Conversations at the Cross Roads – The Sequel

The discontinuity in our lives triggered by the CoVid pandemic creates a unique peacetime opportunity to recalibrate our priorities, reconsider our possibilities, and reconfigure our politics, economies and business models.

The pressure is mounting for a return to normality, there is an equally growing pressure from those who want to make sure this is not simply about switching off the pause button. Many want to be sure that this pandemic invokes the reconfiguration of how we live in the world; that it considers a new operating system which is sensitive to and cognisant of the many experiences, alternatives, solutions that individuals, families and communities arrived at during lockdown, ways of being and doing things that they would like to hold on to.

In this much awaited sequel to the Prologue session, we will explore why we can’t play chicken, what we need to do and how we can each play a role in driving transformative change.

Join Gerry Salole, Dr Gary Kendall and Angela Raven-Roberts this Thursday,  6^th August 2020, for a continuation of the conversation we started in June.

The idea of this conversation series started from collegiate conversations between ourselves and various audiences, networks and colleagues as the rise and spread of CoVid transformed both the way we lived in the present and the visions we had for the future. It morphed into discussions about whether this pandemic could, in all its destructiveness and in all that it exposes of our fractured societies, offer the potential for a seismic shift in our worldview. As an “equally dangerous” unilateral, global and pervasive threat, it is another shock to a system already in crisis, though perhaps experienced as more urgent, wake up call.

Most crucially, we have wondered whether “the pause” (as it has come to be known) would give rise to the required “reset” in the way we live our lives and go about our business, whether a reset would go far enough, or how a reconfiguration and regeneration could be effected. The biggest concern we saw emerge in early conversations was that society’s fear and anxiety at living with the “unresolved tension” of an unclear “new way of living” would (again) prevail and fuel frantic efforts to drive a “recovery” that would be as swift a return to business as usual as was (humanly) possible.

These conversations are intended to explore and reimagine alternatives and identify the things we can each do to help drive transformative change. They are open to emerging themes contributed by participants themselves. Whilst we offer a range of initial contributors to the understanding we have gained and will meticulously moderate and record conversations to share in design ideas for the future, we are offering an open forum to allow the conversation – and the possibilities and opportunities it seeks to uncover – to emerge and move in the direction of the participants. Whilst some may engage with only one conversation, you are encouraged to join any or all of them and contribute openly both to the live chats and recorded audio / video and blog posts that provide a variety of ways in which to engage.

Participation is open to all who are willing to think deeply and contribute authentically in challenging, contesting, resolving and reflecting on lessons and possibilities. This is not about experts presenting “solutions” to implement. This is about people living life and recognising the weak spots and the strong. We would encourage you, the (ordinary) person living in extraordinary times, to participate, to add your voice, experience, deep reflection and ideas of the rituals and rhythms that have sustained your hope and built your resilience – individually and systemically – that could contribute positively to the design and co-creation of a new road forward.