Fri 2 & Sat 3 Oct 2026
Stroud, Gloucestershire
Festival 2026 Programme
Two days. Two nights. Two community meals. 21 contributors. 8 venues.
Registration opens at 9:00-10:00 Friday at Lansdown Hall.
The festival ends at 18:00 on Saturday. For people wanting to stay longer, eat and chat together, there will be dinner on Saturday at Trinity Rooms.
Some of the sessions have limited capacity and you'll need to book onto them. The booking for these sessions will open on the website from 1st-30th September
Scroll down for more details about individual sessions
Friday 2 October
Saturday 3 October
Session Information
Friday morning
Arriving Together
Goldie Chaudhuri,
Festival of Commoning
Lansdown Hall
10-11:30
Come together to discover more about each other, the festival, and what Commoning means to each of us. We’ll walk away with a few different invitations for deeply engaging with the programme.
Transforming Neighbourhoods
East Marsh United & Positive Carrickfergus
St Laurence Church
11:45-12:45
Meet these two grassroots groups that are transforming their neigbourhoods addressing the issues that matter to their communities most: from a community-owned greengrocer to community-led housing -- sprinkled with art and music events that make a place a truly great place to live.
Claude Hendrickson MBE
Lansdown Hall
11:45-12:45
Claude is a community-led housing advocate and campaigner, with over 30 years’ experience in community development, housing and regeneration. He was instrumental in the pioneering Frontline community self-build project in Leeds and continues to champion community ownership, self-build and housing justice.
*** Lunch 12:45 - 14:15 ***
Hot, vegan and gluten-free
Friday afternoon
From the Ground Up
Jaqui & Lou from
Paganhill Community Centre
Landsdown Hall
14:15-15:15
This interactive session will hear from Jaqui and Lou of Paganhill Community Group, a community hub based at The Octagon in Stroud. Following a short film, they will share their experiences of building community, supporting local people, and applying asset-based community development principles that focus on people's strengths, skills and relationships.
Conflict, Collaboration & Collective Power:
Joining together for the common good
Paul Kahawatte,
Navigate
St Laurence Church
14:15-17:00
*Spaces limited: reserve a place*
Conflict can divide us at every level, from difficulties with those we work or live beside, all the way up to huge social & political tensions. It could also offer a path to joining together to become something more than we can be alone.
This session will look at some practical ways we can prepare for and engage with tensions, disagreements and difficulties, in order to work together, more powerfully, for a better future.
Cooperative Networks
Cecosesola
Landsdown Hall
15:45-17:00
Join members of Cecosesola, Venezuela’s pioneering cooperative network, for a video- linked session featuring a short pre-recorded presentation followed by a live Q&A. Discover how their non-hierarchical, community-led approach has built resilience, provided affordable essential services, and adapted to decades of economic and social challenges.
Tending our Common Land
Heavens Valley Community Benefit Society
The Heavens Valley
14:45-17:15
*Spaces limited: reserve a place*
Come and see the beautiful Heavens Valley. Spend the afternoon in the fresh air, hear the story of the community who bought it and get stuck into some practical conservation work.
*Meet at St Laurence Church at 14:15 to walk to the Heavens Valley together. This session is not accessible to wheelchair users as the paths are steep and uneven in places*
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Leisure Commons
Chik Shimasaki,
Stroud Commons
Stroud Climbing Commons
15:10-17:10
*Space limited: reserve a place*
Visit Stroud Common’s brand new Climbing Commons. A community bouldering facility at half the price of conventional facilities. Hear Chik Shimasaki tell the story of how we turned it from an idea into a reality. He’ll answer all your questions and you’ll get a go climbing too! Places limited.
*Meet at St Laurence Church at 14:15 to walk to the Climbing Commons along the canal together, or meet at the Climbing Commons at 15:10.*
Join us for a pay-what-you-can meal at The Long Table in Brimscombe. Food is hyper local and seasonal.
It's a lovely 50 minute walk along the canal. If you have access needs, please let us know and we can arrange lifts to the venue.
Party
Stroud Against Racism and Black Ark Media
Stroud Brewery
19:30-23:00
*Reserve your free place*
SAR, a grassroots group working to challenge racism and build an inclusive community in Stroud will partner with BAM, a community media collective amplifying Black voices, culture and creativity to bring us this celebration as part of Black History Month.
Further details to be confirmed.
Saturday morning
Rehearsing the Future: Community Imagining as Practice
Ruth Ben Tovim
Lansdown Hall
10-11:15
A deep dive into creative participation methodologies from Town Anywhere, a large scale time travel community visioning process. Explore conditions that enable people to come together across differences, work and make decisions collectively, and build trust, agency and a sense of belonging quickly. Imagination is an essential social skill for bridging divides and navigating uncertain futures.
