From Small Beginnings to a Thriving Community

Small Beginnings

Tribe Porty was bootstrapped into existence with just £10,000 from an Awards for All grant. That tiny seed allowed us to create rooms, hallways, secure entries, windows, and fireproofing, just enough to begin.

I was still working full-time, quietly piecing it together in every spare moment: applying for social enterprise grants, writing business plans, pitching, painting walls, and reaching out to local people and groups who might share the vision.

We launched Tribe alongside TEDxPortobello: Seeing Things Differently. After eleven months of hard work, pitching, borrowing, and asking for every kind of help imaginable, we sold out in under three minutes and streamed to 139 countries. It was epic, a genuine community effort in every sense.

 

“Not all things grow loud. Some grow steady, wide, deep, and full of meaning.”

 

Finding Our Ground

When Earthy tried to sell their business, and our lease with it, without telling us, we knew we needed more security. Thankfully, our landlord, a local who believes in good things happening in Portobello, gave us the chance to take over the whole building in 2018.

It needed everything: new doors, windows, central heating, kitchen, toilets. We took out a loan with Social Investment Scotland to make it possible. We’re proud to say we’ve finally paid it all off. We were also 3 years in and had a healthy and growing community so expanding was very welcome.

A Decade in the Making

Eleven years ago, Tribe was just an idea, born while setting up Trade School Edinburgh with Johanna Holtan and working with SENSCOT, the Social Entrepreneurs Network Scotland.  Ten years ago, it was an empty, chaotic building needing skips and imagination. By 2018, we were still recovering from the aftermath of Earthy’s collapse.

With no funds to begin, we built Tribe piece by piece from donated and reclaimed materials. Every table, wall, and floorboard tells a story. Every inch of Tribe has been shaped, and reshaped by hand.

 

Built by Many Hands and Big Hearts

For a decade, I’ve had the joy of working with the same team of joiners, painters, electricians, plasterers, and plumbers. They’ve poured so much care into Tribe that it feels like theirs too, and I love that.

Every inch of Tribe has been shaped by community. Just as the building has been built by its people, so too has its spirit. Tribe has always been about belonging, a place where you can walk through the door and feel at home, whether it’s for a day, a week, or a decade.

This milestone marks ten years of something that’s never been flashy or headline-grabbing, but deeply meaningful. It also marks a personal one for me: I’ve now lived exactly half my life in America and half here in Scotland. Being an immigrant is complicated, but it’s also a gift.

I arrived in Scotland on a work permit to help establish a company delivering applied behaviour analysis, something new here but well known at UCLA. Later, I gained an HSMP visa and eventually indefinite leave to remain. Half my life has been lived here, and Tribe Porty has been a big part of why it feels like home.

Finding Home & Community

Growing up, I was quiet, one or two close friends, shy until my twenties. When I moved to Edinburgh, someone introduced me to her circle and suddenly I was surrounded by people. For the first time, I felt adopted into a community and it changed me.
That feeling of connection has been at the heart of Tribe since day one. When we launched TEDxPortobello in 2015, I was again surrounded by extraordinary volunteers and speakers. Tribe and TEDx have brought countless generous, kind, and creative people into my life.

“To know you matter to others, and that they matter to you, that’s everything.”

 

Standing on Its Own And Doing Small Things With Love

Today, Tribe is fully self-sustaining. We receive no government funding, we proudly pay corporation tax, and we employ a small, brilliant team. Tribe stands as proof of what can happen when people show up with purpose and care.

Members may come and go, but once you’ve been part of Tribe, you’re always part of its story. Old faces and new ones together weave the fabric of who we are. We often underestimate how powerful it is to feel part of something positive; to know you belong and that your presence matters.

Tribe has always been more than the sum of its parts. Every person adds something essential, and in doing so, becomes essential.
My very first Tribe business cards read: Do small things with love. I still believe in that. Tribe Porty isn’t a multimillion-pound enterprise, but it’s rich in meaning.

