What we do

We deliver transformational community projects using relational education that build confidences and capacities for people in communities and on the edge of them to come together. Our work with communities uncovers new possibilities in culture, public life, education, environment and well-being. We help solve problems and help people with the skills, capacities and thinking to solve their own problems. It’s a holistic approach. We create space where new opportunities and human fulfilment can happen. New relationships. New confidences.

We’ve helped communities, charities, academics, government, local authorities, faith communities and social enterprises. We’re based in Wales and are applying to become a charity under the charitable purpose Community Capacity Building.

Our work…

making international carnival

The National Eisteddfod of Wales and Visit Wales asked us to help kick off the 2018 National Eisteddfod in Cardiff with a bang. We worked with local communities helping them to come together in a unique new way to champion the international stories of Wales’ connection with the world. The result was an astonishing, vibrant summer night carnival, created by the community, that opened the National Eisteddfod in Cardiff, bringing together often marginalised communities of Butetown with the flagship Welsh cultural festival. The Eisteddfod said that, in living memory, they had never experienced an atmosphere like it. The next day the BBC broadcast calls for the event to be recreated. Here’s a quick film that gives a glimpse of the community party that transformed local and national confidences and how we think about our welsh identities.

developing facilitators

We help people to develop as community facilitators. And leaders. Our approach is world class . In any community or venture new things happen because of the quality of conversation. Confidence transforms the way people do things. We’ve years of experience in unlocking potential and unleashing fresh energies and helping people and communities to grow in confidence. In the past our team have worked successfully with clients including universities, public sector, banks and industry. Today we sometimes we work in tough community conditions, with hard problems, and where there are sometimes blockages and misunderstandings, but we’re always discovering understanding, people and vision that help to bring clarity, movement and commitment. Our work is person-centred, and we develop those conversations into stronger community and new possibilities. We’ve worked with residents, children, leaders, senior managers, teams and individuals over the years. Our success is built on the ability to take an understanding of holistic human relationships and flourishing and make them simple and available to communities. We’ll help you create the culture you need, from within; with the people you live and work with. Of course, every project is different, because every person and community is different. Chat to us about developing facilitators and strengthened community culture where you live or work. We’re sure we can help.

coaching conversations & organisational development

Conversation is the basis of coaching culture and developing community. Wonderful vision and strategy doesn’t come to life if it’s not transformed into productive working relations with dynamic groups. Talking, listening and reflecting together is at the heart of human enterprise. Even brilliant individualists need to work within community. Richard, the founder of Coleridge Cymru, developed and wrote the national coaching based induction programme for postmen and postwomen for Royal Mail. He’s worked with many organisations at all levels to explore how to generate ideas from existing problems, release energy and bring working community into healthy focus. He’s comfortable in community centres, homes, pavements, boardrooms, conferences and getting to know the real life of communities and organisations. We offer community development and leadership consultancy, and also “coaching conversations” for individuals and groups – a chance for your community or organisation to reflect on person-centred ways in which you can transform your culture approaches that work for you and your distinct situation and opportunities.

creative new thinking

We work with leading thinkers and writers. We’re comfortable in intellectual, academic and public administration circles. We’ve delivered lectures and talks at British universities, the Royal Geographic Society, made an address at an international conference in Oxford University, gave a keynote lecture on relationship at work to the World Congress on Total Quality Management and co-hosted a conference with Cambridge University. We specialise in the philosophy of relationship in community, culture and public life.

In 2022 we ran an open public exploration in South Wales on the theme of ‘myths of origin’ and justice in our culture and public life which has engaged communities, cross-party politicians and academics in a national dialogue

Helping the Eden Project

We helped the charity The Eden Project to celebrate and promote community resilience across Wales by joining up communities in a great big walk from Yorkshire through Wales ending in Cardiff. The Eden Project invited us to lead the celebration and affirmation of the strength of communities to tackle climate change. And we walked and celebrated every day for three weeks across the Wales. The Eden Project believes we are stronger to face the environmental challenges ahead if we live in strong communities. Coleridge Cymru’s Richard led the great big walk meeting and affirming remarkable people who everyday come out of their houses and do amazing things to allow community to flourish where they live. The start of the walk from Yorkshire through Wales was broadcast live on the BBC’s The One Show with Richard singing the Welsh national anthem.

a visionary national festival

Wales has a huge community contribution to make to questions of international sustainability, economy, relationship, landscape and culture. We wondered how much of the anxieties of institutions in the capital city Cardiff are reflected in the different ways that life is lived in communities across the hills, valleys and coastal plains of Wales. So in 2016 we set out on an 80 day public adventure around the country to celebrate the culture and communities of Wales, highlighting the strength and range of Welsh communities. It was an 80 day festival to discover the hidden human treasures of our national life and explore how Welsh language culture in its history, literature and current traditions give insights into the significant community questions of our age.

