Sydney Commons Events
In 2020 InCollaboration curated the Together Sydney Event as part of catalysing Sydney Commons Lab. In the lead up to this, in 2018 InCollaboration hosted two Commons Events, titled "Common Passion: Cooperation and Collaboration for Resiilent Communities. Our speaker was Michel Bauwens, founder of P2P Foundation, a global network of researchers, and practitioners progressing community-led initiatives for the common good for the care of the Earth.
​
Michel spoke about:
- the commons and cooperative ways of living and working
- how we move from "winner-takes-all" to everyone has plenty
- how we recognise each of us for the contribution we make to the health and wealth in our communities
- how we protect and strengthen our communities and live within planetary limits
- how we draw from the strengths of different organisational forms including coops, ngos, social enterprises and
government as we make this transition.
​
The events were a collaborative effort, starting with the InCollaboration Team of Tirrania Suhood with Associates David Pointon and Mike Dowson, joined by Mel Edwards from UTS Centre for Business and Social Innovation. We held the events in association with Mercury Coop and StartSomeGood.
​
The Parramatta Event was co-hosted with City of Parramatta, thanks to Lucy Brotherton, Capacity Building Officer for Social Investment. The City of Sydney Event was opened and closed by Councillor Jess Scully, a passionate advocate of the Commons. Jess took actions after the event, described below. Jess had also earlier in the year joined UNSW Faculty of Law in launching Shareable's book "Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons".
​
InCollaboration Common Passion Event Parramatta
InCollaboration Common Passion Sydney Event
Cameron Tonkenwise, Darren Sharp, Jess Scully, Bronwen Morgan launching the book "Sharing Cities : Activating the Urban Commons"
InCollaboration Common Passion Event Parramatta
Collaborators at the Common Passion events also included Western Sydney University, Social Change Central, University of New England, The Cooperative Life, Talkpoint, Incubator Coop, Shelter NSW, Collaboratory, Sydney Community Forum, Parramatta Climate Action Network, Pingala, Community Minds, Sustain: The Australian Food Network and New Economy Network Australia.
Russ Grayson, wrote an article about the Sydney Event, titled "Towards-the-economy-of-the-commons-an-evening-with-Michel Bauwens"
​
We were all delighted that City of Sydney Jess Scully, inspired by the interest and energy at the Common Passion events, called a Roundtable (see photo slideshow above) bringing together some of the participants together with additional academics, commons experts and City of Sydney staff to discuss how we could progress commons initiatives in Sydney. Spurred on by this interest and support InCollaboration moved to catalyse a Sydney Commons Lab. The InCollaboration catalysing team is David Pointon, Tirrania Suhood, Monique Potts and Mike Dowson.
​