Tribe was never about me, it’s about everyone. Every person who has passed through our doors has left a mark. The one who recommended Tribe to a friend. The one who organised a dinner. The one who quietly invited others in. Together, we’ve built something lasting.

Looking Ahead

As we enter winter and the close of our tenth year, Tribe begins a new chapter. It’s an uncertain time for small businesses, and yet, the need for community and genuine, in-person connection has never been greater.

For ten years, Tribe has been a place to pull up a chair, share ideas, break bread, and build connections that last far beyond these walls. Around our tables, friendships have formed, collaborations have taken root, and a community has flourished.

Beyond One Person

It feels good, and deeply right, to know Tribe is strong without me. That’s always been the point: to create something that could stand, grow, and evolve on its own.

Tribe is now its own living thing. Each new person changes it, strengthens it, and carries it forward.

So, thank you. To everyone who has helped build Tribe into what it is today, and what it is still becoming. Not all things grow loud. Some grow steady, wide, deep, and full of meaning.

With love and gratitude,
Dani

 

As always we’d love to connect and hear your thoughts. As we look ahead to the next 10 years, we’d love to know: What would you love to see more of in the future of Tribe Porty?

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Holding Space

Meet Loretta

We wanted to take this month’s blog as an opportunity to introduce you to Life Celebrant, Death Doula and friend of Tribe, Loretta Dunn. Loretta has a special interest in living well and dying well. Her journey so far has included a long career in nursing and midwifery, she is a member of The Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath and Death, and an EASE Facilitator (end of life aid skills for everyone) with the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care. She is passionate about bringing death out of the shadows as a means of helping us to live our best life in the present moment.

Compassion and love are at the heart of her work. Loretta recently reached out to us to express her interest in running The Death Curious Cafe at Tribe Porty. Simply put, this gathering is an open invitation to gather and discuss mortality in a supportive and progressive way. 

 

What is a Death Cafe?

Death Cafes first launched in Switzerland in 2004 and have since spread around the world. This has been encouraged through a growing number of folks moving towards death positivity and away from death denial. The key of this is that through understanding and welcoming our own mortality we improve the quality of our lives. As a society, it is more valuable than ever to hold space for conversations about death. A survey by the charity Dying Matters reveals that more than 70 per cent of us are uncomfortable talking about death and that less than a third of us have spoken to family members about end-of-life wishes.

 

Holding Space

In the UK, the topic of death is avoided due to a combination of cultural, psychological, and social factors. Many of us not only fear death itself but the potential pain, loss of control, and uncertainty it brings. Psychologically, people often engage in death denial to shield themselves from these anxieties. 

In the book, Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief, the authors and researchers challenge traditional views on grief which emphasise the need for detachment. The authors argue that grief is not about “letting go”. Rather it is about finding a new way to incorporate the presence of the deceased into one’s life. This could be in the form of personal rituals, keeping mementos and maintaining an inner dialogue with the loved one. 

You can see this approach manifest itself through modern technology with the keeping of ‘memorial profiles’. Continuing bonds and having open dialogue around death has become an essential part of death doulas work and perhaps an important key to reopening the conversation around death and grief. 

 

“The goal of grief is not to sever bonds, but to reweave them into the fabric of life.”-Continuing Bonds

 

The importance of community

There are many cultures that have religious or spiritual rituals that provide the building blocks for both accepting and preparing for death. In the past, even in the UK, death was a communal experience with both community members and family taking an active role in end-of-life care and rituals. Philosophical traditions, such as Stoicism or Buddhism, death is seen as an inevitable part of life, and whether it happens early or late is simply a fact of existence, not necessarily a matter of fairness.

Due to the breakdown of close-knit community structures and families often living far apart, death has been removed from everyday life and conversation. Thus encouraging an environment where it is easier to avoid and therefore removing any sentiment of acceptance or feelings of fairness.

Advances in medical technology have also shifted the perception of death to be something that can and should be delayed. In the UK the percentage of people who died in hospital in 2022 was 43.4%. Arguably this contributes to the notion that death is something to be resisted or “fixed,” rather than embraced as a natural end. 

