About Spring:

Spring is a socio-political project, designed to bring people and power closer together in challenging times.

It arises from the Alternative Global (AG) which began in March 2017 in response to the death of Jo Cox, five days before the European referendum known as Brexit. The worst kind of evidence that divisive party politics can lead to violence and social breakdown.

For almost eight years, AG have operated as ‘systems convenors’, reporting on and connecting up the plethora of initiatives that answered our question: if politics is broken, what’s the alternative?

We have produced a ‘Daily Alternative” media channel, held local and global spaces to platform complex solutions and prototyped community agency networks (CANs) across the UK. We have upwards of 700 co-creators, each holding their own piece of a new socio-economic-political system arising.

We’ve observed that over thirty years – since the birth of the internet – non-state actors (you and me) have been experimenting with participative and regenerative systems. We’ve connected our personal physical and mental health to the community we live in, understanding our relationship with the finite planet. From city level CANs like Cooperation Jackson, to small neighbourhood mutual-aid groups, people have been turning to each other and discovering resources and possibilities.

Today we are confident there is an alternative political system available, but in early stages of gestation. Simply put, communities self-organising and deliberating their future can be a partner to government in a wider system of power. Tools such as pol.is, which have transformed government in Taiwan, can be used in Scotland to help communities to know themselves, grow community wealth and partner government in policy making.

 This social uplift can prepare Scotland for an independent future, capable of holding steady in turbulent times. Expecting ingenuity to come from every corner of the country; knowing that our interconnectivity with the wider world will give us infinite resources and opportunities to collaborate.

None of this will come automatically. Just like the hard work of Winter – tilling, clearing, composting, planting – Spring depends upon us investing our energy and attention in each other and those around us.

But it’ll be fun and rewarding. Join us.

Artwork by Kenneth Whyte, “This is (the Beginning of) the End Painting” (with thanks). All art available at the artist’s site https://www.kennethwhyte.co.uk/index.html