[HacktionLab] Thoughts on where we could go now with HL

[Ember Burns]

For me peak hacktion was Barncamp.  The recipe of computers, internet, outdoors/barn, and cyder and friends with skillz, campfire and technoyoga was a an enchanting and unusual intersection of many things I love.  We weren't working a gig.  We were camping. And I remember speaking about the strange idea I had envisioned of camping AND computers to Mike in a pub.  At least I think I do ; )

I get that things change and evolve.  And I celebrate everything that has been achieved.

And at the same time, travelling to a city is not as appealing to me as a barn in a remote coop.

xx



On 19/06/2023 22:04, Mike Harris wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Thanks very much to Mick and Naomi for the session on Sunday morning on "What next for HacktionLab?".  I took a photo of the notes:
> 
> https://hacktionlab.org/index.php?title=File:What_Next_For_HacktionLab_June_2023_Notes.png
> 
> A feeling I came back with, and had also after Todmorden last year is that the approach of returning to the HacktionLab format of holding gatherings in different cities or other locations that the network is invited to is what seems to work the most effectively.  The last two remind me of the HLs we had previously in Leeds, London, Bradford and Oxford.
> 
> This is a departure from this group doing either of these two things:
> 
> - running an annual festival-like event
> - doing actual projects itself, such as the tech tools book and website
> 
> I think the moving from place to place has legs.
> 
> Something else that came up is that someone mentioned that the current web site (wiki) is possibly a little bit vague about what HL actually does.  The wiki is old and there's stuff on it from back in 2009.
> 
> I therefore wonder if we had a poll to see whether we agree that the principle purpose of this group is to hold annual (or more frequent) gatherings in different locations around the UK to foment social, political, professional, and skills-sharing networks, the sharing of projects, the creation of a space for people to find out more about and maybe join existing projects, and for people to do 'reverse workshops' (milk the audience) and we agree that, then we could perhaps update our website to state clearly that that is what we NOW do.
> 
> We could then provide a "HOWTO host a HacktionLab" page that covers what anyone who would like to have one in their location would need to do.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 
> Mike.
>