Of course the practice of guidance is not new and death is not an unknown phenomenon. A certified end-of-life doula, Christy Marek suggests that the lack of community ties in today’s society has led to the lack of conversations around death and resulted in the overwhelming need to contract a trained professional.

 

“In America, a few generations ago, our communities were doing this work,” she said. “The reason the role is showing up in a formalised way now is that we don’t have those community ties any more, not in the same way, and certainly not the same level of responsibility to each other as used to be woven into our communities.”- Christy Marek

 

The place of a Doula

Doulas help to relive these challenges and open up the conversation in a relaxed and informal way. Something we must also consider is that death denial is the overwhelming norm, our individual wishes for end of life care are not considered until late on. The result is that people struggle to have their wishes fulfilled. 

All of the above contributes to a whole host of anxieties, the biggest problem being that we will never achieve a “good death”, one that aligns with our own values, desires and needs. This is a big conversation and one that cannot be fixed into one blog post, but we can certainly hold the space for it.  When we are willing to take responsibility for our life, we can make peace with death. 

 

An invitation to hold space

Join Loretta for our first Death Cafe on 24/10/24, she will also be joining us at Tribe for Social Lunch on 03/10/24. This will be a safe environment for sharing and exploring a deeper understanding of spiritual wellbeing for living well to die well over tea, coffee and cake. This is a pay-what-you-can event with a £5 suggested donation. Click here to find out more and book your space.

 

“Love has triumphed from the enfoldment of my inner circle—my closest friends and family. Engaging in open conversations about life and death has woven tighter bonds among us. Death, a shared human experience often wrapped in silence, has become a pivotal topic of our discussions. Through this, I’ve gained invaluable insights about the inevitable but more so about how to live.”-Dani Trudeau on conversations about death

 

Thanks for reading,

Alice

 

Read more: Exploring the evolution of grief & Living longer

 

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Hitting Pause on Christmas

Christmas is a time where life becomes intensified, days are shorter, money is tighter and you have social gatherings galore. As Christmas draws closer, the need for a pause button grows. 

 

As a fan of Christmas, there are times that it even makes me want to bury my head in the snow (Christmas joke). It can be a difficult time to adjust expectations as we fall into the usual routine of overindulging in every aspect of life. I often reminisce on that weird covid Christmas where we had to remain within our own households. I remember initially feeling sad, like something had been taken away. On reflection, it was probably one of my favourites. Yes, I missed my family but it was lovely to spend the day in my own home, possibly the most relaxed Christmas of them all. Yet, every Christmas since then the intensity comes back in full swing.

It’s not all bad, who doesn’t love the lights, spending time with loved ones and eating your favourite Christmas foods. It’s also a time to reflect and give thanks, especially as the year draws to a close. Team Tribe had an evening of wreath making with artist Jana Middleton at Dook Soap for our Christmas do this year. At the start of the evening, host Jana asked us all to close our eyes and think of a colour that comes to mind when thinking of Christmas. Orange, red, green and white all came up. She also asked us to think of smells that we attach to Christmas, pine, mulled wine, spices and homebaking were mentioned. Lastly, she asked us to close our eyes and write down words or a sentence that come to mind when we think of Christmas. The feedback felt warm and cosy, like a Christmas hug. 

Earlier that day, I had been constructing this blog post. A helpful guide to make the most of Christmas and enjoy the festivities. I came away from the wreath making evening feeling extremely mellow and calm about Christmas. I felt like that simple exercise served as an important reminder as to what is and what makes Christmas. It’s a lot simpler than the panic, gift buying hussle that we find ourselves wrapped in. Christmas isn’t always an easy time of year and it is all too easy to forget that you do in fact have control. As a team, we have gathered some thoughts around Christmas and how to thrive and enjoy this period rather than survive. 

 

Wreath Exercise

Close your eyes and think about the following questions, write these down on a piece of paper. Use this as a guiding force over the Christmas period, these are arguably what you love the most over Christmas and the easiest to forget:

 

Catch some Sun

Christmas is in itself tied up in the winter Solstice. The winter solstice marks a crucial turning point in the year as the sun is at its weakest point. This is a point throughout history where people would hold fests and gather at monuments. It is a time to remember that winter is not forever. 

