, encouraging active learning, creative practice, resource design.

Bespoke Train the Trainer – we can help design a Train the Trainer programme specific to your needs, whether that is to deliver a specific piece of training (i.e. to teach a number of students to deliver Course Rep Training to their cohort, for volunteers doing outreach training) or to select a mix of the above learning outcomes from levels 1 and 2 to suit a particular group of staff.  Please contact us to discuss your specific needs.

Cost

Level 1: 2 days for up to 12 participants                 £1300

Level 2: 2 days for up to 12 participants                 £1500

 

Please contact heather@magneticideals.org for further details or to book your session.  Let us know if there are ways we can tailor this training to respond to the specific needs of your organisation!

We encourage organisations to work together in partnership to allow training to happen and are happy to train multi-organisation cohorts.

We are offering 10% discount for courses run in August 2018.

 

Idea Hack: Student Union Facilitation Sessions – Problem Solving, Planning and Idea Generation

These sessions aim to give you clear steps and managable goals for the future.  Over either a one or two day facilitated session tackle a problem, plan new idea or new development in the Union.

A series of creative exercises are used in these sessions.  these are specifically designed to level the playing field, and overcome restrictive power structures, allowing all members of the group to contribute to the process.  They are ideal for sessions that might involve joint planning between the SU and the University.  They focus on ideas generation, and try to break down restrictive ways of thinking, while understanding strengths and inherent possibilities.

Each session will be tailored to your specific problem, idea or development through two free phone or Skype consultations.  You will receive full notes and write up of the session discussions.  These sessions can run for groups of between 6 and 30 participants.

Useful for:  New sabbatical officer team planning, new project, department or funding bid, liberation campaign planning, advice or support service developments, student engagement in quality enhancement planning, student led research project development, new cooperatives, society development, joint projects with university departments

Pricing Structure

 

Includes Consultation for Session Development and Full Write Up 6 – 15 participants 15 – 30 participants
1 day £750 £1250
2 days £1350 £2150
½ day follow up session £400 £550

 

These above prices include the printing of materials for sessions at £50 per day – there is the option for these to be emailed over and printed in house by the SU or University removing this charge.

For Small/Specialist Students’ Unions there is a 25% discount, please contact us for further details.

heather@magneticideals.org

Further 10% discount available August bookings only

 

Inspiring Creativity Course: Embedding Creativity in Your Working Practices

KeysCreativity

This course looks at how creativity used daily can improve your working practices. It will engage with different ideas of what creativity is, how the working environment can be made more creative and will leave you with a plan of how you can personally become more creative in how work. It will run over four weeks in the evening, giving you a chance not only to engage with the subject over a length of time but also to reflect on how this can impact in your working practice.

All of our courses are interactive, creative and focused on reflecting on your working practice, and developed in consultation with the community sector.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Identify ways to create more creative working environment
  • Develop an understanding of the connection between wellbeing and creativity
  • Be able to inspire creativity in others
  • To have a grasp of different creativity techniques
  • Be able to have a clear plan of how you can apply different techniques to increase your personal creativity

Course Schedule:

  • Week 1 – Defining creativity, art, inspiration and connectivity, what does it mean in different working situations, why is this useful in the work place? What does and doesn’t work and why.
  • Week 2 – A creative environment – overcoming fear and workplace wellbeing, creating a balance: the role of confidentiality and the importance of space of sharing, team working, networking and diversity
  • Week 3 – Techniques for becoming more creative: exercise’s in lateral thinking, divergent thinking, metacognition
  • Week 4 – Going further – looking at the actions you will take improve creativity in your workplace and making a personal creativity plan

The course will run over four weeks on Wednesdays from 2nd February – 1st March from 5pm – 8.30pm in central Brighton.

The course cost is £30 per person and includes supporting electronic resources from the session. Book Your Place Online Here

The course is run in partnership with our funders UpStream Ideas

Demonstrating Impact Course: Effective and Innovative Research and Evidence Gathering for Annual Reporting, Funder/Sponsor Reports and Funding Applications

This course tackles the tricky area of demonstrating the impact of your work. It expands on the different ways you can collect and use data, and looks at ways that this can be done innovatively, engaging with service users. It will run over four weeks in the evening, giving you a chance not only to engage with the subject over a length of time but also to reflect on how this can impact in your working practice.

All of our courses are interactive, creative and focused on reflecting on your working practice, and developed in consultation with the community sector.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Be able to describe, evaluate, and communicate the impact of your work
  • Be able to assess the requirements for different types of reporting
  • Evaluate the challenges of different types of research techniques and where to access support on using them
  • Be able to identify different types of data and understand how you might choose to analyse it
  • Understand how you can engage service users, customers or your audience creatively in measuring your impact

Course Schedule:

  • Week 1 – Different types of reporting processes and where you will encounter them, a chance to share current experiences and issues you have faced
  • Week 2 – Research techniques – how to evidence different types of working, desk-based research, surveys, interviews and data protection
  • Week 3 – Dealing with data, an introduction to working with different types of data and the limitations and challenges different types of data bring
  • Week 4 – Beyond KPI’s: A Creative Enhancement Based Approach to Planning and Evaluation – looking at use of case studies, user-led representations, storytelling, video work and visual arts as integral and robust reporting mechanisms

This event is ideal for those working in the community, voluntary or social enterprise sectors looking to develop their skills in researching and reporting.

