Creating a welcoming event toolkit

A resource to support you to consider different ways to host events that are welcoming to all. It was created with the input of Network Weaver Jo, El from Transition Together and the Just Transition circle, sharing what went well and gathered learnings that came from the Transition Together Assembly in Cheshire in February 2025. This guide is by no means complete but offers a place to start and to keep building on.

Location

●​ Close to train stations/mainlines/accessible public transport links

●​ Choosing location with care - for example the Assembly chose North England location choice over Southern as events are more often held in South England.Include assessing whether steps are present like Handforth station.

Venue

●​ Fully wheelchair accessible including toilets

●​ Hearing loop available

●​ Handheld microphones available

●​ Avoid pubs as these spaces are not accessible and welcoming to all and can be very exclusionary

●​ Offering a quiet space

●​ Offering a prayer space

●​ Area for socialising and connecting between scheduled sessions.

Catering

●​ Finding a good cause caterer who work in food justice and operates in a zero waste way

●​ Working from the bottom up from those with the most specific dietary needs to trying to find a menu that works for them and everyone else can enjoy too.

●​ Provide a range of refreshments and easy access to them.

Transport

●​ Accessible minibus option

●​ Set up digital channels of communication for arranging lift shares.

Accommodation

●​ Find local hosts to reduce accommodation costs needed to attend.

Bursary

●​ Retain 25% of the overall budget for bursary for accommodation, travel & childcare to ensure finance is not a barrier to attendance

●​ Making access to this support as easy, encouraging and open as possible in terms of clear communication, ease of contact, clarity of purpose.

Communications and feedback

●​ Offering opportunities for attendees to tell us about any needs we can try to meet at our event. Include digital inclusion perhaps buddying with someone who is online. Provide various options, email, WhatsApp, telephone.

●​ Provide channels for ongoing feedback throughout an event that are regularly reviewed and integrated by facilitators and organisers - e.g. a series of boards inviting post it notes - “more of…”, “less of…”

●​ Clearly communicating who is a point of contact for concerns, feedback and conflict support

●​ Inviting a range of people and perspectives to tell the story of the event - e.g. “citizen’s journalists”. Actively look for who is missing from the group and challenge this

●​ Clear pathways for conflict support and safeguarding concerns to be cared for

●​ Allow extra, extra free time at the end just in case it’s needed.

Accessibility at the event

●​ Use of microphones and hearing loop

●​ Holding awareness of those with different needs, for example people facing a person who lip reads when speaking, with multiple people holding the responsibility to remind the collective

●​ Offering adaptive activities that include people with different bodies, ranges of movement and abilities

●​ Ensuring there are no barriers if someone needs to ask for help or assistance. Encourage this, “for example there was a huge queue for the toilet and I needed to use the disabled, an announcement had said all of the toilets were accessible but this wasn’t for wheelchair users. So having incontinence I had to announce this personal detail to the queue as some people questioned why I needed to ‘push in’ and use just the one toilet.” - Amanda at the Transition Assembly.

Welcoming arrival

●​ Welcome area/desk where people can access the information they need about the venue, toilets, prayer space, accessibility, points of contact etc.

●​ Offer name and pronoun badges, and badges to support people to share things they’d like others to know, such as neurodivergence, or invisible disability. “At the welcome table, as well as name and pronoun stickers there were a selection of hand made, and therefore highly visible, badges that we were encouraged to add any extra info to ‘what ever we would like people to know ‘ some examples had been given including ‘I am nurodivergent’ which I scooped up and proudly pinned on! I have ADHD, and I added that info to the badge. I would not have thought to do this had the badges not been there, and it allowed me to feel seen and operate all without fear that the way my brain works might not be welcomed.” - Jeni at the Transition

Welcoming difference

●​ Beginning an event by welcoming difference in a celebratory way. Here’s the community welcome which opened the Transition Assembly in February 2025 ​

“The shared welcome was the widest and deepest I have ever been part of and set a framework to build on for our time together. It reminded me why we do what we do - in the Transition Town Movement and in Life.” - Jeni at the Transition Assembly.

●​ Some other examples of community welcomes:

○​ Training for Change diversity welcome

https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/diversity-welcome/

○​ Work that Reconnects big welcome

https://workthatreconnects.org/resources/big-welcome/

○​ Training Diversity Welcome​

https://trainings.350.org/resource/diversity-welcome/

●​ Don’t be afraid to personally welcome people too: “I found this very affirming” - Amanda at the Transition Assembly.

Awareness of Power & Privilege

●​ Share the mic! Paying attention to who is invited to speak first and making an effort to welcome many different perspectives and voices, particularly those that have been historically excluded and silenced by oppressive systems

●​ Inviting others to step forward and step back

●​ Offering frameworks in break out sessions which ensure everyone has equal opportunity to contribute.

Connection time and breaks

●​ Space between structured sessions to give people opportunity to connect organically

●​ Providing area for socialising and connection

●​ Movement and game activities bring people together

●​ Offer spaciousness to support wellbeing.

Agreements/values

●​ Gathering in circles where possible, giving people the opportunity to see one another,to participate equally

●​ Inviting people to consider how we show up together - qualities which support a culture of care, accessibility, equity. E.g:

○​ Inviting active listening - stepping forward stepping back

○​ Humility - we are all on a learning journey and have so much to learn from one another

○​ Confidentiality in sharing

○​ Non judgement

○​ Welcoming questions

○​ Making space for both/and