First, – produced by and hosted by – a theatrical game where the audience are the play. Before you arrive, each participant has exchanges by e-mail with Henri, the town historian, who assigns you a character and a past. The ‘play’ is the acting out of those characters (each with a skeleton in the cupboard) as external events are controlled by an unseen town crier, daily post and the town clock which marks the passing of time.

The show got over the usual awkwardness in audience participation by the prep and elegance of Henri’s e-mails (and it was a self-selected audience of have-a-go people) and for the first half, the experience of being ‘in’ the play was stunning. As it progressed though, it became frustrating that any resolution was dependent on the ability of the other ‘actors’ to extend their characters. Not sure how you design this out and anyway, it became an allegory for life – the main point of the piece – that we live in a social system and the agency we have is in our (limited) ability to influence other people. On our night we had a weak Police Chief (slightly deaf and a bit behind with the plot!), and other characters ran wild as he struggled to maintain order. As external forces took over – pressure to comply with the political rule in the wider country, the demand to offer up a scapegoat from the town, and the eventual threat of the military – we were acting out a small town in pre-war Europe and had to make choices. Being ‘in’ the play as opposed to passively watching it unfold resonated far more when it came down to the ‘what would I have done’ question. Some more .

Next up, – a day-long exploration of “cross disciplinary frolicking” where people making games and interactions came to tell each other about their stuff. You can see a run down of presentations on the , but in short it was delightful to be in a room with loads of adults (okay, geeks) in touch with their playful side. It was striking how much of the discussion was about using play to connect with social issues – like , the story of being homeless in the Sims 3, Katy Lindeman from talking about projects like , the voicebot installed in the Houses of Parilaiment, and talking about the Scandanavian serious games scene. Outstanding favourite was and his project, using mechanical chickens to get people to move.

The following Sunday saw delivering the Sunday lecture. The School of Life are putting up provocative individuals to revive the Sunday sermon and provide moral guidance. Ruby talked about depression, self-delusion and the need for us all to manage our egos – and though it’s stuff that is becoming more known, her personal story and commitment to facing her own strife is refreshing.

We need more of this kind of courage – a la Stephen Fry and Alistair Campbell, and who all 3 of them speak out for. When there, you realise how perfect a time Sunday morning is for moral reflection, especially when followed by lunch and more relaxed conversation than you have time for in the week. It was great to see a communal discussion on mental health amongst the individualistic community of London town with playfulness and humour. Best moment? The “Hymns’ – the Righteous Brothers’ and Michael Jackson’s – “I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways.”

Then, off we went to produce a to co-design a new process for sustainable design. A big challenge in how you manage a large group of people towards a common goal, and reach agreement over core principles. It works only when human beings can put aside their own egos and surface collective wisdom. We’re still developing techniques to encourage people to work in this way – some working better than others – and learning that structure and rules are really key to open, collaborative working – even more so than for traditional events. There’s a lot that we can learn from the structure and mechanics of gaming, and playfulness and humour to come in from the side and wrestle people out of their egos.

See one of the films – or check out our vimeo archive.

We’re inspired by the ideas young people have about what they can do for themselves, as well as the excitement of what’s possible when the Olympics comes to town. We’re planning a 4 year project where through film, young people inspire each other to perform random acts of kindness and make Newham a place you really want to come to during the Olympics, to see what’s going on. We and they are inspired with things like .

The mechanism for Good Pitch involves 2 pitchers (the Director and Producer of the film) facing a table of 12 potential partners wo each give feedback and say what they can offer. Very easy for a format like this to descend into self promotion or point scoring and/or for the feedback to take so long the main point of the film is forgotten and the audience asleep. But a combination of patient and incisive chairing, the right people in the room and fantastic preparation of the content saved this from happening. Participants were disciplined and the ‘dragons’ were moved towards commitment – would they put funding into development, would they help distribute to schools, would they pay for foreign language translation?

Good Pitch is doing an amazing thing – it’s opening out a process that’s usually held inside closed walls and not just creating partnerships between film-makers and NGOs/funders, but helping them each to work together. The production of the film (potential or real) is the catalyst to bring campaigns together – witness the refugee sector saying they’d like to “combine asks” across the sector on the basis of the film. Those of us who’ve worked in the charity sector know that unfortunately that doesn’t happen very often.

These partnerships are also generating new revenue models – are working on a model for revenue sharing on DVD sales marketed through charity membership bases. are offering a share of advertising revenue to film-makers who provide content for their online site.

This kind of collaborative, enterprising partnership working is where germination is at – and what we aim to achieve through many of our events – so it was a joy to watch and learn. Lots of talk though about how NGO/film-maker partnerships break down through the process of getting collective campaign films off the ground and the need for a rare breed of ‘partnership manager’ with knowledge of film production and NGO working to come in and hold the ring for the partnerships as a film develops. We know that feeling. Anyone out there?