Event Recap: #4Good Brekky

From the first to the tenth of November, events are happening across Australia where social innovators and entrepreneurs are getting together to bring social change to life.  Add More Green chipped in by hosting a #4Good Brekky; a place for changemakers to enjoy great coffee, breakfast, and conversation with people who are working to make the world a better place.

We collaborated with The Empire Cafe to provide a comfortable space for discussion and inspirational thinking.  Below are some images of how I got the discussion going amongst participants.  Our topics were community, entrepreneurship, social innovation, and sustainability; I worked towards each of us defining these topics in our own words...

Going in to the discussion, my objective was for everyone coming to learn about one topic/idea (at least one) that they didn't know before coming.  Working in social change, we all have our own communities and tribes that we correlate and correspond with most frequently.  By learning new ideas, and seeing how those concepts work with other communities, it's inspiring to learn how we can adapt those strategies to benefit each of our individual communities.

Here's a recap I sent out to participants of what we learned, and what we can work on moving forward:

Hi Changemakers,

Thanks for joining our first #4Good Brekky in the Byron Shire.  It was really motivating to hear all the positive work people are doing in our community and globally.  As a recap, I wanted to provide some understanding of what we all seem to agree upon.

Topics…
Community: common unity, a conscious collective, shared experience, desire of an individual to connect around a shared idea, togetherness
Entrepreneurship: one or more who ‘manifests’ ideas, the courage to share your ideas with the world, mindset/skillset to break down barriers, addressing needs
Social Innovation: necessary or optional positive interest, using entrepreneurship to facilitate change in community, addressing needs
Sustainability: to ensure longevity of resources, ecological balance, paramount to the triple bottom line, full use of resources, creating massive surplus that enriches the whole system to continue operating
Some innovative ideas we discussed:
- We discussed the plans Simon has to establish a Byron Precinct for Global Solutions, find out more here:http://mayorsimonrichardson.com/speeches/sustainability-networking-breakfast-2013/- We discussed the Byron Bay events app that Horst is working on, find out more here: http://www.lovebyronbay.com/- Upon leaving, Jacquelina and Judy each mentioned transportation (including cycling) and the need for a more community-oriented method of transportation in the Byron Shire (even the idea of a light rail)…
Some conclusions we came to after defining our topics:
- there are heaps of innovators and entrepreneurs in our area, and there are plenty of community oriented individuals locally
- we lack risk takers, we lack the spirit that actually brings these community members together, we need to motivate these individuals to stand up and actually fight for the community they believe in


Moving forward, I’ll be working to tackle this issue, finding ways to motivate our community to actually BE A COMMUNITY!


I’m also keen to explore the space Paul was discussing, crowdfunding for the Byron Shire.  As a crowdfunding expert (from an online perspective) I’m not sure the internet is the way to go for our community.  However, I’m interested in the idea of an Elevator (Rocket) Pitch competition for our community.  The chance for innovators to pitch their ideas to the individuals (and wallets) they are affecting the most…let me know if you want to continue discussing this idea.

Thanks again to everyone who joined our first rural #4Good Brekky, and let's keep this momentum going.