Fellowship news and events

Circle celebrates one year of uniting Fellows globally

On 15 April 2024, Circle, the RSA’s innovative global online platform, celebrated its first anniversary, with more than 4,000 Fellows having joined the community from around the world. Circle has revolutionised the way Fellows chat, connect and collaborate, and has enabled decentralised interaction across borders.

The platform has been a fertile ground for numerous new micro-communities, with Fellows actively engaging in the ‘Ask and Offer’ space to exchange support and opportunities. Our online community has enabled young Fellows to connect directly, and we have gathered more than 300 contributions from the Fellowship for the Day One initiative.

Micro-communities align with the RSA’s Design for Life mission and unite Fellows across diverse locations, interests and identities. Notably, the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Network was the first to emerge from Circle discussions, rapidly growing to include more than 400 Fellows.

The platform has been pivotal in fostering meaningful interactions among Fellows and helping RSA networks to reach their potential. Phillip Ward, Sustainability Network Lead, underscored Circle’s value: “Enabling Fellows to communicate and collaborate was crucial for the Sustainability Network. Circle is providing that for us, and we are beginning to see its potential. It is replacing our reliance on ‘broadcasts’ from the centre via newsletters with an interactive web, allowing Fellows to seek out and converse more broadly.”

For those Fellows eager to connect locally, Circle offers designated area spaces, enabling direct engagement with area managers and other local Fellows. This feature promotes a closer Fellowship community at the local level.

Creating a safe and supportive environment

We uphold our commitment to responsible community management, and monitor and support the Circle community to ensure everyone feels respected and that Circle is a safe space for open collaboration. We do so by combining automated flagging with community-led reporting, followed by staff reviews of flagged content.

The creation of community guidelines was a collaborative effort with the Fellowship, and has been refined based on feedback. Since launch, we have updated the guidelines to include guidance on coverage of party political campaigning in anticipation of this year’s general election, and enhanced our moderation of profanities.

In its first year, over 99% of posts on Circle remained unmoderated. Those that are moderated typically involve posts with an aggressive tone or attempts to promote commercial interests.

Now in its second year, Circle continues to evolve, shaped by the active participation and feedback of the Fellowship, and we will continue to embody that spirit of open collaboration and community-building globally.

If you still need to activate your Circle account, please do so through My RSA and get involved in our flourishing online community. We look forward to your contributions.

Line Kristensen is Director of Fellowship at the RSA.

Connecting with the Fellowship

A regular request from Fellows is for more opportunities to meet the RSA senior leadership team. In response, RSA Connect was established to enable members of the executive team to travel beyond London and meet with Fellows to find out about the work they do, hear feedback first-hand and strengthen connections.

So far, the executive team has visited 15 locations — from Truro to Dundee — with a meeting in Cardiff scheduled to take place as the Journal goes to press. RSA directors and CEO Andy Haldane have met with Fellows, providing updates on our Design for Life mission and interventions while fostering a renewed sense of connection with the wider Fellowship.

Andy told the Journal: “The RSA Connect events confirmed for me that, in the Fellowship and across all four corners of the UK, we have a treasure trove of expertise and experience second to none.”

Fellows have commented that they value the connections the Fellowship enables them to have with others who share similar interests and goals, with a focus on fostering these connections, acquiring new skills, and leveraging expertise to support Design for Life interventions as well as their own social causes. 

Much of the feedback received links to work in motion from the Fellowship team, including:

• The desire for connections, meeting other Fellows and focusing on bringing people together based on place, themes and identity.
• An appreciation of the need for a focus of the work outside of London.
• A desire for more youth activity, with Fellows keen to hear about the youth mentoring pilot, the success of the Youth Fellowship and the Youth Advisory group.

RSA Connect will continue in the autumn, visiting more locations every month.

Young Fellows to benefit from ‘substantial’ bequest

Derek Winterbottom, a Fellow since 1976, has indicated that he will leave a substantial bequest to the RSA and, from this year, will grant a sum of money annually to defray the subscription costs of young people who wish to become Fellows.

Derek is the author of more than 30 books in the fields of history, biography and education, and was a teacher for many years. He is the heir of his late parents who owned well-known hotels in Lancashire and North Wales. The bequest will be used to further educational and professional opportunities among young people.

He told the Journal that the decision to make the commitments came about because he had “spent most of his life learning in schools, teaching in schools, writing about schools and being a school governor”.

According to Line Kristensen, RSA Director of Fellowship: “We are delighted and honoured that Derek has chosen to leave a bequest to the RSA. Donations and bequests from Fellows make a vital contribution to our charitable work and this better enables us to support the next generation of Fellows.”