It is widely known that the sun benefits our body in numerous ways and keeps our circadian rhythms in sync. Being in the sun can tweak our immune and cardiovascular systems as well as causing our blood vessels to relax and widen. When we feel the sun on our skin, we release endorphins which can boost our alertness and energy levels.

Over the winter months, it is so important for us to harness this energy. Next time there’s a cold bright morning or the afternoon sun is peeking through some clouds, try to get outside. The sun being out also makes an excellent motivator to get your family outside over the Christmas period. Here’s a great read on the power of the sun.

 

Take a break!

The busier you are, the greater benefit there is to taking some time alone and finding that pause button. It can take a bit of confidence but take a break when you need to. A 15 minute brain reset in solitude can make a world of difference to both your mood and energy level. Studies show that alone time can increase happiness, better life satisfaction, and improve stress management.

 

Practice Mindfulness

It may not be your top priority over Christmas but daily mindfulness is important at any time of your life. Through mindfulness exercises, such as meditation, breathing exercise and yoga you can become more aware of your thoughts and feelings. This gives you time to both process and manage them rather than becoming overwhelmed. Click here for some easy and quick breathing exercises.

 

Take stock and look to the year ahead

The end of the year is a very natural time to take a moment of reflection. We should all lean into this urge to celebrate our achievements and note our successes. It’s important to refrain from a critical mindset and instead hone in on what has brought you joy this year.

If you are new to this, we’ve gotchu. Keystone have a free online course to help you on your way. This will help you designate the time to reflect, check in and gather yourself for what’s next.

 

Relax and say no.

Ya know you can do that at Christmas right?? Check in with yourself and make the time to chill out and do the things that you like to do. It’s also okay to miss out on things and to say no when your cup is already full.

 

Shop small, gift small. 

The biggest overwhelm and stress can stem from gift giving. It’s always important to reframe what and why you are buying a gift. Especially when you consider that 80% of returned gifts end up in landfill and this year alone 3,088,345 bad Christmas gifts were thrown away. Before buying something, consider the journey this gift will take and what its lifetime value is. Sentiment and gesture is always far more powerful than cost and volume. 

 

Considering all things, seek and stay true to the things that you love about Christmas. Here are some words from Nick Cave on the power of small actions:

 

“The everyday human gesture is always a heartbeat away from the miraculous.

Remember that ultimately we make things happen through our actions, way beyond our understanding or intention; that our seemingly small ordinary human acts have untold consequences; that what we do in this world means something; that we are not nothing; and that our most quotidian human actions by their nature burst the seams of our intent and spill meaningfully and radically through time and space, changing everything.

Our deeds, no matter how insignificant they may feel, are replete with meaning, and of vast consequence, and that they constantly impact upon the unfolding story of the world, whether we know it or not.”- Nick Cave

 

As always, thanks for reading. You can read all of our previous blogs by clicking here. Make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletters by filling out the form below:

 

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Collecting Moments

Moments pass, or rather moments fly by without us even noticing. Should we consciously collect moments to find calmness and fulfillment?

 

In a recent blog post, Controlling Distractions, we explored our relationships with phones and how we can use them in a more meaningful way. Phones are often used to pass time and perhaps lead us to ignoring the world around us. Hannah recently shared a Mary Oliver quote on a post it note and stuck it to reception where it still lives now. The quote is as follows:

 

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Sometimes, Mary Oliver

 

Mary Oliver’s work can teach us how to find comfort in the quiet occurrences of the everyday. In a world where we are surrounded by white noise it’s all too easy to stop paying attention. Days blur by as we fall into the rhythms of life. As a result of this, we forget how to appreciate the small delicate intricacies of living. I can’t help but feel that we have lost our awe in the everyday.  It often feels as though that in a busy world, we try to keep busy and amongst the hustle and that we are tricked into thinking this is how to feel accomplished or satisfied.  

