Last night (Wednesday 16th) was the first of the six Wednesday evening learning and practice sessions for U.Lab Food at the Impact Hub in Brixton.
A really big welcome to Aiste, Alexandro, Ann, Charlotte, Clara, Claude, Crispin, Duncan, Eva, Flora, Jane, Kat, Kellie, Kemi, Kuli, Laetitia, Laura, Nina, Olivia, Sara, Sonia and Zoe. Thank you for your amazing energy last night.
What does that energy look like? Hundreds of ideas - two hundred and forty three, to be exact - posted on the wall. What the food needs are, what needs to change, where that change can happen. The power of a group of smart, engaged changemakers coming together to do something.
Our first evening as a group on the course was introduction, learning, expression and practice. It began with a check-in, which probably feels a bit weird to those of us that haven't come across it before. But it makes sense: what's the point of spending time coming together if your mind is elsewhere?
And through the evening we got a look at what the challenge looks like: before you address the problem you've got to understand it. And to understand it you need to see it for what it is: a bit like an iceberg.
In the middle of all of this we found time to eat some dinner and talk to one another a little more: what do you do? I'm involved in a growing group, a community store, an open orchard, a food waste programme. I like to cook, to pick, to blog, to change how our kids think about food. This food's not bad, is it? It was made twenty metres away. Buying local doesn't seem like such a hardship.
