This week we have mostly been overdosing on workshops. At the beginning of the week I attended a workshop with the Travelling Pantry. The workshop is part of a RSA research project designed by Tessy Britton and David Gauntlett. I was invited to attend due to the work I have been involved in with ARK LAB, but above that it is always good to experience workshop approaches, to see how they can be developed into branding and research workshops for Hoffi. The great thing about the workshop is it was an open workshop which means that you can take the theory and practical of the workshop and try them out in your work.

The half day workshop had some fun activities/exercises and there was a great knowledge transfer section where we learnt about some of the latest community based projects from around the world. For those of you in the community arena and looking at bottom up enterprises there is a few listed below that are really interesting:

- PIE LAB
- Mensheds
- Learning Dreams

As well as that I got to play with LEGO which is always a bonus. I think the idea of SERIOUS PLAY is crucial as a concept to future creative thinking and developments.



As well as the Pantry workshop we also held our own workshop for a potential new venture in Wales. At the moment it is under wraps but the workshop went down well, with a number of outcomes and possibilities identified. The workshop in question is called 'Climbing Everest', it generally takes around half a day and we recommend using it at the beginning of projects to either be used as design research and identify new directions, or to create a brief for a project. At the start of next year we will also be starting a mini version of this for people to try out so if you want to get some creative directions explored in your company let us know.