Joe blogs.

The Bristol Cable is a newspaper, mostly. (Free-to-access, as they wisely print on the front.) It’s also a website and probably an instagram or something too.

And it’s a member-owned cooperative. There are 1,600+ members. I’m delighted to be one, because I worry about the quality of democracy in the UK and I suspect the UK’s media situation isn’t terribly good for us. And it seems fairly obvious that a newspaper owned by its readers is going to serve its readers. A newspaper owned by some tax exile living on an island somewhere is going to serve… well, you get the idea. 

On the Fridays before the main Saturday events, #NotWestminster is an opportunity to spend a few hours working on a single idea, proposal, hack, whatever. The day starts with people pitching ideas for stuff they want to work on — all on theme of making local democracy better.

I joined a group of people discussing those occasions where small groups of people get together to do something for where they live. Those motivated individuals who, without any kind of top-down urging or instruction, Just Do It.

The group didn’t get to the point of creating or building anything — instead we spent our time trying to define the problem.

I wrote loads of notes, and hopefully there’s something useful or thought-provoking here: