Camilla Halford
Cofounder
Social Environment Branch Lead
Contact:
Remit
Strategic Direction
Website management
Social Branch Lead
- Commune Club
- Knowledge Base
What do you do at The Homing Call?​
I’m most interested in the social structures that create communities. Whilst I do believe it’s vital to have the build environment support a community, we can create meaningful communities in our existing homes, streets and neighbourhoods with a little intention.
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I’m a cofounder of The Homing Call, defining our scope and vision and I also created the website. I head up the The Social Environment branch and have brought my project Commune Club under The Homing Call canopy.​
What’s your background?​
I have a strong strategic skillset and have a background in marketing and business development. I run a privacy tech company as I believe that our data shouldn't be used to manipulate us. I have been the CEO of several micro businesses and consulted for multi-nationals. I've led marketing departments and have a strong track record in event management. ​
My strengths are designing ambitious projects and communicating the heart and soul of things clearly, concisely and effectively to a range of stakeholders. I’ve been called inspiring to work with. I excel at creating blueprints to manifest ambitious visions and executing them collaboratively.
​I still enjoy organising events and probably spend too long iterating on operational tools and processes to achieve greater efficiency….sometimes at the cost of actually doing the work…​
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I love creating opportunities for others to share their unique gifts and have a keen interest in the complexities of inclusion and exclusion, especially when applied to power structures, organised groups and access to opportunity.
​​​Why do you feel driven to take part?
Belonging and Purpose
The most meaningful experiences I’ve had in life is when I’ve been part of some kind of crew. I’ve felt this most this strongly with my involvement in UK Burning Man projects and as a theatre producer in London.
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Working in a group dedicated to empowering each other whilst striving towards a common goal gives me an incredible sense of belonging. It has been interesting to discover that this belonging doesn't require me to have a lot in common with others, apart from a shared purpose.
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I thrive on that sense of purpose and belonging which I find lacking in the rest of society as our faith centres and extended families have stopped being local as we move for work. I’ve lived in London for 20 years and found that gentrification and insecure rental terms stops people settling in one area, making it hard to feel connected.
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For many people I believe the workplace has become the sole supplier of our needs for fulfilment, social capital, belonging, value and status and I think it is unhealthy.
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I believe we evolved to live in communities larger than nuclear families and we need to remember how to live together in larger groups, adapt this to our modern lives and adapt the built environment to support this way of living whilst respecting the land.
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Supporting Families
I have never felt a calling to become a mother biologically, but from a young age I have wanted to be ‘child adjacent’, as I call it. I want to be a meaningful part in a child’s life and I believe this is a perfectly normal part of a community structure. We evolved tribally in structures where not every adult would bear children but would be part of the village that raises a child.
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I feel that we define women in a binary way: you can be a mother or be childfree. This ignores the different legacies many women choose as this way of thinking reduces us to our choice about motherhood.
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I also believe that parents in the UK today are grossly under-supported as we are designed to raise children in groups larger than nuclear family structures. Unless you have access to wealth this either puts pressure on schools, the state or relatives and the availability of those things in the UK varies from family to family. Where we lack physical villages I want to help create more metaphorical ones.
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Through The Homing Call I hope to create opportunities for families to be supported through community connections and for those who, like me, feel the call to be a part of the village and raise the next generation without direct parenthood, to find opportunities to do so.
A Bit About Me
Curious, creative, courageous, collaborative.
I’m one of those challenging morning people ;) I love getting out and about in Britain and want to explore my Irish heritage on Irish soil. A keen hiker, I’m currently obsessed with ultralight wild camping. Recently developed an addiction to whittling and green woodworking.
I enjoy hatha yoga and I think of myself as a ‘non-denominational mystic’ - I’m basically up for anything woo-woo. I’ve always been an avid sci-fi reader; my interest in gritty dystopia has waned somewhat (I wonder why) but I still enjoy the wildness of the classics (where everyone in the year 3050 smokes) as well as solar punk.
Wannabe Go player. I like words, I listen to a lot of hip hop and cheery dance pop; I'm lucky enough to have come of age when The Spice Girls were it. I frequently binge watch Love Is Blind and am prepared to extol the virtues of reality television on demand.
I live with my nesting partner in East London with one feline overlord and volunteer with teenagers. I believe a cuppa can solve any problem.
