Looking Back at the Bloom UK Virtual Event
by Jessie May Peters
It is quite a challenge to envisage how a hugely successful in-person event will feel on a digital stage. This year Bloom, a regular on the US annual event calendar, went worldwide. Instead of turning away from the events that are so vital to the Barista Guild's presence in the coffee community, we decided to release the event online.
One of the most exciting aspects of this approach was giving the reins to local coffee communities and chapters to make the event as relevant to their audiences as possible. Bloom UK was masterfully put together by SCA UK, which is voluntarily organized by many hard-working and committed members of the UK coffee scene. They jumped to the occasion, and put their minds together to bring about a varied and thought-provoking Bloom, UK style.
The main themes for all four Bloom events were Equity and Diversity and Living Wage—which SCA UK worked into the following schedule:
Online Training: How to Adjust Your Delivery in the Digital Age by Emma Haines
Living Income - Follow the Money with Mat North
How to Make a Good Career in Coffee - Panel Discussion: Aashifa Hussain, Emma Haines, Lynsey Harley, Mat North, and Robert Ward
Emma Haines' presentation on Online Training gave us an extremely hands-on and practical approach to meeting the hurdles that training in the digital world poses. Emma has a vast portfolio of training and is interested in opening up discussions around accessibility in training, particularly to those who have learning difficulties. For us in the Barista Guild, this is an extremely interesting topic and we hope that Emma's work and interests will start us on the right path in exploring it further.
Emma showed us various ways in which we can approach training, and actually really seize the opportunities that working digitally can give us. This includes visual learning aids such as video resources, and also the larger audience that you can achieve due to sharing platforms online. Though she did warn that your success as a barista trainer may lead to some international training at very early hours of the morning depending on where your students are! This was a fantastic talk and an amazing start to Bloom UK. If you'd like to follow Emma's work, head to her website, Caffeina Consulting.
Next up, Mat North took us on a historical look at the Living Wage. I absolutely loved this presentation, as for us at the Barista Guild, we are only now really diving into what the concept of a living wage is, and how it plays a role (or doesn't) in the careers of coffee professionals.
Mat's discussion showed us just how far back the living wage discussion goes, taking us through various great thinkers, from the Greeks through to the modern day, showing that at each step the concept of a living wage has been a vital counterpart to hours worked.
Many companies and countries are taking up the mantle and approaching the living wage discussion, but from a personal perspective, it was refreshing to hear just how much heritage this discussion has. I hope that for many watching, like me, that this will help us to have better conversations with employers and business owners; as this is a concept that has been discussed for millennia. The discussion ended with some great audience questions, including the ways in which Mat has approached the living wage himself, as the owner of Full Court Press Coffee, a specialty coffee shop in Bristol.
