Dear Courageous Commoners

We are now three months (!) into our Commons Hub project, three full summer months that passed by in the blink of an eye ☀. As we slowly approach autumn, we've taken a moment to reflect on our progress over these initial months, with the community, and to identify the support we still need to turn this place into the thriving hub in Brussels we envision. In this newsletter, we also look ahead: a program is taking shape, new activity proposals are being debated enthusiastically, and partnerships are being forged.

And, we are very excited about our Open Days coming up! 27 and 28 of September we open our doors to curious visitors. The program looks very promising! 🔥

On Friday, August 30th, we held our first quarterly community update to reflect on our progress. In brief, the past few months can be summarized as follows:

• June: a flurry of activity around furnishing the space. All furniture is second-hand, which means … a lot of logistics 🚚🙂

• July: testing the space and its capacity to host large events. We hosted the Regen Village event and welcomed over 600 visitors! 🔥

• August: groundwork for community building and defining our first offering. More concretely: giving words to our purpose and values, creating a first business plan and different membership tiers. And … communicate this via various channels. Building the website, setting up socials, writing the first newsletter, creating pitch decks with our offers and focus on visibility.

Curious for more details, numbers, pictures? You are very welcome to dive into the slide deck we created to give an overview. Click on the picture👇🏾

The Commons Hub Brussels is, first and foremost, a location-based, physical, in-person community where we rebuild commons with local and global citizens of Brussels. Meeting each other, starting projects together, and learning through the process are at the heart of what we do. In fact, it’s why we exist.

However, we are aware that we live in the 21st century and that we are a community right in the heart of a thriving city center, the capital of Europe. The question of how to create a community that is accessible in various ways, with multiple entry points (both offline and online), is an ongoing conversation. This is particularly important because we have identified ‘participation’ as one of our five core values. Here's how we’ve defined this value:

👉🏼 Participation: Building a commons is not a spectator sport. We need everyone to make this space work, so we set up and experiment with various online and offline tools to make participating in and contributing to our commons both accessible and enjoyable. We honor the uniqueness of all members, acknowledging different ways of participating and contributing to the whole. We are all crew.

Honoring this value requires ongoing dialogue and engagement with the community about our chosen communication channels (amongst many other conversations :-)). As the description of our value ‘participation’ suggests, the diversity in our community is very tangible, and we strive to respect everyone. This diversity presents challenges, for example in the use of technology within our space. We are navigating a broad spectrum here. 🙂

From the very beginning—starting in the very first week—we’ve held weekly heartbeat meetings on Mondays. These meetings are one of the ways we uphold the value of participation within the community. They provide an entry point for the community to join conversations, make decisions together, discuss tensions, and share updates and ideas. And most importantly, to connect, build relationships and feel the heartbeat of a growing community. 🧡

We have members who occasionally join remotely via Zoom, and the weekly notes ensure everyone has access to what’s been discussed. Alongside the IRL meetings, we have a WhatsApp group for quick questions, and we use discord to support deeper conversations and make async contributions possible. Members get access to more channels where they can create proposals and join deep conversations. Our documentation center at this moment is in Notion. All tools, online and offline, are chosen and managed consciously to support active participation and accessibility in the community. It will be an ongoing exercise in balance.

Here are some pictures from our very first heartbeat meeting on June 10th and from our latest one on September 9th. We’ve managed to acquire some furniture in the meantime! 🪑🪴😀

We publish all events on this calendar. If you register, you will receive an e-mail notification for every upcoming event.

Feel very welcome become a member and enjoy priority access for using the space and receive discounts on the events happening at the Commons Hub.

📆 Sunday Sept 15th -19:00 Register (English)

Join us for an enlightening evening with Michel Bauwens, a pioneering thinker in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and collaborative economies. In his lecture he will delve into the critical question of who holds the power to enact significant societal change during periods of crisis and transition.

No better day to reflect on these important questions than on the International Day of Democracy! 🔅

📆 Thursday Sept 25th 18:00-20:00 RSVP (French)

En vue des élections communales du 13 octobre, Rise for Climate Belgium convie les candidat.es à la Ville de Bruxelles pour un débat sur la politique climatique et environnementale de la commune.

📆 Friday 27 & Saturday 28 of September RSVP + Program (English/Français/Nederlands)

Feel warmly invited to visit the Commons Hub! 🤗

✔ discover this new central place for the commons in Brussels

✔ meet the community building this common

✔ try out the open co-working space on the first floor

✔ participate in a variety of workshops and sessions by community members and guest speakers

📆 October 31st - November 2nd More info (English)

Join us for 2 days of transformative talks, workshops, immersive experiences and artistic performances to explore together the future of leadership, masculine/feminine dynamics, decentralisation and organisational cultures.

This event is hosted by The Blindspot Project and follows the principles of T.A.O. aka The Androgynous Organisation, an action/research project exploring the future of leadership and human organisations.

Wishing you all well and looking forward to meeting you in the space! 🧡🌱

Connect with us via email hello@commonshub.brussels to continue the conversation! To stay up-to-date on our latest news and events, make sure to follow us on Lu.ma, LinkedIn, Facebook and Discord.