Community Pros of London Co-working Day

Community Pros of London is a volunteer-led group supporting the people working in or with the burgeoning community sector in the London area. It is open to anyone who works in, around or is interested in the community space – whether they are running a community, thinking of setting one up or are part of one. We have strong ties to the public sector and have invited individuals working in the sector to join. It is free to join and the focus is on organising in person meet ups where members can come together to share experiences, ask questions and get support from others who are connected to the space. All events are also free to attend currently.

To date we have 228 members, having launched in late March 2023.

Having tested a number of networking and co-working type events last year, we have received the feedback that the co-working day format is most beneficial for members. We have, as a result, decided to hold another one on 11th June this year. The day will be free and open to all. We will promote it heavily to staff working in the public sector in particular to ensure community professionals in this space are aware of it and are encouraged to join. The day will be held at the Runway East co-working space in Bloomsbury in central London (space is being kindly donated to us) and the draft structure of the day will be:

• 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM: Welcome, breakfast, and get to know session (including opportunity to post topics people want to discuss later in the day, on the white board)
• 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM: Roundtable discussion: “The Fractional Community Manager” – what it is and how to develop your community manager skills. This is a smaller group discussion which will be led by industry leader, Ilker Akansel (ex Google and now Cambridge University)
• 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM: Lunch and group discussion based on the topics that have been posted at the beginning of the day. This discussion will be led by the Community Pros of London team members.
• 4:00 PM – 4:30 PM: Roundtable discussion: “Getting Business Buy-In and Integrating Community Across Channels” – how to make sure your business leaders take community seriously. This discussion will be led by Laura Roth (AWS) and Faisa Mohamed (Co-founder, Somalis in Tech and former Bumble Community Manager)
• 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM: Networking

As well as the more structured elements outlined in the schedule, there will also be lots of free form networking and support opportunities. We hope around 20 – 30 community professionals will join the day, of which we hope around 10 will be from the public sector.

• Breakfast for attendees plus light refreshments during the day (based on £5 per head) = £150
• Contribution towards lunch for all attending (based on £20 p head and contribution towards 10 people) = £200
• Small stipend for external speakers who will be traveling to London for the event and hosting the discussions = £100

We are submitting this application together as a group – Madeleine Milne, Clare Sutcliffe and Laura Roth. We all work in the community space – Madeleine and Clare are community consultants and work with a number of brands and not for profit organisations to support them with their community-led growth. Laura works in Global Community at AWS.Having seen, and joined, a number of US based community groups, we realised that the London area, the UK in general and the public sector is under-served with opportunities for community professionals to come together and support each other. We decided to set up Community Pros of London to try and address this need.We would like to run this event specifically as we recognise that not only are many of us still working from home and might be feeling isolated but, as community is a relatively new sector for organisations, even if people are coming into the office to work together, community professionals are often a team of one or maximum two. This event will provide a wider support mechanism, collaboration opportunity and a vehicle to explore concepts and innovate together. Not only would it be answering a potential personal need, therefore, but it will also help develop the community industry more widely.We hope you will consider this application for funding and support our co-working day.