Our vision of the world as is should be is; diverse, resilient and powerful communities, acting together for their common good. We’ve been committed to this vision since we started in 2015, and today the need is greater than ever.
That’s why our vision for 2024 is to support communities across the UK, to host meals that welcome newcomers, develop community leaders, and build on the strengths of their diverse talents and experiences. Imagine in a year’s time, a Local Welcome family of 50 groups all over the UK - what a difference we could make together!
We’ve been working hard the past few months to set things in motion, and there’s still a lot to do to make this happen. You might have been involved in our recent Design Forums, and seen updates in recent Weeknotes about the elements we are planning to change.
Our key considerations are to create an organisation that is financially sustainable, and where groups are enabled with the flexibility and autonomy they need. If we get this right, it will help us thrive together as part of something more resilient and powerful than we are today.
We also want to grow groups that provide a welcome to all, and where everyone involved feels empowered to contribute in whatever role they choose. That might mean cooking, eating, welcoming, leading on the day, or organising behind the scenes - everyone gets to contribute whatever they can.
We’re excited to launch a new version of **Localwelcome.org** that captures our updated mission. It also launches a new membership offer. Our aim with this offer is to help members to feel more belonging and ownership, and to encourage them to contribute more to the real costs of running and growing groups.
We’re in the process of making a number of other changes. You can find out more about these changes below, why we’re making them and how they’ll affect groups and leaders.
Since we started cooking together in 2015, we’ve been on a mission to launch a member-led organisation.
We all want to feel like we belong. We want everyone who is part of a meal to feel that belonging and become a member. We recognised that sometimes the current roles of ‘member’ and ‘guest’ could create a sense of inequality.