SCCAN Members Annual Gathering 2026: The Joy of Now
About this Event
SAVE THE DATE!
Tuesday 24th November, Stirling Court Hotel, Stirling
As usual, our annual gathering isn't just another conference, it’s something different. It’s an interactive day filled with energy, connection, and real local power for local people.
We want this day to be an antidote to the terrible things we’re currently experiencing and witnessing. This winter, we’ll brighten each other’s day, share the joy of helping each other solve everyday challenges, and get inspired for what we know is a rocky road ahead.
Not a SCCAN member? No problem, this event is open to everyone. Or if you would like to join SCCAN you can do so here for free :)
Here’s some of what is waiting for us on the grounds of the University of Stirling, a beautiful and historic parkland and loch landscape set against wooded lower slopes.
- Celebrating Local Action! We will host the inaugural SCCAN Awards, where you can get nominated and vote for your fellow members across different categories and celebrate the achievements powering our communities.
- Collaboration and problem-solving. Bring your ideas, your challenges, and your passions. Experience the joy of mutual support, getting help with your goals and helping others achieve theirs. Leave the day with solutions and plans.
- Interactive workshops & networking. Connect directly with leaders, experts, and peers driving community climate action across Scotland.
- Share your work. We’ll have a dedicated literature table, so bring your flyers and printed materials to share your story!
DETAILS ON THE PROGRAMME AND WORKSHOPS COMING SOON!
Food and family 🙂
- Enjoy a delicious, high-quality, locally produced, plant-based lunch. We will accommodate diverse dietary needs
- Would you need or want to bring your children with you? If you’d like to use our crèche so your small ones can play while you join the gathering, let us know by filling out the registration form or emailing [email protected] with the number of children, their ages, and any specific needs.
Don’t miss this chance to celebrate, connect, and recharge. Come claim the power and the joy of community action right now
NOTE: If you can, please consider buying a Pay Forward Ticket alongside your ticket and support others who are facing financial barriers to joining in.
University of Stirling photograph from https://blog.stir.ac.uk/10-free-things-to-do-around-the-university-of-stirling/
Cover photo by Chloë Forbes-Kindlen on Unsplash
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Laura Young (known as @LessWasteLaura) is an award-winning Scottish climate activist, environmental scientist, and ethical influencer. A Hydro Nation PhD scholar researching climate resilience across Abertay University and the University of Dundee, Laura brings academic rigour and grassroots campaigning together, notably spearheading the successful UK-wide campaign to ban single-use vapes. Named Scottish Influencer of the Year and featured in The King’s Foundation’s 35 under 35, she regularly communicates climate, waste, and environmental justice issues across national media (BBC, Sky News, STV) and serves on boards and advisory groups across Scotland. You can follow her community and campaigns across Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and YouTube at @LessWasteLaura.
Even against the backdrop of eco-distress and daunting long-term climate projections, Laura’s approach grounds climate action in immediate agency, connection, and tangible wins!
WORKSHOPS
Below you will find details of the workshops you will be able to join at the Gathering. More to be added!
WORKSHOP 1 MORNING
Income Generation for Community Organisations: Working With Real Examples From Across Scotland with Craig Dunn and Fabio Villani from SCCAN
Community organisations are constantly navigating the challenge of sustaining their work while serving local needs. Rising costs, limited volunteer capacity, and unpredictable funding cycles make financial resilience more important than ever. This workshop is built around real community examples and practical, achievable income‑generation strategies that groups can apply immediately.
The session begins with two grounded case studies — community energy and Pizza for Planet — to show how mission‑aligned enterprises can generate unrestricted income while strengthening local engagement. These examples act as a springboard into a wider conversation about how community organisations can build reliable revenue without compromising their values.
Core Focus
We will introduce a simple, memorable framework for thinking about income generation:
- Identifying your need
- Recognising the real value your organisation provides and pricing services fairly.
- identifying new offerings that fit your mission and capacity.
- increasing the frequency or reach of existing activities to create dependable income.
This framework is designed to help organisations move from reactive fundraising to proactive, confident income planning.
Interactive, Real‑World Group Work
The heart of the workshop is an interactive exercise using three real examples from community organisations. Participants will work in small groups to explore:
- What each organisation already does well
- Where income potential is currently under‑used
- How the pathways could unlock new revenue
- What small, practical changes could make a meaningful difference
This is a collaborative, hands‑on session where participants learn by doing, using real situations from real communities.
