January

Potential collaboration with ‘RG’ (anonymised)

• I interacted with communities on Instagram, including supporting a video posted by RG. They then messaged us, looking to collaborate, so I responded with our pitch deck (provides event ideas and explains the values). This was an effective way to start the conversation and we scheduled a meeting
• However, in researching, RG seem to focus on higher priced events, which we avoid to align with our values of accessibility = I’m interested to see how they would like us to collaborate

Anomalous Space residency

• We were accepted to be residents part of Anomalous Spaces’ programme to have 1 event a month for 6 months in the space, starting in January
• However, the timing of this confirmation meant we had a few weeks to plan an event for our next slot. I was worried about this so I communicated this with the founder, who reassured me as we’re in conversation with collaborators

Assemblage Collective (AC) collaboration meeting:

• I noticed a huge improvement in my note-taking as I was able to better follow the discussion, with my focus on when we want to do it and how we can promote it
  • I knew what questions I needed to ask and answers to give, being more familiar with it from past conversations/events
• We established important considerations, like it being a paid event to cover materials, and decided to ideate over a group chat = helped avoid rush, while being productive
• They were unable to do a January event to fill our event space slot, but we decided on February. Other collaborations fell through which meant we didn’t have a January collaborator as hoped = the team discussed extending our residency to July and not hosting in the space in early January. The founder looked into other venues to do an end of January event

Post-meeting messages:

• We originally discussed doing IH’s Alone Together events: where attendees can bring their own hobbies to do in the presence of others. But I noticed our other ideas didn’t align with this concept and the founder said it doesn’t fit a paid event, which was a great point
  • This created an awareness of what people will pay for, which I considered during future events, and reminded me of the importance of understanding a brand to notice when something doesn’t align
• We eventually concluded on a Self-Care Zine-Making Workshop, focused on self-love. In planning logistics and ideating, I suggested making a template for everyone to cut out, and then embellish with self-care items, for ease. This was custom-made by my co-hosts

• However, I was worried there were still a lot of things to discuss, so I compiled them in one message to send, which AC responded to = another effective method of remote communication
• Additionally, since we’ve never hosted a workshop before as part of IH, I wasn’t sure how we’d demo and guide participants. I stayed flexible and wrote it down as something to discuss, reflecting agility

Common Threads (CT) collaboration meeting:

• We also had a meeting with CT, who focuses on workshops, and I struggled to keep up fully with our conversation. I found it overwhelming and unproductive as I wanted to have a clear plan and the focus was on CT
• Nonetheless, I was resilient in concluding we should make a group chat to continue this conversation, bringing in past successful experiences and was a relief. We had many productive conversations to progress our ideas, deciding on a Deck of Cards Decorating Workshop in April, so it was beneficial

January event – 2026 goal setting:

• After outreaching to venues, we received a reply so I went straight to creating the Eventbrite page to have as much promotion time possible
• It’s where you can create hobby bingo sheets and punch cards to reflect on the year
• I created our first London Whatsapp announcement using our event description, promoting it as our first event of the year, plus the caption for our promotional post. I had to be strategic to ensure it wasn’t too long but still provided enough information

• In a meeting with my cohost:
  • I brought up making an introduction that covers essential aspects of IH/events, so we formed one to use for all events
  • She mentioned making examples of the final bingo/punch cards
  • I suggested including dimensions of the bingo sheets so attendees can quickly make them, plus use them for promotion
    • These are aspects to bring to future workshops, building my understanding of workshop hosting: finding promotional moments and making things easier for attendees

• We sold out on the event and had a waitlist
• In planning, we needed to ask the founder for small admin tasks. She was busy so I noted these as future tasks on our Notion for her to know what to complete. As a new community, the tasks page and Notion overall, are beneficial ways to keep organised that I will continue to utilise
• The event went well, but a lot of people that signed up didn’t join, despite us asking for them to refund to allow others to join. This is likely because it’s a free event = we need to find a way to reduce drop offs
  • Being a smaller group, helping ease me into hosting as my second time since it was less overwhelming. This also meant better connections were formed
• The lighting was a big issue in the venue for content, but unchangeable, so I knew I’d need to edit it (below)
• The founder was pleased about our hosting after we updated her