Last year Karlsruhe and Krasnodar – with a long and experienced twinning relationship since 1902 – applied for our Booster. We were longing to set off since spring 2020. This week our TCL-Booster programme started. And so Ivan headed to Krasnodar, Gregor and me to Karlsruhe. While Ivan will stay there for a longer period, Gregor und I are back home – with loads of impressions.
Scouting for us crucial.
Gregor always says: “Like in any relationship it is good to know yourselves, to know what you can bring in.”
In order to boost twinning activities it is important to know, what does current situation look like in each city, what could be potentials, topics and needs. Even more important is to know, where and who the local movers and shaker and who are the people with creative or crazy ideas are.
Thus, for us scouting means, finding local people, spots and ideas, which might be helpful to rethink and upgrade twining activities with local resources.
Because boosting means facilitating, enabling and empowering people and process. Otherwise we would just be boring external consultants.
Visiting a city is of course only a starting point.
No doubt, it is a starting point full with contingency and randomness no matter how good and structured our exploration are. In Karlsruhe we got in touch with the City of Karlsruhe, talked to many people e.g. in different neighborhoods around the city, creative spaces like “Alter Schlachthof” and incubators/accelerator like the Cyberlab. We established first contacts with people from culture, education and civicil society as well. I am sure, especially in these fields we will many minds with deep insights into Karlsruhe and ideas. and project worth and ready to showcased and integrated to Karlsruhe’s twining activities. Visiting, exploring and observing is one thing. Asking locals for their help expertise I another. This is why we constantly ask our partners for recommendations. And so we do here:
Who should we definitely know and get in touch with?
What project and ideas do you have or know?