Our obsessions with doing and comparing our productivity and accomplishments to others bares us with a neverending weight of dissatisfaction, eventually we burn ourselves out. We forget to notice the pleasure in the everyday. The pursuit of productivity leaves us feeling unfulfilled, like we’ve never quite done enough with our days, but what’s wrong with enjoying a day for exactly what it is? Start to allow your days to unfold as they are and try to stop with our tendency to constantly optimise our time. Allow our free time to be exactly that, free time and time to rest. I think that collecting moments it’s a nice way to nurture this growth.

 

“Our days don’t need to be optimised, but simply occupied-that is, lived in, tended to, renewed.”- Madeleine Dore, I Didn’t do the thing today.

 

Slowing down, paying attention, collecting moments. 

On our podcast, Working For Progress, we ask our guests for five simple pleasures. We have noticed over time that these simple pleasures are simply that, a collection of small moments. A morning coffee, the falling of cherry blossoms, a bike ride to work. They are never overly complex, nor do they tell an astonishing story. Most of these pleasures may not have been shared with others or spoken aloud. But what they do reflect is the fundamental beauty in the everyday. Free passings of time that we should consciously indulge in more often. 

Let’s practice collecting moments that bring a feeling of joy and focus on them. It’s one thing to keep a log of these small moments privately on your phone but to tell others about it spreads the joy, broadens your attention and ultimately makes us more connected to the world around us. When we look without noticing, we lose our sense of belonging.

It’s time to start to enjoy those moments of nothing… Spend your time noticing the free sounds, sights, tastes of life. I shared this thought with Hannah and Dani, I asked them to collect moments in their days so that we could reflect on them. We invite you to do the same.

 

“A mind narrows when it has too much to bear. Art is not born of unwanted constriction. Art wants formless and spacious quiet, anti-social daydreaming, time away from the consumptive volume of everyday life.”-Kyo Maclear, Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation

We wanted to share some moments our team collected over the past week.

 

Moments Hannah Collected:

Moments Alice Collected:

Moments Dani Collected:

 

As always, thanks for reading. You can read all of our previous blogs by clicking here. Make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletters by filling out the form below:

 

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Creative Workspaces that Move People

A Place to tap into your creative work

Tribe is slowly picking back up and gaining new members; more and more people are needing community and a creative space now more than ever. It has been such a long time for so many of us who have been cooped up in a small flat or sharing a kitchen table with a partner. Taking never ending zoom calls and not seeing another human in the flesh has taken its toll-not only on our wellbeing but on our creativity and productivity.

Over the years, many people have asked advice about how to turn their extra space into a coworking space.  Beyond the basics, desks, seating, good wifi- the community part is an art. The people are what makes spaces special. And the people part is the hard work. We are all different, with different needs. One of our hot deskers was telling me the other day that he comes to Tribe because it taps into the creative work. He has structured his working week in such a way that he does his creative thinking work from Tribe because the space and the people in the space encourage that kind of work. This is such music to my ears as this is what we set out to create with Tribe.

There is no shortage of designer spaces to work from around the globe.

The Future of Coworking and Supply & Demand

A few folk have made some assumptions that coworking spaces will be exploding in the near future. We have certainly seen a new group of members, not just freelancers but people unable to do their work from home for practical or emotional reasons. The pandemic has forced us to change our model and reduce the size of our event space due to no events taking place for so long.  This is true for many other coworking spaces as well. According to Deskmag’s 2020 Coworking Trends Europe, “While the supply is often shaped by the demand, this is less the case during this pandemic. Example: Legal measures such as distancing rules often have shrunk the desk capacity, especially in open workspaces. The prohibition of physical events have negatively impacted community oriented activities despite their demand.”

This has definitely been true for Tribe but the recent ease of lock down is building confidence for our members to return.

We will continue to adapt and respond to our community and challenge the definition of what workspace is, from where work is done to how it’s done, and then keep our spaces creative to reflect that.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

– Charles Darwin

If you have any questions or want to book a free trial day, please get in touch.

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