Ok – two confessions.

The first: as Chair of Compass, I am as passionate about the good society as anyone I know – I desperately want to transform our world into a much more equal, sustainable and democratic one. But here’s the thing– in all honesty, we don’t know how to do it.

That’s why we decided to resurrect the Compass Conference this year and to turn it over to this question – in 5 weeks, on November 30^th, we will welcome 500 marvellous people, bringing together historians and philosophers, politicians and activists and hundreds of good honest everyday folk to work out how we change the world, together.

Confession number two? I’m just a bit nervous about all this.

It’s been a while since we have held a big conference –the word annual wouldn’t be strictly accurate. We just didn’t want to do the same thing all over again. But now we have a real, serious, urgent question – with no apparent answer – we’ve taken a risk and gone for it. Moreover, because we want to find some actual answers we’ve made it entirely different.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting bored of the same conference formats and the same panels, asking the same questions yet somehow expecting different answers. Einstein would tell us that’s madness. Of course, we all crave inspiration, and we all want to go home feeling good – but we really should expect more from such events.  Saturdays are valuable moments!

So we’re trying to make it different – better. And mostly we want it to be about you.

Because that, at heart, is what Compass is all about.  People making change happen – locally, nationally, globally, inside and outside of official ‘Politics’.

As the name suggests – Compass is on a journey. We can’t stand still. We have to keep looking at ourselves and keep striving to make ourselves better. We have to be the change we wish to see. And on that journey two things matter. Are we heading in the right direction and are we behaving well? Do we treat people as equals and show love and respect? If we do these things we can only hope that more people will join us – lots more. 

At the heart of this whole day will sit something very special –a belief that every voice matters and a desire to hear yours. The conference has been redesigned to do everything possible to help make that happen. I can’t deny that some of it sits way out of my comfort zone – and no doubt some of it will fail – but I know that both of those are good things.

I read this in Adbusters recently.  It inspired me.

Radicals often think they are in a wasteland, disconnected from society, when in fact they are at the cutting edge …. Resistance is the motor of history: it drives social, political and technological developments, forcing the prevailing order to innovate constantly in order to outflank and absorb opposition.  Thus we can contribute to tremendous transformation without ever achieving our object.

A final confession – there isn’t a good society – just a better one. We can never arrive at the end of our journey. But unless we all aim high, and walk together, we will go backwards. Join me on the next part of the journey – 30^th November. After all we’re the people we’ve been waiting for. 

Only my best,

Neal Lawson