7 | Fran Zuch: Germany to Alaska to Bath - Exploring and Community Building

Fran Zuch is a Bath Girl who is Geeky for all things tech and science. She is also a natural community builder and in this episode, during the times of social-distancing, I have a conversation with her about her travels and how that has shaped her experiences with the landscape to building communities.

Music by Bensound - Tomorrow

Whilst Fran may not be in the field of Landscape Architecture, there is a lot we can learn from emerging tech and science communities whereby these fields can be often male dominated. This has led Fran and many other like minded individuals to form safe groups for women that are wanting to show their passion and expression for their field, including to gain more confidence. Hence, we can start to learn about community building for minority groups. 

Fran touches on the two key factors for community building:
- the need for facilitators, wiling to build a community, to enable the networking process between existing and new members and ensure growth and positive encouragement and belonging
- communication, communication, communication, a constant and undoubtedly useful skill to ensure we are all meeting each other's needs. 

This is one of the coming episodes that begin to answer an ongoing questioning into community building. Positive community building can be an asset for nature. Skills needed to build a thriving a community such as empathy, clear communication and emotional intelligence can be used to create beneficial changes for our landscapes. There is nothing more powerful, necessary and of sole importance than human beings coming together to create a positive impact.