STORYTELLING
People feel increasingly disconnected from the places they live, and the people around them. Our single aim is to address this issue by encouraging empathy and understanding, and developing a sense or perspective and civic pride. We do this by creating what we call a dialogue through difference. Through the power of conversation, expression, listening and storytelling we can create, contribute to and live in a healthier, happier and more progressive world.
We work with all sorts of different people running projects based around exploring the relationship between people, the place they live or work, and the wider world. Our main project You, Me, the World and…, has taken place in many different parts of London, it enables people to explore and celebrate their similarities and differences, helping to create communities that better understand and empathise with themselves. The project has two parts…
In part one…
we take stock
We listen - connecting with as many different groups of people as possible, we run bespoke workshops, enabling people to share stories, ideas, opinions and experiences with one another - and we collect them as we go.
In doing so we try to discover the collective subconscious of the area is - what are the issues that unite, and divide people? We’re also looking for everything and anything else, from people’s amazing adventures, to their everyday lives. What emerges is a picture that contains the broad brushstrokes, but also the finer details.
In part two…
We exchange
Taking the stories we’ve heard we weave them together to create a short story about each workshop. Then, we revisit all the groups we’ve previously met to share a collection of the stories with them, sparking further conversation base on their reactions.
Finally, we combine all the stories together and host a live performance with a shared meal with everyone who’s taken part and their wider community. During the pandemic we started making podcasts instead, you can listen to our podcasts here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
“Nick and Olly delivered sensitive and stimulating workshops with great care and attention… We worked together to produce a public sharing of stories, which packed our theatre with a vibrant audience, most of whom had never attended the theatre ever before.”
KATHERINE IGOE EWER, LOCAL PRODUCER, THE YARD THEATRE
COMMUNITY
We partner with community organisations and housing associations, utilising our unique practice to engage communities in innovative ways and stimulate conversations and reveal important insights. We’ve worked with two Housing Associations in London - Poplar HARCA and Barnsbury Housing Association, responding to different briefs which sought to enable residents to ‘have their say’ through meaningful participation and exchange.
CASE STUDY: You, Me, the World & Barnsbury Housing Association
Barnsbury Housing Association (BHA) initially approached us in 2020 to develop a project which could engage tenants in an innovative and participatory consultation process; the outcomes and outputs of which would influence the development of their new vision. We worked with BHA over the course of a year and half, running workshops with staff and board members and speaking to residents from across the association. Due to the pandemic, much of the project took place remotely and the result became a short podcast series made specifically for the residents, staff and board at BHA to stimulate the conversation further and ignite further engagement from residents. You can listen to the podcast here…
“I felt listened to. It’s nice to be contacted and be asked my thoughts and opinions and I know that this is going to go somewhere because you told me what you’re going to be doing with it.”
“I’m going to take away a sense of community and pride in what we do, a different perspective, and a sense of equal voices around the table.”
“I enjoyed seeing a side of people that I don’t normally get to see. It was great to have people speak in a more considered way about issues outside of day to day interactions.”
Testimony from Susan French (CEO, Barnsbury HA)
BHA has worked with TSX on a community engagement project over the last couple of years. We were introduced to TSX after one of our Board members saw them present at the Board Members Conference and was inspired by their approach. When we met them, we felt that their approach was quite unique, and would give us the opportunity to have a different sort of conversation with our tenants. Many of our residents have been with us for over forty years and our role – as a very small, neighbourhood-based housing association - and our relationship with our tenants means that ‘community’ has a distinct flavour, history and expression. We felt that TSX’s approach would allow us to explore that in a different way, and provide deeper insights than through the usual types of engagement.
It is fair to say that things didn’t go quite as planned. The pandemic - coupled with our small tenant base - meant that TSX had to rethink how they worked, as their tried and tested approaches of working with established tenants’ associations and community groups wasn’t possible.
We were really impressed with how they recast their way of working to fit our situation, and the challenges of lockdown. They developed new types of conversation with tenants that we wouldn’t immediately have thought would work, but did, such as zoom meetings and WhatsApp groups, as well as lots and lots of door knocking. I found the open ended questions they posed our Board and senior team in our session challenging and thought provoking and give me insights I wouldn’t otherwise have had. I also found them very adaptable and flexible in how they worked and how they did what it took to get to the right outcomes.
Instead of them presenting back their findings through meetings with residents which, again, wasn’t possible due to lockdown, they developed three podcasts, each focusing on key themes that emerged from discussions: community, wellbeing and BHA itself. These were beautifully edited and have given us new insights. They have followed this up with community consultation meetings focusing on what tenants want us to do about these issues, which has given us tangible outcomes to work with and take forward.
I really enjoyed working with TSX and would thoroughly recommend their thoughtful, flexible and innovative approach to other organisations.
WORK
what we do
At a time when we’re working in increasingly remote and disparate ways, enabling your colleagues and work community to feel valued, listened to and inspired is more important than ever. We work closely with organisations to design bespoke workshops which can enable colleagues to reconnect, to reignite a shared sense of purpose, to understand one another better, to create a clear vision for the future, and/or to simply have an enjoyable and meaningful experience.
Our team
Olly and Nick have over 25 years collective experience in developing and facilitating workshops within community and organisational settings. They’ve worked with participant groups and colleague teams at Vodafone, The National Theatre, The Soho Theatre, Jersey Museum, Nuneaton Museum and Local Trust. Their workshops are structured, empathetic and flexible, encouraging people to talk, listen and be present with their own thoughts, as well as the group’s collective reflections.
“take stock exchange were an online breath of fresh air. Their engaging approach to helping develop a shared sense of team and collective purpose builds on the work they’ve previously done face to face at a local community level. It turns out it is also a natural fit for post-COVID online teams looking to reflect and re-energise.”
Matt Leach, CEO, Local Trust
CASE STUDY: INVIGORATING LOCAL TRUST
In the summer of 2020, the ‘new normal’ of a world beset by COVID 19 was well and truly entrenched. For many people, this meant having spent months stuck at home, furloughed, or working from a laptop. This was the case for the employees of Local Trust, the organisation that administers the amazing Big Local programme. CEO Matt Leach asked us to design a programme that would ‘excite, enthuse and push the creativity’ of a workforce that had spent plenty of time together on Zoom meetings, but no time in the same physical space, and had struggled to find strategies to reignite their spark and passion. He wanted people to come away feeling ‘happy, more connected and more engaged’, so we designed a set of workshops that focused on stimulating the creativity that existed within the Local Trust team, enabling them to reconnect with each other, and regenerate the vigour that meant they’d joined the team in the first place.
“In a time when everyone is being pummelled with many extra curricular activities to bring teams together, this stands out as the best.”
“The set up is super clear, super slick and super interesting. I always knew what I was meant to be doing or thinking about. The sessions go quickly, but you don’t feel rushed - just really enjoyable and I looked forward to them in my work week.”
“The questions were challenging - but in a really good way! It’s made me think more positively about my work and place in the world!”