What is Flower Model?

Since SPEAK was founded, the Network has been served by a 'Core Team' of student and young adult representatives who have met around four times a year to talk and plan for the future. Each person on the Core Team has had responsibility for a different area of SPEAK’s work, for example, groups support or arts. The Core Team has worked alongside the Network Support Team who provide the day-to-day administration and logistical undergirding of the network.

As the network has grown and developed we've looked for a model that more effectively draws vision from throughout the network, allows people to express their diverse gifts and callings, gathers different opinions for decision-making, but which doesn't lead SPEAK to become institutionalised and committee focused.

The result is that something called 'Flower Model' is being developed. Different 'Petal' teams are responsible for areas of SPEAK's work. Each team will include people from the Network: local groups, students, young adults, in fact, anyone who wants to input into SPEAK and feels called to that area of work.

The Petal teams that are in operation at the moment are Arts, SPEAK groups/links, Campaigns, Prayer, Faith & spirituality, International and the London Network. Click on the name to see their page and find contact details for the petal team coordinator, or see the contact page.

Flower Model Gatherings

Twice a year a 'Flower Model Weekend' happens. Everyone involved in the different Petal teams will gather at the same location for a weekend of vision sharing, decision making and planning. The weekends are structured in three parts:

• The people involved in each Petal team will meet together to talk about their area of work, and plan and think about how they need to collaborate with other teams. After all the meetings each team feeds back to everyone in a main session.
• Petal teams that need to work together or share ideas then have 'cross-pollination' meetings. For example the arts team meets with the sharing faith and discipleship team to talk about planning for a festival; the prayer team and the campaigns team meet to discuss prayer at Soundcheck and the Day of Action. After these meetings the results are again fed back to everyone.
• Any remaining decisions or ideas that need everyone's attention are then discussed as one large group or a few mixed smaller ones for example events such as Soundcheck that need a lot of planning input and involve everyone.

The central part of the flower functions to enable communication between the different Petal teams and keep the process in overview. The people in this team will also hold some of the core responsibilities for any decision making required between Flower Model weekends.

Flower Model is now a firmly established part of the SPEAK year. Weekends happen in April and November, and between these Petal teams have been communicating and meeting to carry forward the work they have agreed on.