Courage takes centre stage at Fellows Festival events

This year’s Fellows Festival was more ambitious than ever before — with UK gatherings taking place in Cardiff, Southampton, Newcastle and Birmingham, as well as the London event (see pages 36–37), and online sessions for those in Italy, Oceania and the US.

Seeds of change in Cardiff

Fellows who met in Cardiff celebrated the ‘seeds of change’ for a regenerative future. Hosted by Fellowship councillors Anna Nicholl and Damian Joseph Bridgeman, the meeting took place at sbarc/spark, Cardiff University’s ‘home of innovation’.

Conversations opened and closed with an icebreaker led by ‘man whisperer’ Kenny Mammarella D’Cruz, who encouraged participants to share their thoughts on the theme of courage. Attendees also reflected on a piece of art presented by Zandrea Stewart and listened to a reading by opera singer Jeremy Huw Williams.

According to Lee Sharma, CEO of innovation platform SimplyDo, “The few hours at the RSA Fellows Festival were just amazing. It was an incredibly diverse group, but all connected by the theme of ‘change’ and doing things differently.”

Scenius in Southampton

Southampton’s festival took place at Bugle House near the iconic Southampton Docks. The event began with a talk from historian Cheryl Butler, FRSA, followed by sessions on courage from speakers including Ben Clark, Director of Future Worlds at the University of Southampton, and Satvir Kaur, former Leader of Southampton City Council.

Artist Sarah Filmer created a live illustration of proceedings (see below), alongside video content captured by the team at Southampton’s Business and Intellectual Property Centre.

According to Ann Longley, Fellowship counsellor for the South East: “The term Scenius, coined by Brian Eno to denote ‘the intelligence and intuition of a whole cultural scene’ inspired us to continue unlocking the full potential of our local ecosystems. It was a fantastic Fellow-led event that served to galvanise and activate Southampton’s growing Fellowship.”

Creative courage in Newcastle

Newcastle’s Fellows Festival was held at the Northern Stage venue, with a line-up of speakers all talking authoritatively on the theme of courage.

Jonathan Sapsed, Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Newcastle University Business School, discussed the Northern Creative Corridor and the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, while Tris Brown, FRSA, Founder and Director of the Northern Rose Consultancy, spoke on courage in decision-making in local and regional government.

Full steam ahead in Birmingham

The Central Fellows Festival was a collaborative effort between Fellows, local organisations and Birmingham City University (BCU), hosted in BCU’s STEAMhouse centre.

Speakers included Anna Bright, Chief Executive of Sustainability West Midlands, Alex Nicholson-Evans, Director of Living for the Weekend, and Nicola Fleet-Milne, CEO of FleetMilne.

Participants enjoyed the wide range of speakers, and the opportunity to network with Fellows from across the region and meet representatives from local organisations that share similar values — feedback that could equally be applied to any of the regional Fellows Festival events.

Mutual benefit of mentoring programme

A review of the pilot young Fellows mentoring programme shows that participants were looking for support involving networking, achieving personal and professional goals, and turning ideas into tangible actions.

One of the most successful outcomes of the pilot, noted by both mentees and mentors, was the chance to utilise intergenerational knowledge. The mutual benefit of the mentoring programme was keenly felt by mentors, who were inspired by the next generation of Fellows, while mentees were motivated and encouraged by their mentors to aim high and stretch their goals.

Young Fellows (aged 18–25) from the UK, US, Canada, Oceania, Singapore, Austria and France took part in the pilot, bringing a range of expertise and backgrounds across the creative industries, education, design, architecture and the environment.

The pilot’s purpose was to both test the matching process and get feedback from participants about their mentoring experience as an early indication of the value of the programme and any improvements that could be made prior to full launch.

New additions to Board and Council

There have been recent new appointments to the RSA’s Trustee Board and Fellowship Council.

Neil Beagrie was elected Chair of the Fellowship Council in January 2024, having previously served as Deputy Chair, and also joins the RSA Trustee Board. He is supported by Damian Joseph Bridgeman, who was elected to Deputy Chair in March 2024.

Eva Pascoe, who is the joint representative for London on the Fellowship Council, was elected to the Trustee Board in March 2024 as the second Fellowship Council representative (joining Neil Beagrie).

An appointment process is currently underway to replace Tim Eyles, Chair of the RSA Trustee Board, who will complete his second term in the role this year.

Union dispute resolved

Members of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) have voted to accept an improved offer from the RSA and have ended their long-running pay dispute. The RSA and IWGB said in a joint statement that they would “work constructively and collaboratively” to improve industrial relations and support the charity’s mission.