What’s your Spirit of Lockdown?

In brief In this blog for The Relationships Observatory, Sam Julius and Jessie Powell from Local Trust explore the value of relationship building in communities and how we can look to sustain the recent surge in local connection after COVID-19. To find out...

“I think it’s an interesting one actually for people of my age – single men. At my age – there’s a question of ‘what are you allowed to join?’ that will be positively received? […] There’s a sort of suspicion. But the Covid thing – I think what I really liked about it was the sense that anyone could join and we couldn’t see what each other looked like – we didn’t know how old we were. We didn’t know what social background we were from, we weren’t even talking to one another – because it was all text-based. And so in that sense it was a great leveler, I thought.”

“I think what was really cool at the beginning was it felt like you had this whole potential to really rethink how you interacted with your local area. There was a real sense of possibility that you were really kind of mini-world making or something […] I think politically a lot of people really frown down on traditional charity models – particularly the bifurcation of service users and service providers, and felt like what was needed was something that really lifted people up in the community, and made everyone feel like they were valued and had something to contribute […] which is still a noble goal – but I think it’s hard to do in practice.”

In this Observatory Sighting, we explore how trust is being recalibrated and the impact this is having on relationships both now and in the futureOver the last couple of weeks we have reported on what we see on the surface: Thousands of new community groups, new...

In brief Back in July 2021, we shared our proposal to the National Lottery Community Fund’s Bringing People Together Fund. In July 2022, we shared what we got up to in the first of our two years of funding - from recruiting the Relationships Collective to bringing...

In brief In the wake of our latest report, 'The Relationship-Centred City', David calls on the Mayor of London to create an environment in which relationships can thrive by getting behind a London Relationships Commission.  A couple of weeks ago I asked the Big...

In brief Back in July 2021, we shared our proposal to the National Lottery Community Fund’s Bringing People Together Fund. We were delighted to be awarded the funding and we now find ourselves one year into our two year plan towards a 20 year vision of a world built...

Following on from last week’s Sighting, we continue to take stock of what we’ve observed over the past few months. In this, our eighth Observatory Sighting, we scratch beneath the surface to reflect on the changing undercurrents which have driven changes in our behaviour.

In brief In this blog, Relationships Project founder David Robinson, and Alex Fox, chief executive of Mayday Trust, reflect on the role that relationships and relationship-building play in creating effective public services and charities, and what connects and...

In brief Ofgem confirmed the increase in the energy price cap on Friday August 26th 2022. We now know that, without substantial help, galloping fuel bills, combined with inflation, will push 45m Britons into fuel poverty by the end of the year.   David Robinson...