Stroud Assembly

Stroud Assembly

Stroud is blessed - and - we are seeing collapse seeping into reality as more and more residents struggle for food; our seeming powerlessness to hold onto community assets; our increasing vulnerability from climate breakdown (food security, flood, heat risk) and far right conspiracy theories contributing to division on our high street. Like many, we are starting to see what is coming, and must find ways of navigating this together. For over a year, community leaders (from 25 organisations and 15 local leaders) have been meeting, and have committed to building a bottom-up standing Citizens’ Assembly, to find common purpose, make decisions, and deliver change/action through mobilising people and resources via an Implementation Network in service to those decisions. We will build power through good foundations - of legitimacy (representation and ‘getting things done’ well), shared values, collective ownership, learning and feedback; through the ‘Implementation Network’; and by contributing to a paradigm shift, ie resources and energy will flow because of its legitimacy and better functioning. We have international experts in deliberative democracy in our group; benefitting from their experience, we have the opportunity to pioneer a model for democratic innovation that can extend beyond Stroud.