This is the North 2022. Notes from our conference

This is the North – Five Years of Activism

Five and a half years, a global pandemic (and many changes of prime minister) have passed since the very first People’s Powerhouse convention in Doncaster in 2017. The ambition for that first convention was to bring people together for a new conversation; share their vision for and how they are already creating a ‘North that works for everyone’. 

In Manchester in 2022 we brought people together (for the first time in person since 2019), you could have been mistaken that the theme of the day was hugs – as there were plenty of them. Yet again we brought people together under the umbrella of This is the North to collaborate, share, listen, learn and look to a vision of the ‘North that works for everyone’. 

Our Charter

In 2017, workshop and panel discussions were recorded and the range of themes that emerged were transformed into five pillars of change which underpinned our charter: 

A more inclusive north where our diverse voices and strengths are represented. 

A good economy that works for more people 

Devolution that genuinely includes local people 

A focus on the value of all our places 

More collaboration, sharing and learning together. 

Hugs and New Words

In 2022 we wanted to understand what people’s priorities were for the North, if these had changed from the five pillars in 2017. Bearing in mind we were emerging from a devastating pandemic and were dealing with the “polycrisis”. 

Along with all those hugs, we all recognised the great work and great ideas that exist all across the North and the value of bringing people together. There was still a clear focus on the five pillars, but with an added sense of urgency and the need for this all to happen sooner. Underpinning this was the new strand of the climate emergency needing to be prioritised alongside our original five pillars. 

Something that has been clear from previous conventions and sounded even more strongly in 2022 was the value of and the need for more collaboration, as someone put it: “’the North’, comes across as ‘a shared Northern Voice.’”  It helped that we had a new poem that articulated a lot of this sentiment.

We hope that this spirit will carry us into 2023, enabling the People’s Powerhouse model of convening, amplifying and aligning to build through the year so that that “shared Northern Voice” is deafening by our next convention.