I first came to Holland in January this year. The purpose of my stay was to visit my friend Tatiana Glad and to take part in the ALIA Europe. During my stay I was drowned in to  Hub world being Tatiana is one of the founders of the Hub Amsterdam. As I had always been a member at the Hub Sao Paulo and in my recent travels visited different Hubs in the world, I was interested to hear the different projects and initiatives that were taking place there. It was then she mentioned the Summer School, an initiative which had been pulled off by one of the members and close friend of the Hub in 2009 to creatively address the challenge of little occupancy of the spaces of the Hub during Summer time.

The idea of addressing learning as a thing in itself which can be fostered and promoted within the Hub community rapidly attracted and triggered me. I then realized that learning was one other pillar that needed to be strengthened when building and nurturing the Hub Community. Members have an immense knowledge and know-how in their specific areas of interest and work, and also have needs for specific learning in certain domains which would help them to grow and expand their business and social impact.

The idea of taking the Summer School initiative further and make it into a Learning Festival, where not only workshops would be offered, but also artistic performances, talks, invitations to collaborate and more, started inhabiting my mind and would not let me…

I then endeavored, together with Marieke Van der Velden, to design and conceptualize the project for this year’s Hub Summer School and to bring it to life.

Our first step was to create a Ning website which would host the Learning Community of the Summer School and that would serve as our online matrix where people could post the events they were hosting during summer. Our intention was to make sure people could connect with each other around their areas of interest and also to keep in touch before, during and after Summer School, functioning as a community that learns and grow together.

Our second step was to post Hub Summer School to Hub members and friends, so they could start framing and posting their offers for the Summer. We then set intentions of what themes, what areas, and what approaches we would like to have in the Programme. All along the Summer the registration kept open for people to post their event. This entailed a great amount of work of coaching and supporting people, on writing, pricing, marketing and encouraging from our team.

Behind the structure we had created a core principle was that of self-organization and shared responsibility. Which meant that events organizers were responsible for their own event from the inception to the realization. And that together with the Hub they had to market and promote Hub Summer School and their event.

In total 58 events took place throughout Summer and 362 people have become member of the Ning Community.

The initiative has had its second prototype and has even inspired Hub Sao Paulo to realize a 3-week Hub Winter School in July.

A pattern now is set and learning has become core to Hub activities along with other initiatives.

For more information check: www.hubsummerschool.nl