What we’ve been working on…

As 2025 slowly sprung into action we did as well. We visited all of our members, those who’ve been with us for some time and those who joined this year, in their studios, offices and local hangouts. We learned what their needs and outlooks are for this year. Each organization has an unique role within Utrecht but we also (re)encountered common goals and struggles. This wasn’t surprising of course; there’s a reason we’re a network after all. To further piece out how we can support each other and since our members indicated they’d love to see one another again, we organised a summer session.

On one of the hottest days of the year (so far) we met up in Centrum EMMA’s lovely shade. We jumped into the afternoon with a workshop about volunteer management. A number of our members had indicated that it’s difficult to attract and maintain a sufficient number of volunteers. An important struggle to address since the capacity of grassroots organizations often (partly) depends on the available time and energy of volunteers. Luckily we hold a lot of expertise in our network; there’s much to learn from each others’ best practices and bested hurdles. Members Casco and Grounded were asked to kick off the workshop by answering a couple of questions about their ways of working with volunteers and the other organizations had lots of valuable insights to add.  We talked about what attracts people to volunteer at an organization; how you empower and support your volunteers; and how you can show up when there’s issues with or between volunteers.

Bursting notebooks in hand we then moved to Centrum EMMA’s garden to enjoy some drinks and summery treats. We also designed a card game for members to find additional commonalities. Can organisation B for example play a role in the project that organisation A wants to carry out in the upcoming year? And could the space that organisation C has available every Wednesday be used by organisation D?  

Next week we are getting together as a team to craft a nice program for the second half of the year in which we also open the door to people outside of our direct network. Want learn more our members, or get involved in the meantime? Get acquainted here, and respond to one of the organisations’ open calls here.