Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance

Header image: New Pioneers by Mark Henson

A six-week, better-than-free online course

The course has now started and so applications are closed. Sign up for email updates about future courses at https://dandelion.earth/o/renaissance-u

We are in the midst of a Regenerative Renaissance.

A rebirth of art, architecture, philosophy, literature, music, science, technology, politics and spirituality every bit as profound as the Renaissance of 500 years ago.

Whereas the original Renaissance asserted the genius of man [and] the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind, the Regenerative Renaissance is characterised by an awakening to the interdependence and beauty of the natural world, and the role of humanity as its stewards.

Designed by Phoebe Tickell and Stephen Reid (the team behind Don't Go Back To Normal) with support from Rieki Cordon (Ecosystem Facilitator at Hypha, the organisation leading the development of SEEDS), Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance is a six-week, better-than-free course focused on tools and techniques that can be used and enjoyed right now for healthier, happier lives, thriving local economies, a fairer distribution of power and resources, and the healing of the planet. Outline schedule:

• Week 1: Introduction
  • The Regenerative Renaissance
• Week 2: Regenerative Agriculture & Thriving Local Economies
  • Permaculture, Open Food, Community Supported Agriculture, Circular Systems & P2P energy
• Week 3: Regenerative Money
  • SEEDS, Celo, Circles, Cobudget & Aragon
• Week 4: Decentralised Organising and Horizontal Leadership
  • Teal, Sociocracy, Holacracy, Enspiral & Loomio
• Week 5: Co-operative Ownership
  • Steward Ownership, Platform Co-operatives & Dandelion
• Week 6: Wrap up

The course will take place on six consecutive Wednesdays starting on the new moon in February (10 Feb, 17 Feb, 24 Feb, 3 Mar, 10 Mar, 17 Mar), 6pm UK time/7pm CET. Typical schedule for a session:

• Part 1 (55m): Overview, background/history, theory. Led by the facilitators, with the possibility of breakout groups towards the end of the time.
• 10m break
• Part 2 (55m). Conversation with a guest expert followed by Q&A

Homework will consist of tasks such as:

• Signing up to and playing with one or more apps/services
  • Watching a screenshare walkthrough video
  • App-related tasks e.g. participate in a Loomio decision, make a SEEDS transaction
• Reading articles on theory/background
• Watching videos/films

Graduation will be subject to participants completing the following:

• Keeping a learning log reflecting on the user experience of featured apps and drawing out key messages of featured articles/videos
• Recording and sharing at least one sensemaking conversation with a small number of other participants on the course (this could be a post-course reflection)
• At least one of the following:
  • Setting up a 4+ week learning journey for members of the participant's community inspired by the content of this one
  • Submitting a Campaign proposal on the SEEDS app to distribute Seeds to the participant's community in exchange for some regenerative action inspired by the course
  • Signing up to the SEEDS Ambassador Academy
  • Helping an organisation/business to accept payment in Seeds
  • Publishing a 1000+ word blog post with reflections on the course

Applications and registration

Applications are now open. Successful applicants pay a registration fee in Seeds (S500/1500/3000 low income/standard/abundant, approx $10/30/60). A number of zero fee scholarship places are also available on request.

Participants completing all assignments receive 15,000 Seeds (approx $300, ~$50/session) at the end of the course. In the abundant spirit of the Regenerative Renaissance, we want to pay you for educating yourself and activating your community.

Lead facilitators

Phoebe Tickell (SEEDS username: solarpunkgrl)

Phoebe Tickell is a scientist, educator and 10+ year systems thinker who draws on her background in complexity science and approaches of experimentation, network-building, emergent strategy and moral imagination to serve the transition. She works across multiple contexts applying a complexity and systems thinking lens and has worked in organisational design, advised government, the education sector, cooperative technology and the food and farming sector. Most recently, she has been working  with funders to implement systems-thinking approaches, including at The National Lottery Community Fund. 

She holds a position as Associate Lecturer at Schumacher College UK, an Advisory Board Member to the International Bateson Institute, and Advisor to The Consilience Project. Previously she has been a visiting lecturer at Imperial College London, Royal College of Art and Central St. Martins, contributing interdisciplinary teaching to innovative Masters programmes. She is a Member of the Enspiral Network, co-creator of DGOV Foundation for Distributed Governance and co-creator of Don’t Go Back To Normal.

She is an experienced facilitator of groups, and regularly works with organisations, conferences, decision-making committees and distributed teams to facilitate coherence and collective intelligence. Phoebe is often hired to seed, catalyse and build new networks and communities of sensemaking and intelligence, utilising her skills in digital organising, facilitation, complex pattern matching and highly networked and trans-contextual sense-making.

Stephen Reid (SEEDS username: stephenreid1)

Stephen Reid is a co-operative technologist and cultural changemaker who has trained in the fields of physics, complexity science, software development, meditation, psychotherapy, plant medicine, conscious sexuality and political activism. He is currently a co-director of Dandelion Collective (the not-for-profit worker co-operative behind the Psychedelic Society, which he founded in 2014), the lead developer of dandelion.earth, a co-creator of Don't Go Back To Normal and a contributor to Enspiral.

Previously, he was the youngest ever board member of Greenpeace UK, was selected as the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Totnes, co-founded the New Economics Foundation's New Economy Organisers Network and worked as a technology consultant for organisations including the Labour Party, the Living Wage Foundation and 350.org. Stephen has an MPhys in Physics from the University of Oxford, where he specialised in quantum field theory, and an MRes in Complexity Sciences from the University of Bristol.