Sophie Walker clearly remembers the moment she became an activist. The moment she realised that no one was coming to save the day and if she wanted change, she'd have to do it herself.

Since then she's become a prominent feminist voice as the founding leader of the Women's Equality Party, author of the book '5 Rules for Rebellion' and more recently co-founder of the Activate Collective, a movement to support women standing for election. In this episode she is frank about the ups and downs of activism and clear that there can never a be one size fits all approach to change; the only way is to keep pulling different levers, fuelled by hope and a dash of rage.

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**BONUS EPSIODE**

For this final episode in the 'season' Sam and Alex interview each other about some of the big themes and challenges of being a pirate in 2021.

Expect a lot of uncertainty...

Thank you to everyone who has supported and listened!

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Meet the Camerados - a social movement with a very simple suggestion: 'the answer to our problems is each other.' A Camerado is someone who is halfway between a stranger and a friend: they're people who meet in public spaces, just to be alongside each other in good times and bad, with no agenda and absolutely no fixing.

On this week's podcast we're talking to Maff Potts, - founder of the movement, and Petrina Douglas, an active Camerado based in Middlesborough. Maff had previously spent much of his career tackling homelessness - he’s worked both front line and in leadership positions running the largest homeless services in the country, but started Camerados in 2015 to address the way he felt that the system was failing people. The Camerados are passionate about biscuits, drinking tea, fairy lights and being ok with failure. Principled yet silly, they challenge so much of the status quo around social justice, public services and about how to support people when they’re struggling with their mental health, making them a pirate movement through and through.

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This week we’re talking real life fierce female pirates with award-winning writer for stage and screen, Carina Rodney, whose original Audible audio drama ‘Hell Cats’ tells the story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who in their escape from poverty and illegitimate birth, discovered true freedom in piracy. In a world synonymous with gnarled bearded men, their story is one of defiance of the status quo and a simultaneous acceptance of self. Alleged lovers, bonafide bad-asses, Carina sheds light on how these two women, unencumbered by modern insecurities were able to pursue personal truth and social justice in their lives on the sea.

Carina enlightens us as to how these pirates inspired her to tell their story, re-examine what it is that brings on personal happiness and be braver in her own writing.

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Since the beginning Be More Pirate has had the biggest response from people working across health and social care. Perhaps it’s no surprise that environments with lots of rules and regulations and hierarchy would start to breed rebellion, however, it’s not all that easy to do and it’s certainly not easy to do alone. Which is why we wanted to do an episode or two where we speak to people who have managed to successfully challenge power within the system to show that it is possible.

In this episode we talk to John Lodge and Hesham Abdalla, co-founders of Hexitime, the UK’s first national time bank for health and social care. In their own words, Hexitime represents an 'insurgency' or a formalised black market of trading favours that disrupts the hierarchies, silos and old power structures that are keeping the NHS inefficient. With some radical pirate thinking they've managed some incredible things in a short space of time, and are showing the Navy how it's done. We chat about the challenges, triumphs and the possibilities they see for a revolution in healthcare. 

Follow

https://hexitime.com/

Twitter

@Hesham_abdalla

@NHS_Man_John

@Hexitime

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlodge/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/heshamabdalla/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/42304560/

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Saasha Celestial-One is a powerhouse pioneer of the sharing economy - co-founder of Olio, the neighbourhood food sharing app that is re-humanising big tech while tackling a colossal part of the climate change puzzle.

Olio came about in 2015 when Saasha and her co-founder Tessa realised they both cared a lot about the issue of food waste, so decided to give themselves a year to do something about it. Their market research and found that 1 in 3 people are “physically pained” throwing away food but like all good pirates they knew that for it to work, they'd have to start small, and simple, and resist being overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge. Suffice to say, 6 years down the line the app is now making a massive impact, so in this episode we dig into how exactly they got there. 

https://olioex.com/

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If you've ever felt intimidated by street protests, crowds, and the loud, angry face of activism, then join us for a fascinating conversation with Sarah Corbett, founder of the Craftivist Collective.

Sarah is a pioneer of gentle protest, a way of campaigning for those who consider themselves introverts. She explains how you can create a full sensory experience to think deeply and differently about important issues and influence those in power. We discuss some of the unusual methods she uses, the battles hard won (including seeing her mum give the CEO of Tesco an ASBO), and how we can begin to take the ego out of activism.

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In this episode we tackle the somewhat taboo topic that is alcohol consumption. We're joined by the fabulous Laura Willoughby of Club Soda, a community that provides courses and resources for anyone who wants to change their drinking habits. A former political campaigner, Laura co-founded the movement in 2015 after realising that the standard narrative around alcoholism and recovery wasn't working for her, and so probably wasn't working for others either.   

We learnt a hell of a lot from Laura about how you can bring much needed nuance to a binary conversation and tackle an entrenched social norm from multiple angles whilst remaining refreshingly human and non-preachy. 

Listen to the end for some great alcohol-free recommendations! 

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In 2011 Peter Macfadyen led a mini revolution in his home town of Frome, Somerset. Fed up of the infighting caused by party politics and the damaging effect it was having on the community, he and a group of local citizens organised themselves in to a new party of independents, with a totally different, pirate way of working. They stood for local election, and won! Flatpack Democracy was born.

10 years on Peter has written two books on how anyone can do what they did, and his team of pirates are leading the Flatpack 2021 campaign in the run up to local elections next month. It was an absolute privilege to get Peter's take on the importance of changing the political system - Covid-19 has brought home the importance of community to so many - Flatpack is a way we can fight for and protect it.

https://www.flatpackdemocracy.co.uk/

https://flatpack2021.co.uk/

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Make no mistake, rewriting the rules begins with the terrain of your imagination. With re-evaluating what may or may not be possible and reinventing yourself accordingly.

No one knows this better than award-winning podcaster, rapper, spoken word artist and social commentator George Mpanga, aka George the Poet. Blending up genres, styles and storytelling techniques like no other, George challenges political and social norms with unparalleled creativity and authenticity. We chat about the big picture - how we might start to create a new psychological infrastructure for the 21st century, back down to the very personal - how to own and weaponise your own story for social change.

More on George here: https://www.georgethepoet.com/

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