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Machloket - 2024
This page provides an ‘Example’ of the Machloket podcast to support our current Arts Council England application:
Project number NLPG-00709424
This audio clip includes a collection of moments taken from the first two episodes of the Machloket podcast, recorded spring spring and summer 2023.
Machloket - 2023
This page provides additional detail to support our current Arts Council England application.
It outlines the what, why, how and who surrounding the workshop process within our proposed project.
Project Number NLPG-00608055
Contents
Click a link to jump to the parts of the page listed below
TSX workshop process
Our projects are usually run in collaboration with a partner organisation(s) rooted in a particular area or community. It may be an arts organisation, a community centre or something like a housing association. In collaboration with our partner(s) we engage a number of existing community groups, trying to ensure the the area’s demographics are represented as much as possible by the groups we work with. Once we’ve identified the groups, our projects have three stages: Workshop 1 (WS1), Workshop 2 (WS2) and a Public Sharing.
Workshop 1: We visit the group wherever they meet - it could be at a community centre, a work place, a library and more recently it’s been online. Throughout the workshop we facilitate a conversation where participants are empowered to share their ideas, opinions and stories relating to the place that they live or work. We take notes and record each session and then, working with a musician, we create a series of short stories about what happened during each workshop.
Workshop 2: We return to visit each group again and we tell them a collection of the stories we’ve created, including the story of their own workshop 1. Participants are invited to reflect on the stories and explore their connections with one another. The stories, ideas, opinions and experiences that people shared in workshop 1 begin to cross pollinate and what starts to emerge is a community that is better connected, better equipped to empathise, understand and to develop a greater sense of perspective and civic pride.
Public Sharing: Finally, we weave together the full collection of stories to create a portrait of the place we have been working from the perspective of it’s people. We usually host an event with a community meal, where workshop participants and the wider public can come together to hear the stories, share food and have conversations. Where this hasn’t been possible due to the pandemic, we’ve started creating podcasts (you can listen to our latest podcast below).
Workshops in detail
Our Workshop 1s are always designed to meet the specific needs of the participants we are working with. This means that we have three main types of workshops:
Active drama workshops
Structured conversations
Joining the group’s activity, where we join in with the regular activity of group we’re working with; e.g. if they’re a group that meets to decorate cakes, we’ll decorate the cakes with them.
Whilst the format of each of these workshops is very different, the content always revolves around the same questions, which are determined at the project’s outset. These questions might look something like this if we’re running a project with a geographical location as its setting:
Agree or disagree? [The area you are living/working in] is a great place to be.
Agree or disagree? I feel connected to other people in [the area].
Agree or disagree? The future will be better than the present.
What are you going to take away from the conversation we’ve had today?
Or something like this if we’re running a project based around a theme:
Agree or disagree? I am happy to talk about the pandemic.
Agree or disagree? The pandemic has changed the world, and it will never be the same again.
Agree or disagree? The pandemic has changed me, and it will never be the same again.
Now that you’ve heard from everyone else, what are you thinking about? What are you feeling?
What are you going to take away from the conversation we’ve had today?
At the beginning of each workshop we establish our one rule, that people commit to looking after themselves, and looking after one another, helping people to actively engage in the process of listening, and feeling secure and confident enough to speak. Follow up questions are carefully considered, based on our extensive experience as workshop facilitators, and Olly’s training as a coach. The result is a process that is ‘gentle and affirmative’ and ‘very powerful and edifying’ for participants. The structured format, together with openness of the questions, mean that people are free to talk about what they wish, to respond to the contributions of others and make free associations, but that the content is held, has a purpose, and does not meander. The result is a conversation where both the ‘big’ and the ‘little’ is discussed - the significant and the seemingly insignificant, which is then reflected in the stories we develop and share with participants in the second workshops.
Working Notes for Machloket Workshops
WS1s in Machloket will follow the same principles but will be based around a set of questions that will enable participants to… :
Reminder of the main goal: Explore, share and celebrate what life is like for all sorts of Jewish people in the UK
QUESTION 1 (Individual Jewishness)
Agree or disagree: I'm happy to talk about my experiences of being what it means to be a British Jew in 2022/2023 or right now
Agree or disagree: I'm happy to talk about being Jewish
Agree or disagree: I'm happy to talk about being a Jewish person
Agree or disagree: I'm happy to talk about being a Jewish person in this place, at this moment in time
Agree or disagree: I'm happy to talk about what it means to me to be Jewish in this place, at this moment in time
Agree or disagree: I'm happy to talk about what being Jewish means to me.
QUESTION 2 (Individual reasons for the group)
What brings you here today?
What does this group mean to you?
Agree or disagree I am nourished by this group
QUESTION 3 (Community)
Agree or disagree: this community has great values
Agree or disagree: I love being a part of this community
Agree or disagree: this is a functioning community?
Agree or disagree: i feel connected?
Can you think of a time or a moment that demonstrates the values or strength of this community? OR Agree or disagree I need this community
QUESTION 4 (Future)
Agree or disagree: the future will be better than the present
WS2s and the public sharing will then follow our original format, but instead of the ‘cross pollination’ happening across different community groups within a London, it will happen across Jewish Communities in England.
FEEDBACK: participants & group organisers
“The participants who recognised themselves in the performance were delighted and happy to be heard and have their own words performed on a platform by someone who has valued what they said and faithfully replicated it . This says - you have been heard - your story is valid and is shared and becomes bigger and part of other people’s experience…. The project delighted and warmed participants and helped us to recognise our interconnections and our ties to the local area.”
“The story telling had depth, anticipation and a real sense of excitement... A client’s comment was that he learnt a lot from the presentations as it was interesting, innovative and gave him a better mind set. He also said that he felt that you did a very good job in enlightening his life.
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Two participants from our 2019 project You, Me, the World & Culture Mile discuss their experiences of taking part.
“Participants got a lot out of hearing the other stories in the presentation session. It really got them thinking about things in a different way. They empathised with different groups of people that they previously judged. Some carers related to the stories, for others it changed their perception of Ilford and its people.”