Who This Workshop Is For
Community groups, climate hubs, local charities, social enterprises, and anyone who wants to strengthen financial resilience through practical, mission‑aligned income strategies.
WORKSHOP 2 MORNING
When the story is the message - thinking with stories about community, climate and change with Kaska Hempel and Alette Willis
How do we understand community climate resilience when we start with the richness and complexity of people’s lived experience?
In this workshop, we will think with a story from East Haven, a Scottish coastal community already living with erosion, flooding and storms. Through listening, reflection and sharing our own stories, we will explore what climate change looks and feels like in different places - and what becomes possible when people come together to make sense of it and to imagine responses.
You will leave nourished by the sharing and take away new ways to work with stories, including your own, to open up conversations about climate change, connect with people’s everyday experiences, and create space for your community to explore resilience and solutions together
Dr Kaska Hempel is a SCCAN Story Weaver and audio storyteller with over 15 years’ experience supporting community climate action and facilitating conversations for change. She produces SCCAN’s 1000 Better Stories podcast and is the Story Lead for the Unbound project.. She's passionate about using stories to help communities start difficult conversations, make sense of climate change and imagine what’s possible.
Dr Alette Willis is a recovering academic, award-winning author and performance storyteller with more than 25 years of researching how stories shape everyday ethics and behaviours. She is a community member of the SCCAN Storytelling Circle and led a research project funded by the British Academy into how community-based narrative arts can help shift society towards net-zero. She developed and taught Story Routes to Sustainable Futures for the Edinburgh Futures Institute for several years as well as taught on the MSc in Science Communication at the University of Edinburgh.
WORKSHOP 3 MORNING
climatACTical: Practical climate action for Scotland’s voluntary, community and social enterprise sector with Chiara Fingland
What is ClimatACTical?
climatACTical is an interactive, team‑based learning game designed around real organisational challenges.
Participants make decisions under pressure, including financial constraints, competing priorities and climate‑related disruption. Each session includes a structured debrief so teams leave with clear, realistic next steps they can take back into their organisation.
No prior climate knowledge is needed.
Who is it for?
climatACTical is designed for people working in voluntary organisations, community groups and social enterprises. It works well with staff teams, trustees, boards, managers and senior leaders, particularly where organisations are at an early stage of climate action.
WORKSHOP 4 MORNING
What Keeps Us Afloat? - A creative exploration of community resilience with Aisla Mackay and Freya Skinner
Communities across Scotland are navigating an increasingly complex range of risks and pressures, from severe weather and climate impacts to disruption, changing services and wider social and economic pressures. But risk is only one part of the resilience story. This creative and participatory workshop from the National Centre for Resilience (NCR) will create space to think about what enables communities to keep going, adapt and support one another when circumstances become difficult.
Ailsa Mackay FRSA is Research Development Manager at the National Centre for Resilience. She leads and supports interdisciplinary programmes addressing climate risk, behavioural change and community resilience, with experience in partnership development, systems thinking, knowledge exchange and collaborative delivery. Alongside her work in resilience, she has a longstanding background in the creative industries, with an international portfolio in design and visual arts. Drawing on her experience as an artist, designer and educator, Ailsa integrates creative methodologies into her approach, using participatory, visual and place-based methods to explore complex challenges, engage different perspectives and connect research, policy and practice.
Freya Skinner is Dissemination Lead at the National Centre for Resilience (NCR), where she leads on communications, knowledge mobilisation and events. She brings a multidisciplinary background in design, events management, third sector leadership and community-based creative practice, with a particular focus on making complex research accessible, engaging, and relevant to diverse audiences. At the NCR, she combines strategic communications with graphic design, storytelling and creative participatory approaches to translate research and evidence into accessible resources, public-facing tools and opportunities for knowledge exchange.
Her work is grounded in a belief in the power of design and creative participation to build understanding and support meaningful, community-centred change.
WORKSHOP 5 MORNING
What if we could rehearse a better world? with Meg Fenwick
Climate activism can leave us feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and running on empty. But what if joy, play and imagination were part of the solution?
Drawing on Theatre of the Oppressed and the spirit of “Yes, and…”, we’ll dive into playful theatre games, movement and collective imagination to explore new possibilities, challenge the systems that need to change and reconnect with joy.
