2025 - Communities in a Changing World

11th - 13th July 2025, Canon Frome Court

Programming Team: Chris Taylor, Emma Burtt, Tim Fry, Alex Toogood

Organising Team: Chris Taylor, Brigid Bowerman, and the Canon Frome Court residents

The conference this year feels like it’s been another success, with one hundred people joining the Canon Frome Court residents for a camping weekend in Herefordshire. This is the first time that the Communities Conference has been hosted outside of Braziers Park, this year being held amongst the 40 acres of farmland and Georgian manor house at Canon Frome Court. Whilst the overall scope of the event is similar to previous years’, there were subtle differences in feeling that arose from the different location, particularly because this is the first year where families were part of the hosting group, which gave more opportunities to involve visiting children in the weekend. 

During the weekend, we held our usual mix of creative sessions, longer-form workshops, discussions, and talks. As an organiser, it is interesting to see the ComCon ‘brand’ developing, as we welcome back some familiar contributors and topics. We also like to experiment with the programme structure, and this year we had three whole-group circles, instead of the sit-down plenary sessions that framed the events at Braziers Park. These circles felt more appropriate to the experience of community (we do like a circle!) that we are trying to foster during the weekend, as we explore the meeting point of the individual, the group, and the wider world.

One key outcome from the weekend has been the holding of two sessions specifically asking ‘what next?’ – one for community members, and another for those hoping to join or create community. As community members, we spoke about our desires to remain in contact, and to travel between communities, sharing expertise, skills, and enthusiasm. We have a recently-started WhatsApp channel for community members to share resources, and Vincent Spehner from Marmalade Lane is working on a community passport initiative to foster exchange visits. Jenny Pickerill from the University of Sheffield will also be exploring how to make relevant academic research more readily-available to communities and non-academic audiences. Jonathan How from Diggers and Dreamers attended the event, and will be including a feature on their website which will allow communities to publicise their events. Whilst we also shared more ambitious ideas, these felt like the meaningful actions that can gain momentum over the coming year.

Rubs Tulley, who is part of the Seeding Communities programme at Canon Frome Court, hosted the session for aspiring communards. This has given some direction for Seeding Communities and ComCon to take as we explore how to create more support for those looking for resources and advice. For people interested in staying informed about this, sign up to the Seeding Communities mailing list through the Canon Frome Court website.

One of the bottlenecks for these systems has been the perception that it is the domain of established groups (like ComCon or Diggers and Dreamers) to initiate and host community resources and events. Part of the positivity that I feel coming out of this years’ event is an increasing sense that the communities movement belongs to a wider group of ‘us’ – if we want these things to happen, it is up to each of us to initiate and persevere with them. Whilst established groups may have resources to share, we are unfunded volunteers who are already doing the work that we care about, and generally welcome other initiatives. The realities of community is that much of our power is de-centralised, and comes about through conversation, personal connections, and an ‘I will’ attitude.

One of the places I feel the limitation for us as a movement and as an event is in the tendency for the collective culture to gravitate towards a well-meaning (white, middle-class) liberal perspective.  My personal highlight from the weekend was in hearing from Polydord Wasokye, a resident and community-builder at Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, who experiences community in such different circumstances to those surrounding us at Canon Frome and in the UK. His input left me wondering what conversations and attitudes are really necessary and relevant to us as communards, and what assumptions we make that are limiting our experience of human relationship.

Behind the scenes, the communities conference team has been undergoing a lot of change. The driving force behind the previous four years’ events, Ian Hare and Claudia Sanchez, stepped back from the organising group this spring to visit communities in the Americas, on their way to establishing a community in Claudia’s homeland of Peru. Chris Taylor, who has been part of the team from its’ second year, is also likely to be leaving the programming team. With these people’s input, it feels like we have established a core format for ComCon, and the quality of the events so far owes a lot to all three of them, and to the working dynamic that we have shared.  Going into 2026, the current residents at Braziers Park will again be shaping the theme of the next event. Beyond that, the existence and direction of the Conference is still unknown and we wait to see what changes come about with the change in personnel and what theme we choose to explore next year.

With gladness for the journey so far, and hope that we can continue to explore our shared humanity and the significance of this thing we call intentional community,

Alex and the Conference team.

Canon Frome Court, July 2025