Did you know that Southampton Collective Directors, Mandi, Clare, Rebecca and Katie have all been involved in the development of the Southampton Climate Action Network (SoCAN) over the last couple of years? We have been working with Liz Batten, who has been the instigator and lead in the network’s development since late 2022. Katie and Mandi have stepped back from this role in 2024 but both have contributed significantly to the network in 2023, Katie being the Project Manager for a Participatory Research project and Mandi providing her skills and expertise in policy development and other national campaigns.

Rebecca and Clare facilitated the most recent meeting with the members of the Steering Group on 8 May 2024, with some really exciting, interesting and creative conversations. We welcomed two new members to the group, Jon Coello and Lucy Marum who are keen to be involved and help our climate action community flourish and thrive. They join Liz Batten, Rebecca Kinge, Clare Diaper, Irene McWilliam, Angela Cotton, Lyn Brayshaw, Peter Ray and Ian Rothwell as members of the Steering Group.

We spent a bit of time at the start of the meeting sharing a little bit about ourselves and our involvement with SoCAN. This was a real wake up to all the skills, experience and activities that are already here and happening in our city. We talked about Mend In Public, an activity organised by the Southampton Sewing hub and the amazing work of Transition Southampton Repair Cafés in our city. There was mention of a screening of Chasing the Sun at Harbour Lights coming up on the 14^th of May 2024, a film that explores extraordinary personal stories of ordinary cyclists, revealing the power of the humble bicycle to transform lives and help save the planet. People, Planet, Pint also got a mention and is a regular meetup of people wanting to find more about what’s going on locally with sustainability and how to get involved. We also heard that Transition Southampton hosted an event discussing the  Real Climate Solutions films, which give simple recommendations as to what needs to be done. And Jon and Lucy talked about their inspirations and projects in podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at Southampton University. All this and more from a brief conversation about what climate action we had taken in the last month. 

Through SoCAN members the Steering Group has links to the Hampshire Chamber of Commerce’s Green Innovation Steering Group, British computer network, Innovation Zero conference, Southampton City Council, Go Southampton and the Business Improvement District (BID), Royal Society of Arts, local and national Co-operative networks, Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), Southampton University and many more groups and organisations. 

The growing SoCAN team has experience in psychology, system change, community development, data science, environmental science, school curriculum, urban water systems, policy development, sustainable technology, marketing, city planning, art of hosting and much more.  They are looking for more members, particularly from the arts and creative organisations in the city. Formal meetings are once every couple of months with informal social events in the month in between.

One of the aims of the network for this year is to share and celebrate all that their members are and all that they already achieve in our city. Stay tuned here for more blogs and possibly podcasts over the coming months.