Together, we’ll discover how creativity, connection and a little laughter can nourish our wellbeing, build collective resilience and inspire us to keep going for the long haul.
Because changing the world is a long haul and staying in the game means remembering how to play!
No theatre experience needed - just curiosity and a willingness to join in.
Meg Fenwick has 30 years’ experience using Theatre of the Oppressed and creativity as tools for activism, community empowerment and social change. With a BA and MA in Contemporary Theatre, she works with communities to explore complex social issues, challenge systems of oppression and open up new possibilities.
Drawing on Forum Theatre, Legislative Theatre and trauma-informed, participatory practice, Meg creates playful, collaborative spaces where people can share lived experiences, question existing power structures and collectively rehearse alternatives. Her work spans grassroots community projects, activist organisations, criminal justice, education and mental health settings, working alongside people whose voices are often marginalised.
For Meg, theatre is more than performance: it is a way to bring people together, make change tangible and possible, and turn collective insight into action.
WORKSHOP 6 AFTERNOON
Shared Governance - how people work together with Richard Couldrey
What’s the territory?
In this workshop, I will explore the people-dynamics of shared governance and how we work together in community-led action groups. I’ll draw on my work over the last 14 years working in the Transition Movement, from local to global activism, sometimes with resources, oftentimes not and show that joyful, clear and curious leadership is a critical ingredient of building community power. Oh, and the vital importance of learning how to dance…
What will it be like?
I’ll bring an introduction, some provocations and real world examples to kick start a participatory session to hear from everybody and collectively harvest insights.
What you’ll take away:
- Key ingredients and Insights into what shared governance looks like at various scales and levels of resources.
- Top tips and what to watch out for when facilitating with leadership.
- How to hold steady when things get difficult and complex.
Richard is a community activist, network builder and facilitator, working at the intersection of creativity, community, and systemic change to drive environmental, social, and economic transformation. With a background in theatre project management and climate activism, Richard brings diverse experiences to leadership.
In 2012, Richard joined the Transition Movement alongside earning a Master’s in Sustainability & Adaptation Planning at the Centre for Alternative Technology. Since then, Richard has led community projects in Tooting, where he lives; with London-wide networks; nationally with Transition Together and internationally with Transition Network. At each level, Richard builds resilience through working relationally and delivering real world projects.
Richard balances vision with practical delivery, addressing challenges and developing opportunities in volunteer-led movements through shared governance. Most recently, Richard has been working on building alternative income generation for climate and social movements, a global gathering of Transition Towns and allied organisations in June 2027 as part of the Transition Network International team and Resilience Tooting - a forever project building readiness for the future in the place he calls home.
WORKSHOP 7 AFTERNOON
Future Power: Help Shape Community Energy Action with Cameron Duff
Join an interactive workshop exploring how communities can build energy resilience, reduce energy costs and strengthen local economies. Together, we'll discuss what's already working, what success looks like, and where future action and support should be focused to help communities benefit from local energy initiatives.
Cameron Duff is the Energy Development Lead at FEL Scotland, a charity supporting communities to shape a fairer, greener future. With a background in electrical and environmental engineering, sustainability and community energy, he leads the Future Power project, helping communities see the benefits of local energy.
Agenda
🕑: 09:00 AM
Doors open
Info: You can arrive, check in and have a cuppa starting at 9 am :)
🕑: 09:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Registration + Tea & Coffee
🕑: 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Welcoming
Info: Housekeeping and welcoming notes hosted by SCCAN, with a reading by young local poet Vincent.
🕑: 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
SCCAN Awards
Info: Award ceremony and celebration of our incredible nominated members!
🕑: 11:00 AM - 11:15 AM
Warm up games
🕑: 11:15 AM - 11:30 AM
Keynote Speech
Host: Laura Young (Less Waste Laura)
🕑: 11:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Comfort break
🕑: 11:45 AM - 01:00 PM
Morning Workshops
🕑: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Lunch
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Afternoon Workshops
🕑: 03:00 PM - 03:10 PM
Break
🕑: 03:10 PM - 03:20 PM
Introducing SCCAN Services
Info: hosted by SCCAN team
🕑: 03:20 PM - 04:20 PM
Tactics for Times of Chaos
Host: Alan Caldwell
🕑: 04:20 PM - 04:30 PM
Closing
🕑: 04:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Hang about, Saying goodbyes - Teas & Coffees
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00 to GBP 25.00
