This was the first week of the York Festival of Ideas, during which experts in wide variety of fields share their knowledge with the public for free across hundreds of events. They range from music to book talks to business, and many of them are also participatory. This week, I got to sit as an audience member in two events, one about the history of math, and one about Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. But even more excitingly, I got to help run of of these events-- Building for Community, a community engagement evening designed for Yorspace to spread its message and get input into what people in York want it to do next.

The event was hosted at Angel on the Green, a pub on Bishopthorpe Road, which is famous for being a thriving high street full of independent businesses.  The first part of the evening was a talk by Yorspace's cofounders about their journey and the most recent projects, and then we turned to the audience, asking them to discuss project proposals we had set up around the room. They even got to practice being social investors by using Yorspace play-currency to invest in different projects, while pairing off to talk about the barriers and benefits of each one.

I met people who brought fascinating perspectives to the questions, from plant scientists to urban planners, and I was thrilled to get to participate -- this was my first time helping run a community engagement session.

Overall, the York Festival of Ideas seems like a wonderful way to engage ordinary people in science, policy, literature, and a hundred other fields they might otherwise not encounter. In a world of paywalls and clickbait, an event at this scale dedicating to keeping knowledge public, free, and nuanced, and enjoyable to everyone is a remarkable endeavour.