A pop-up living room with a big purpose: Listening comes to Lincolnshire

On a crisp but sunny November Monday morning in Lincoln, something unusual appeared where Sincil Street meets Cornhill: a cosy cluster of sofas, armchairs, carpets and cushions. In other words, an invitation to stop, sit, and have a chat.

This pop-up “public living room,” created by Camerados and arranged by the It’s All About People team, became the setting for a new chapter in how Lincolnshire’s health and care system can listen to the people and communities it serves.

Why listening matters

We believe that real conversations - the kind that are unrushed, unscripted and unfiltered - are key to better services and stronger communities.

Working with People’s Voice Media and our growing network of Community Reporters, we’re already gathering people’s stories from across Lincolnshire.

CLICK ON THE SIDE PANEL to explore 'Our Shared Stories', the growing Lincolnshire Community Reporter Library.

We’re also currently rolling out our Our Shared Agreement Community Listeners programme, created in partnership with Vicky Thomson from the charity Every-One.

The idea behind this work is simple: this isn’t a survey. It’s an invitation to listen to people as people - because their stories matter, and they deserve, and need, to be heard and shared.

At the same time, we know not everyone feels fully comfortable with this shift. Some stakeholders have raised important questions: Do we have the “permission to just have conversations with people”? How will we protect the information people share with us? And are we being clear that listening does not mean we can fix everything that comes up in these conversations?

These concerns aren’t stopping us. They’re helping us shape a careful, thoughtful approach. For now, we’ve creating closed and managed groups of listeners. But we’re not stepping back, because the goal is for our health and care workforce to see the value of conversations and building relationships, and start to do this themselves, rather than for us to do it for them.

So yes, we’re aiming for a culture shift across Lincolnshire’s health and care system. But like all meaningful change, we’re starting small - and starting with listening.

A spark from Camerados

Looking for a way to kick-start the culture shift, we’ve drawn inspiration from Camerados, a movement founded by Maff Potts that champions connection and looking out for each other. The Camerados “public living rooms” are warm, welcoming spaces open to all, built on the belief that “the answer to all our problems is each other.”

From the Camerados website:

A camerado can be anyone. We always say a camerado is someone who’s halfway between a stranger and a friend – someone who doesn’t know you well and won’t try to solve your problems for you, but who listens and has your back.

The Camerados movement is open to anyone, all that is asked is that you try to follow the simple ideas below. We’ve tried these in the toughest of situations, and they seem to work, so give them a go:

• Mix with people who are not like you
• Ask someone who is struggling to help you
• No fixing – just be alongside one another
• It’s ok to disagree respectfully
• To be silly is to be human
• It’s okay to be a bit rubbish sometimes

This sounded like such a good fit for what we wanted to do. So, inspired - and already in the process of working out how our team could sit down and have conversations with people across Lincolnshire – we reached out to Maff himself. Could he get the ball rolling for us by bringing a Camerados public living room to Lincoln?

And Maff said, “Of course!”

A living room on Sincil Street

On Monday 24 November, Maff rolled into Lincoln in his big van, packed with sofas, armchairs, rugs, big cushions, side tables and a giant welcome mat. By 9:30am, an inviting living room had taken shape right on Sincil Street, basking in the bright winter sunshine.

After grabbing a quick coffee, Maff and the team settled in. And then the magic began.

Over the next 90 minutes, people drifted into the living room: commuters cutting through on their way to work, curious shoppers, Lincoln College students, and colleagues from the County Council who’d heard about the experiment and wanted to see it firsthand.

Some stayed a few minutes, others longer. Every person who sat down with us brought a story, a thought, or simply the willingness to share a moment of human connection.

The result? Warm, open conversations - exactly what we’d hoped for. Thanks, Maff!

So, what’s next

The Camerados Lincoln public living room proved that when you create a welcoming space, people respond. It also reaffirmed our belief that having conversations in this way – and listening - is not only possible, it’s powerful.

This is just the beginning. We’ll continue to develop and grow our Community Reporter and Our Shared Agreement Community Listeners networks, expanding the circle of health and care colleagues taking part, and building confidence to have conversations across the system.

More living rooms, more conversations (over more tea and biscuits), and more connectivity and creativity are already on the horizon.

Because real change starts with real listening, and all of us can be part of it.