At the latest Design Forum this week we had a really energising conversation with leaders from Liverpool, Derby and Cardiff about the ins, outs, pros and cons of cooking a more varied menu. It turns out, that cooking meat is a really interesting and complex challenge. Huge thanks to everyone who contributed.
As well as energising, the conversations were balanced and valuable. Together, we’ve landed on the idea of a Food Panel - a group of leaders, with impressive skills and experience, who could design guidelines for groups on topics like if, when or how to include meat at the meals. If you’re someone with a background in food hygiene we’d love to hear from you!
Please let us know by email: [email protected]
Also, if you just want to share your thoughts on the topic, it’s not too late! The form we shared for those who couldn’t make it is still live here.
Over the last few months we’ve been preparing to launch Local Welcome’s new proposition. The focus has been on finding ways to recruit more leaders, give groups more autonomy to choose recipes and build local partnerships, and asking more individuals across the UK, to support as financially.
On our website which we’ve been exploring and co-designing with the members of the Local Welcome community who attended our Design Forums throughout this month.
We’re aiming to have this launched by November 1, 2023 and can’t wait to share more about it with you next week.
We’re creating a plan for our existing groups so you’re clear on what this means and how your group will transition to some of the changes we’re making over the next couple of months.
We hope that the changes we’re making will make our groups more diverse, resilient, autonomous and powerful. We also hope it will help us launch more Local Welcome groups, and empower all our leaders, to share their amazing skills, talents, passions, and deep local knowledge, so that the magic of our meals can continue to grow, and be sustained for years to come.
Alongside all this design work, we’ve also been preparing for an exciting event in collaboration with Save The Children, a celebrity chef, at a school in north London next week!
Whilst supporting with work being done on the website, I was taking a look through all the photos we have on file and found this one taken during the early days of Local Welcome (2017 I think).