Who we are
We are a group of volunteers, drawn together from different walks of life by a shared concern for the health of our local communities.
We believe diverse groups of people contain the seeds of creative solutions for the complex issues confronting us all.
Our role is to help them to discover and nurture those seeds.
We create events whose aim is to improve engagement between individuals, communities, local government, business and other stakeholder agencies.
Our aims
- Inclusion of diverse voices
- Free and open dialogue
- Search for solutions
- Participation and consensus seeking
- Collaborative working
- Long term sustainability
Meet the team
We run open space events and encourage continuing discussion in our forums. Please send us an email if you'd like to get involved.
How we are funded
Aberdeen Beautiful is supported by the Deming Learning Network and Grampian Housing Association Ltd. Aberdeen City Council sponsored our first Open Space event at the Town House.
We have received help and support from:
- Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
- Aberdeen City Council
- Grampian Housing Association
- Deming Learning Network
- Common Weal
- Aberdeen Civic Forum
Our history
Aberdeen Beautiful emerged from a convergence of innovative thinking about society, organisation and management.
Overlapping interests between Common Weal, the Deming Learning Network and Community Council groups were identified and developed during a series of meetings during the autumn of 2017, initiated by Bob Taylor of Common Weal.
The contacts included meetings with Angela Scott, chief executive of Aberdeen City Council and colleagues, as well as learning groups, part of U-Lab, an open global, online programme from the Presencing Institute of the MIT Sloan School of Management. From these discussions we held our first public event in January 2018 around the theme of how we support each other and our City to build a future - prosperous and successful - which makes a real difference to the everyday lives of all its citizens? Since then we have managed regular events around themes important to Aberdeen.
Find out more about our discussion themes and events on our events page.
Aberdeen Beautiful
We work with anyone who cares about strengthening communities.
We help to build relationships between civic bodies, business, charities, agencies and all sectors of our community.
Banner image reproduced by kind permission of Michael Tompsett
