10 Sofas 10 Minutes
Cambridge residents will soon wake up to purple ribbons tied on to benches and railings across the city as an invite to a local debate initiative around inflatable purple sofas placed in different locations. By Figen Gunes. //
The local debates will be encouraged by a Cambridge-based social organisation called 10 Sofas 10 Minutes, launched by Cambridge Conversations, which is an informal forum of enthusiastic individuals; chief executives of councils and charities as well as academics from Cambridge University. Some locally well-known names supporting the group are Lord Wilson of Ditton, Jenny Kartupelis MBE, Phillip Blonde and Bishop David Thomson.
The sofas until now have been let out in country fairs, night shelters, colleges, business networking events, flowers shops and many more public events with no fee thanks to the funds collected by David Thompson, Bishop of Huntingdon, to purchase sofas and throws.
Samuel Scharf, the coordinator of the project, encourages anyone to hire these sofas to ask any specific questions to the members of the public across the UK. He adds “We as Cambridge Conversations launched as a response to the Big Society concept to say: it’s not central government’s duty to determine this. These sofas are almost like an offline Twitter at local level.”
Organisers are trying to discover what everyone thinks is best for Cambridgeshire and promote the message that “Sofas don’t judge in order to stimulate an open discussion.”
Scharf says now the biggest task is to collate people’s debate into one database as minutes pour in in a range of forms including flip charts, videos, voice recordings, cards and many more.
Still in its infancy, 10 Sofas 10 Minutes is aiming to create a database to inform the larger public about prevailing public opinions in Cambridgeshire on housing, health, safety and all other social subjects. Sofas are spread into several depots in the county including Ely, Cambridge, Cambourne, Huntingdon and Peterborough.
Anyone interested in hiring sofas can get in touch with Sam either on samscharf@hotmail.com or through 07807 071 552. For more information please visit http://camconv.wordpress.com,or https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ten-Sofas-Ten-Minutes/138065233037728
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