Blog 4 – Storytelling in communities
by Lorna Lyons
Week 5 is all about storytelling in communities with lots of warm campfire imagery. Now here was a topic we are very familiar with here at bold, we love stories and if we had a campfire to tell them around that would be even more lovely, but we can settle for the safe space that is our Zoom room. If you sign-up and login to our bold community website you will find a section entitled’ bold Stories’ where our storyteller in residence, Lorna Hill has created unique bold Stories showcasing our bold partners journey’s on the bold Social Leadership Programme.
Julian kicked off the discussion around layers of storytelling and how within his work he feels there are 3 layers within the context of social leadership communities. These 3 layers are: the ‘Personal Stories’ that are told and shared by individuals, the ‘Co-Created Stories’ that are written by the community itself and the ‘Organisational Stories’ that are written and told by the organisation.
We love to share our partners bold stories within our community and with that we bring the authenticity of their stories which is something Julian comments on “authenticity is typically the number one thing that people look for in stories.” Being authentic is something we discuss a lot during our Social Leadership Programme, and our community is strong when it comes to individual storytelling.
‘Co-Created Stories’ within our bold community come through in our bold Mini Commissions. These stories are where a bold partner has graduated from the bold Programme and has gone back to their community and co-created within that. The bold films on the bold Mini Commission webpage are all co-created such as Fenella Kerr’s art project in her Mum’s care home in Inverness, Barbara Gardner-Rowell’s creative weaving project in Dunbar; Willy Gilder sharing the ‘Unheard Voices’ of those living with dementia across Scotland and Alec Thompson-Miller’s bringing bold Generations together with his intergenerational work in Aberdeen. So well done to our brilliant bold Community as we show evidence of collaboration and co-creating together.
Hopefully our bold organisational story has been fed into be these 2 layers of personal, authentic stories from our bold partners and the co-created stories within their own communities which shape the whole bold story as we Bring Out Leaders in Dementia (BOLD) together.
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Read the other blogs of our Community Building journey here.
