Here are a few pieces of online writing from inside and outside our region that really got us thinking over the last year...

"Facing an increasingly self-centered centre, we stand for citizens who are open to the world and to the present time, capable of organizing and cooperating according to their abilities and aspirations" - Simona Levi got us thinking about how citizens respond to centralised states in Spain and other parts of our continent here.

Paul Salveson got us thinking about the 'many rivers' that might flow towards #RegionalDemocracy here.

In the run up to the Scottish referendum on independence, Lesley Riddoch wrote this piece here and got us thinking about how female voices could be better heard in the debate about our #RegionalDemocracy.

Joe Brady described a specific example here of how devolution enabled people in Scotland to think again about how to make newcomers welcome and got us thinking about what that might mean for our #RegionalDemocracy.

In thinking about our future #RegionalDemocracy, developments in Rojava (described here) also got us thinking about what we could learn from the experience of developing an inclusive, hopeful and engaged democracy in the most difficult of circumstances.

What about you? Is there anything you have read over the last year that has really got you thinking about #RegionalDemocracy and your hopes for our shared future?

Best wishes for 2016 from all at the Same Skies collective.