We teamed up with charities, universities, museums, schools, communities, politicians, businesses, environmentalists, artists, poets, adventurers to conduct the eighty day festival which travelled all over Wales holding events in national institutions, fields, community centres, towns and in pubs. Many thousands took part. The conversations still continue. The work was called the Coleridge in Wales Festival, and it gave the name to our organisation today, Coleridge Cymru.

creative learning to build school community

The Arts Council of Wales asked us to mentor schools in exploring creative communal approaches to learning for Wales’ new curriculum. Working with students and school communities we oversaw the development and completion of dynamic successful projects that created a forest school outdoor learning venture, engaged with vulnerable children to improve engagement through the employment of psychotherapists and play, an animation project that developed literacy confidence and competence, and the design of a beautiful stone mosaic with an internationally experienced mosaic artist which led a school to explore how they respond to the idea of strangers, and how we are connected to each other in our common humanity.

We worked with teachers and pupils to create space where they could come together and reflect on how they come together and discover how to learn as a community, benefitting the whole class and the whole school.

a new Library in Wales

There’s a vital difference between “people” and “things”! And if you treat people like “things” or “objects” then complications often occur. Straight away. Or down the line. Communities get stuck. Although this idea may be obvious in our everyday personal lives, wider British culture has struggled with this relational problem for hundreds of years in public life.

We’re working with the community in the small coastal town of Llantwit Major in South Wales. In partnership with the historic St Illtud’s church – which was in the 6th century a celebrated Celtic centre of learning – we’ve established the New Library to help with this area of human endeavour. It seeks to provide resources and opportunities in the 21st century. It’s a quiet place, for reflection and discussion. And reading, of course! Housed in a 13th century medieval gatehouse the Library is home to the Coleridge in Wales Archive and also a remarkable collection of books by the internationally renowned biblical scholar and theologian John Rogerson. The Library is an associate centre of Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Platonism. With these collections we invite people from all walks of life, from differing faith traditions and none, from differing political and cultural outlooks to come together to explore how being human is essentially a relational condition. And how this changes ways in which we might talk, think and act together.

It’s a place where people can ask some of the big questions about life, find new ideas and capacities, and perhaps discover a tradition with a long pedigree that has been largely ignored in the past 240 years of mainstream British cultural history, but yet, somehow, this tradition seems comfortable and at home in Wales.

opening landscapes

We’ve worked with Welsh Government funding from Visit Wales to work with communities, helping them to tell and connect to amazing stories of differing faith traditions, from old historic Roman and Celtic sites, to the age of the saints, the medieval period, the rise of Non-Conformism and the great world religions that have come to Wales in the modern period. It’s a community treasure hunt that allows visitors and locals to get to know the landscape of South Wales, and collectively share the stories and resources held by the stories, places and coming together in the landscape.

journeys of the faith traditions

The Diocese of Llandaff, part of the Church in Wales, asked us if we could help with a project to run alongside the Welsh Government / Visit Wales funded Landscapes of Faith project. We were delighted to respond and help. We’ve created a project for them called Journeys in Faith, funded by the Allchurches Trust, in which we’re conducting a piece of facilitation that seeks to help Christian copmmunities find more public confidence to be the church in the cultural landscape in which they find themselves. Coleridge Cymru is not a religious organisation but in this specialist work we deploy our skills and expertise in philosophy, relationship and culture.

In the tradition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was a significant British spiritual thinker, we boast robust theological excellence and cultural insights in our approach to this work, recognising that these confidences are sometimes lacking across many traditional religious organisations.

As part of this work we have established the New Library at Llantwit Major.

creating public art

We were asked to create new public art for the City of Newport to celebrate the 1839 Chartist movement that gives Newport such an important place in the history of world democracy. We worked with community groups to carve footsteps in the street where thousands of working people marched and were then shot at by soldiers. We designed and installed the new Chartist Milestone in Westgate Square, Newport which connects everyday life of people in the city to the heart of the principles of democracy. We’re specialists in creating art that reinforces narratives of community confidence, community importance and allows people to join community.

We’ve also made art and performance in the National Gallery of Wales, The Welsh National Eisteddfod, and the French Embassy in London.