Returning to Root: Mycelial Network Gathers Again at Hawkwood

In May 2025, 21 community asset developers of the Mycelial Network returned to Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking — an anchoring site for our collective journey.

This is where we first gathered, and it remains a place that invites us to ground, to grow, and to remember what we’re doing this for. Hawkwood’s ancient trees and held landscapes offer more than a backdrop; they shape how we meet each other. If you’ve never felt the need to hug a tree, it’s hard not to at Hawkwood.

The purpose this year was twofold: to create space for restoration, and to reconnect strategically — to feel where the network is, what progress has been made, and what priorities are emerging. After 2 years of movement and growth, this was a moment to pause and ask: how are we doing as a network?

🎧 Listen to our First Podcast: Voices from the Mycelial Field (beautifully produced by Emma Harvey, Trinity Bristol)

Growing Together

© Beautiful images by Visual Thinkery

Though we often share space in online meetings or brief check-ins at events, it’s rare to have sustained time with peers doing similar work across the UK. The Mycelial Network was formed to nourish those doing the difficult, often isolated work of building power and space for spatial justice. And like the fungal networks that inspired our name, our strength lies in connection.

We opened with a day of rest and grounding — each session beginning with aromatherapy oils carefully prepared by Kelly from People Dem Collective. These rituals were not an add-on, but central to our ability to meet hard conversations with openness and care.

Roots Taking Hold

The World Café conversations planted at the gathering are now taking root. What we carry forward from Hawkwood is a clearer sense of shared values, a growing rhythm of how we gather, and a network that is becoming more visible to itself.

While not everyone from the network could be there, the gathering is part of a wider fabric – one being, woven through our ‘Go-See pot’ (used for peer-to-peer visits), and upcoming moments like the Community Asset Leaders Festival this September, facilitated by Footwork Trust and hosted at the Ubele Initiative’s glorious space at Wolves Lane.

Together, these moments are part of a broader movement to shift power locally, supporting community asset holders and neighbourhood leaders to sustain, reclaim and reimagine the spaces that hold cultural, economic, and political meaning in their communities.

As one attendee reflected, the work of building this kind of infrastructure is both deeply personal and strategically vital.

“What’s happening here matters, because developing a genuine partnership for community-led regeneration has  been a draining and often lonely journey. Encountering the warmth and passionate commitment of fellow travellers  at Hawkwood has been invigorating.  I didn't know most of the leaders but I knew I had found my tribe from the emotional courage they showed in dealing with the  challenges of co-creating a network based on mycelial principles. “ — Tim Oshodi,  Downham CLT

Tensions, Truths, and Transformation

Throughout the time together, the group explored tensions around governance, the relationship between racial and spatial justice, and what it means to show up in solidarity, especially when the network is made up of different lived experiences, contexts, and capacities.

“These were hard conversations,” one member reflected. “But what stood out was our ability to navigate them with honesty. I think we’ll look back at this Hawkwood gathering as a defining moment — not just for what was said, but for how we said it. That’s what real solidarity in this work looks like.”

Hawkwood reminded us that building a network is slow, relational work, but it’s also deeply strategic. We’re not just growing connections. We’re creating the conditions for a different kind of infrastructure — one rooted in trust, justice, and care.

The Mycelial Network exists to support those holding and developing community assets with a commitment to spatial justice. It operates in the same way it imagines the future: non-extractive, rooted in peer support, and led by those closest to the work.

Meet the network

🎧 Listen to our First Podcast: Voices from the Mycelial Field (a big thank you to Emma Harvey from Trinity Bristol for producing!)

...and say hello to Wendy and Juliet (look out for more spotlights on Mycelial Network members soon!)