07/11/2025
At OWC we want to explore our areas of risk and vulnerability openly.
Often mission-driven initiatives like coops or charities have their integrity compromised by imbalances of power, blind spots, and the overemphasis of one area at the expense of another.
All of us at The Oxford Wellbeing Coop are familiar with the fallout from that — whether as workers, organisers, clients, or students — and we fully expect to encounter these patterns in the development of the Coop.
It’s important to us to bring these conversations in rather than shy away from them.
We are developing a shared language for navigating the tensions and discomforts that come with this ever-evolving dance between sustainability and accessibility; support and autonomy; flexibility and structure.
Last week, we had an amazing opportunity to do just that. Alex Cole-Hamilton of Power & Integrity facilitated an incredibly supportive workshop where we explored the 3 P’s — Purpose, People, and Practices — through the lens of transformative power.
Unexpected things came up alongside opportunities to realign more truthfully with our mission.
Something we collectively acknowledged was just how valuable it felt to make time for this work, yet how easy it would have been to put it on the back-burner...