The course will run over four weeks on Wednesdays from 11th November – 2nd December from 5pm – 8.30pm at the Bridge Community Centre.

The course cost is £30 per person and includes and supporting electronic resources from the session. Book Your Place Online Here

The course is run in partnership with our funders UpStream Ideas

Fit for Funders Course: Sourcing Funding, Making Applications and Developing your Presentation Skills

  This course will run on Monday evenings from the 21st September – 12th October at the Friends Centre, Brighton Junction Isetta Square 35 New England Street Brighton, East Sussex BN1 4GQ, Training Room 3, from 5pm, – 8.30pm

Course Description:

An introduction to making funding applications and developing the skills to pitch your project ideas, these are often skills that must go hand in hand to make your funding application successful. It will run over four weeks in the evening, giving you a chance not only to engage with the subject over a length of time but also to reflect on how this can impact in your working practice.

All of our courses are interactive, creative and focused on reflecting on your working practice, and developed in consultation with the community sector.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Understanding of the different funding streams available and different routes to how to access and identify them
  • Have had experience in looking at example grant forms from small and large funders and understand what they are asking for
  • Have evaluated the use of partnership working for future projects
  • Have understood and applied the principles of making an effective presentation/pitch

Course Schedule:

  • Week 1 – Introduction to funding, limitations and opportunities – how to source finding, different types of funding (including grant funding and crowd funding) and how to access this
  • Week 2 – Unpicking the process, looking at different application forms and what they ask for, what different funders expect and how you might evidence the need for your project
  • Week 3 – Partnership Working and Presentations, how you can work with others to increase your chance of funding success alongside looking at what makes an effective presentation and introduction of week four task
  • Week 4 – Making your pitch, in the final week everyone will get a chance to apply skills learning and do a short presentation on a funding idea and get feedback from the rest of the group

This event is ideal for those working in the community, voluntary or social enterprise sectors looking to develop their skills to achieve funding for projects.

The course will run on Monday evenings from the 21st September – 12th October at the Friends Centre, Brighton Junction Isetta Square 35 New England Street Brighton, East Sussex BN1 4GQ, Training Room 3, from 5p, – 8.30pm

The course cost is £30 per person and includes supporting electronic resources from the session.

The course is run in partnership with our funders UpStream Ideas

Book Your Place Online Here

Bespoke Training Sessions

Training

We offer bespoke training and can work with you to develop training within your organisation to meet the needs of your staff.  Uniquely we will also work with you to ensure that you are able to deliver this training in house in the future by offering a free half day of training to staff members in how to deliver each of the sessions.

In addition to working with you to develop specific training, we also have some set off the shelf training sessions ready to deliver in your organisation.  Each one we will spend time with you adapting to suit the needs of your staff or volunteers.  With the exception of the Train the Trainer courses, which must be delivered over two days, the other courses can be delivered over one or two days.  Please click here for costs.

  • Train the Trainer 1: Delivering the ideal training session – 2 days
  • Train the Trainer 2: Training Design and Development – 2 days
  • Events Management in the Community Sector: An Introduction to Events Management in the community sector from local networking events to large conferences
  • Researching and Evidencing: Research and Evidence Gathering for Annual Reporting, Funder/Sponsor Reports and Funding Applications
  • Making Applications and Developing your Presentation Skills
  • Students’ Unions: Research Authenticity and Accountability: Setting up and running student-led research projects
  • Students’ Unions: Beyond KPI’s: An Enhancement Base Approach to Planning and Evaluation
  • Students’ Unions: Developing Your Course Rep Training and Supports
  • Students’ Unions: Internationalising your union – making your union more accessible to international students and gloablising your outlook

Workshops

We also have a number of workshops that we can run in your organisation, each workshop is 2 hours long.

  • Time Management (2hrs)
  • Cooperative Values (2hrs)
  • Assessing Workplace Wellbeing (2hrs)
  • Running a Networking Event (2hrs)
  • Become an Effective Networker (2hrs)
  • Evidence Based Campaigning (2hrs)
  • Research Basics Workshops
  • Qualitative Analysis (2hrs)
  • Interview Techniques (2hrs)
  • Running a Focus Group (2hrs)
  • Effective Survey Questions (2hrs)
  • Writing a Research Proposal (2hrs)

Please click here for costs.

If you have any questions please email heather@magneticideals.org