Instead of writing a stale summary of our year, we thought we would bring you a snapshot of our journey through 2022. It has been a fast-paced journey, with varied geographies and many, many icebreakers. We delivered online webinars, digitised learning materials, and embarked on our first evaluation of an online course. Here are just a few of our favourite moments, projects and trips.
A snapshot of our projects across the web
2022 was a busy year. We reached nearly 500 learners live during 21 different sessions. You might have missed the buzz around some of our online project launches, so here they are just in case:
- We created an online guide about your right to protest in Scotland with Amnesty Scotland. It featured in news coverage by the Ferret, was retweeted by MSPs and mentioned in a motion in Holyrood.
- We also launched a new guide for social enterprises about legal rights for the Rural Social Enterprise Hub. It features three case studies and was presented at the Rural Social Enterprise Network in December 2022, as well as featured in THRE Equality update newsletters.
- We started two new collaborative Scottish Government projects, the Workplace Equality Fund and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Implementation Fund.
A sample of networks, events and conferences we attended
We love events, whether they are in-person, online or hybrid. We find networks like the Social Enterprise Scotland meetings and the Scottish Moodle Users Group really rich spaces to reflect. Some of the sessions we attended, spoke at and produced include:
- Our Director Jen Ang chaired a panel at the 2022 Scottish AI Summit about regulation. View the photos of the panel and illustrated notes on the AI summit website.
- As part of our Learning with the Legal sector project, we presented to the Law Society of Scotland’s Equality Network. Read our blog to find out more about the session themes.
- We also helped JustRight Scotland our parent charity to host a 5-year anniversary event online. Watch the video that Collective Voices created for the team which tells the JustRight Scotland story to date.
Learning and sharing together
We always aim to share what we have learned. We are also a team of lifelong learners. Between us, we have completed at least five different Open University micro credentials in 2022. Here is a small sample of how we built and shared our learnings last year:
- In 2022 we worked with a team of global consultants at CommsConsult to deliver a webinar about policy briefs for a group of researchers. We shared what we learned about facilitating multi-lingual webinars in a blog for Research to Action.
- We participated in Digital Candle’s matching process to pair digital experts with people seeking digital solutions. We provided pro-bono advice about finding the right Learning Management System (LMS) to a small charity. Read our blog to find out more about our process for building our own LMS.
- Finally, we were a part of the 2022 Ambitions learning programme run by Social Investment Scotland. Find out more about the inspiring purpose driven organisations we were lucky enough to learn from across Scotland.
On location
Whilst many of our meetings, events and training sessions are digital or hybrid we also visited lots of different locations in 2022, some of our favourites included:
- Training the Cairngorms National Park Authority in Grantown on Spey
- A rural social enterprise network meeting in Inveraray
- An away day in the beautiful Pitlochry
Our favourite tried and tested icebreakers
We love using an icebreaker. Although, we know they might not be for everyone. It can be useful to send people icebreakers in advance so that they don’t cause anxiety. Badly designed icebreakers can be alienating and ruin the trust you are looking to build with a group. If someone isn’t feeling safe, they might not want to tell you where they are joining a call from. If an icebreaker involves physical movement and you haven’t asked about accessibility adjustments before an event- then you might have a problem…
Here are some we enjoyed using this year:
- What is your internal weather like today?
- Tell us something about your name and what it means
- If the UNCRC were a doughnut, what would it be and why?
If you are looking for more icebreaker ideas, we recommend looking at Equity Unbound, Training for Change, The Deepr Designing Human Connection in Digital Services Framework and the Institute of Facilitators’ Methods Library for inspiration.
What we are looking forward to in 2023
Our journey is far from over. We have a lot of work to do to ensure that people across Scotland know what their rights mean and to make sure that organisations know their duties. There is a long way to go to make Scotland a fairer, more equal and just place to live and work. We are looking forward to working on making Scotland a better place to be.
Here are three things we are excited about in the upcoming year:
- Launching our new online learning space with interactive courses (watch this space and get in touch to let us know if you want to help us test out our pilot!)
- Training public sector boards about their legal duties and creating a culture of rights based and equalities led work in leadership
- Working with collaborators to create UNCRC resources, a panel of 23 professionals facilitated by Together and 15 children and families facilitated by Children’s Parliament
