After months of preparation, yesterday was the day for tCI Connect 2022, our annual conference, bringing together consultation and engagement professionals from across the UK down (this time) to London, where we were treated to an excellent day by the team at America Square conference centre. The sessions were excellent, the conversation free-flowing and the buzz strong. The dust has now settled, all of us at tCI HQ have had a bit of a nap to recharge, and we’re all mulling over the lessons of the day. So what were the key takeaways?

The first one was an excellent reminder of how vibrant and energetic the consultation community remains, even after all the challenges of the last few years- in fact, the community might be even more energetic in the pursuit of good engagement than before! New ideas about how we should engage, consult and involve; new thinking about equalities and communities; and curious attitudes to the frontiers of consultation and engagement; all were on display at the event with our expert speakers and audience working together to explore horizons new and old.

Outside of the sessions, we were also reminded of the importance of community. In this case it was the community of consultation professionals, a point which was also raised brilliantly in our closing keynote by Baroness Hayman of Ullock who emphasised the importance of collective action in defence and advancement of consultation and engagement in the public sphere. Every time I walked into the networking space, next to the remains of the old Roman City wall, I was amazed and inspired by the feel of the room. There were old friends reuniting after years, and new ones being made. Walking around and earwigging on conversations, as you do at a conference, the sheer degree of expertise you got little windows into was incredible.

One of the fears when preparing a conference with multiple rooms is always that some sessions prove vastly more popular than others, and some poor speakers are left languishing performing to an empty room. There was no risk of that at Connect, none of the three rooms ever felt anything less than full. Our expert speakers not only waxed lyrical about their individual topics, but also managed to address the various, interesting, and sometimes challenging questions from the audience.

While we digest the lessons learned (we’re already planning a recording of our Consultation Off the Cuff podcast next week to discuss it) it was altogether a heartening, inspiring and welcome event, which brought us all back together after far too long apart. Whilst we can only speak for ourselves, we certainly have much to take away and we’re very much looking forward to continuing the conversations that were started there, and continuing the trend towards a bright future for consultation and engagement.

tCI would like to thank all our sponsors, speakers and delegates for attending tCI Connect 2022, we had a fantastic time, we hope you did too. We look forward to seeing you again next year!