(Un)common alliances: The power of partnerships in community led housing
Rowan Mackay,
Community Led Homes
Lansdown Hall
11:30-12:45
In this interactive session we’ll unpack key questions on delivering community led housing projects and introduce some models you may not have heard of.
Do you always need money to start a project?
How to partner with a system you’re struggling against?
Come with a question or just a curiosity.
Assembly Culture: Finding common ground in a polarised world
Humanity Project
St Laurence Church
10:45-12:45
Join the Humanity Project to hear how neighbourhood assemblies help communities across the UK build trust, share power and drive change together by finding common ground in times of polarisation. Through listening, deliberating, and storytelling, neighbours rediscover their collective agency.
Community Living Room
Maff Potts,
Camerados
Bank Gardens
10-16:00
Wander outside to join our Public Living Room, hosted by Maff Potts of Camerados: people who believe that the answer to our problems is each other and who create places where people can get together and have a bit of company, with no outcomes needed. You might get a chance to try and explain what Commoning is all about to curious passers-by!
Commoning Land
Rachael Forster,
Landmatch England
& Ama Valentine,
Common Soil
Common Soil
10-12:15
*Spaces limited: reserve a place*
Can (re)-commoning our food system address the meta-crises? What do community farms offer and what would it take for this currently piecemeal network to bring life back to the land, bring people together, and improve public health at scale. Get your hands in the soil and explore the big questions together.
Meet at Common Soil at 10:00. Walking back to the main Festival area together for lunch.
*** Lunch 12:45 - 14:00 ***
Hot, vegan and gluten-free
Saturday afternoon
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Cooking for Community
Trinity Rooms
Community Cafe
Trinity Rooms
14:30-18:00
*Spaces limited: reserve a place*
What better way to learn than by doing? Come and join the Trinity team and get stuck into cooking. You'll be making a meal for 100+ Festival contributors and participants. In the process, you'll learn what it takes to run a successful community cafe and to create hearty, healthy meals for hundreds using surplus food along with bought-in ingredients.
*Meet at St Laurence Church at 14:00 to walk to theTrinity Rooms, or meet at there at 14:30.*
Community energy: Taking control of our renewable abundance
Platform,
Stroud Area Community Energy Network (SACEN) & ResNet
Lansdown Hall
14:00-14:50
Who owns our energy? And who currently profits? Join Flick Monk (Platform), Jess Farr (SACEN) and Iris Partridge (ResNet) to explore how the community energy movement is putting communities in control of our renewable resources, why that’s good for people and our planet, and how you can join the radical movement of energy commoning.
Financial and economic commons
Dave Darby,
Stroud Commons
Lansdown Hall
15:10-16:00
A new commons movement is developing, with new and revamped financial and economic tools, that can federate to form the basis of a new economy, owned by communities, rather than by banks and corporations. Dave will explain the basic ideas, and their inventors will be present to answer questions.
Open Space
Kat Child,
Festival of Commoning
St Laurence Church
14:00-16:00
Open Space is a participant-driven workshop method. There are no pre-planned speakers or rigid schedules. You will be able to co-create the agenda on the spot around a shared core theme. Anyone can propose a session, host a discussion, or move between groups freely. This format unlocks collective wisdom, active collaboration, and self-organisation.
Closing Ceremony
Festival of Commoning
St Laurence Church
16:20 - 17:20
Come together to reconnect, reflect, and share your highlights from the festival.
We'll take a moment to collect any hopes for the future...
We'll gather outside for our procession towards our community dinner.
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Dinner at Trinity Rooms
Trinity Rooms
18:00-22:00
*Reserve your place*
*Pay-what-can*
Finish the festival with a feast cooked up by fellow participants. It'll be a chance to deepen connections you've made over the Festival, and get chatting to people and projects you want to learn more about.
BOOK ONTO LIMITED SPACE SESSIONS BELOW
Tending Our Common LandFri 02 OctThe Heavens Valley
Conflict, Collaboration & Collective Power with Paul KahawatteFri 02 OctSt Laurence: Stroud Centre for Peace
Leisure CommonsFri 02 OctClimbing Commons, Brimscombe Mill
Friday Dinner at The Long TableFri 02 OctThe Long Table
Commoning LandSat 03 OctCommon Soil Community Farm
Cooking for CommunitySat 03 OctSt Laurence: Stroud Centre for Peace
Saturday Dinner at Trinity Rooms Community HubSat 03 OctTrinity Rooms- Festival of Commoning 2026 TicketFriday 2nd & Saturday 3rd October 2026Stroud
- PowerstationSun 06 SeptTrinity Rooms