We have been thinking a lot about the differences between conferences and unconferences and have a lot of experience of running the latter.

There’s a couple of things I think might be helpful, and they centre a little around how we can create safe spaces at these events and 1:1 support for people. One Team Gov recently ran a wellbeing event and one of the sessions was similar to a coaching session, called Grow Through what you Go Through. The facilitator for that session had some excellent feedback around enabling people to speak about their toughest challenges, in small groups (not sure of the size but possibly Nour Sidawi might).

For all One Team Gov events there’s a code of conduct, quiet spaces for people to hang out and there’s lots of thought about inclusion. What you’re saying seems to take this a step further though and I wonder what the impact of some real mentor matching, coaching or 1:1 support/drop in sessions would look like in the context of a day event.

As for the Q&A it was good to get those things out there, good to acknowledge that things are still tough for a lot of us, and good to see women supporting women. Any problems with the format I don’t think were your issue at all, your presentation was concise and interesting, but perhaps there is some feedback for the organising team next year about different formats for different types of talk or approach. I don’t know, what do you think?