What’s on our radar?

The Producer team have had a big few weeks, with a major highlight being our recent retreat in Manchester where we had dedicated time to plan the Review. And we’ve been drawing inspiration from everywhere!

So, without delay, here’s this month’s list of our top ten sources of inspiration:

1. We’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with some brilliant external facilitators, and or friend Nathan M. Ardaiz from Almost Anyhow shared this extract from Krishnamurti on intelligence, sensitivity and love
2. Last week our comms freelancer, Joe, ran a fantastic lunchtime writing session and one of our Initiative Leads, Ross McCulloch, penned his first weeknote, reflecting on how funders can make re-use and open working the norm 
3. I performed at an event at Warwick Arts Centre last week, focused on the importance of names and one of the cool takeaways was finding out about this tool for email signatures called Name Coach - you can record yourself saying your name exactly as it should be pronounced, which is great for accessibility as well as inclusion
4. Ellie has been enjoying this podcast on Commoning Design & Designing Commons, exploring design pedagogy through an oppression and liberation lens
5. Ellie also shared this report from The Engine Room on intersectional approaches to data and digital rights advocacy during the pandemic - we’re really glad to see this type of research happening!
6. This blog post on Fighting Talk, on how stories add up to a narrative
7. My friend Jendella Benson recently released her incredible debut novel, 'Hope & Glory', a lovesong to Peckham - I was gripped!
8. The Systemic Design Toolkit was referred to it a lot during our recent Producers retreat (cheers Ellie. O for introducing us to this!)
9. Jo was amazed by the powerful work of Saniya Mistri, a teen rapper from India breaking stereotypes - we love to see it!
10. And finally, this funding practices list from Foundation Practice Rating is useful for cross-referencing. It takes into account diversity, accountability and transparency - use critically but definitely take a look!

If you have a resource of any kind that you think we should have on our radar, please share it with us! We would love for the wider community to influence our work and provide creative input. Drop us a line at hello@thecatalyst.org.uk, or tweet us @wethecatalysts.