Tuesday 22 August 2017

CHANGING TIMES - WORKSHOP RESCHEDULE TO 14th APRIL 2018


AUGUST AT A PACE 

I am so not sure how it is already August. Harvest is fully in train and much has shifted, challenged and inspired me over the last two months.

In early June I wrote of my delight in an upcoming workshop 'Women of Wit, Wisdom & Wonder', at Hawkwood College, Stroud, planned for this September.

As the seasons move some unexpected opportunities showed up; realisations emerged....

Here in the UK, two specifics of timing demanded my attention:
  • 2018 is the Centenary of the first women getting the Vote (The Representation of the People's Act 1918)....
  • 2018 is the 70th Anniversary of Hawkwood College - itself founded by two redoubtable women
And
  • I have opportunity to interview another three amazing women (you'll have to wait for the final announcement of who) about the women who have inspired them, and to add their thoughts into both my book and workshop
  • Thanks to another incredible woman, a neighbour (who will be doing the sewing I fail at spectacularly) we are creating a Story Quilt which will join the book, have it's first outing at my workshop.....
So...

We have rescheduled the Workshop: 
Women of Wit, Wisdom & Wonder 
to 
SATURDAY 14th APRIL 2018
Celebrating 
The advent of Suffrage for some women
The Founding of Hawkwood College
Women of Wit, Wisdom & Wonder: Women Who Inspire 
(around the world)
More soon....

1918 - some of what Emily fought for








Tuesday 30 May 2017

THE BLOG THAT WROTE



This is not the blog I thought I was going to write. It is the blog that has demanded writing; it has ‘written me’.

I have been spending much time thinking, reflecting, reading, questioning, and responding/ reacting to the coming UK General Election.

AND I conclude……

What I deeply want is a kind, a truly kindly society.

I want, and believe it is possible to build a society that honours the connections and the diversities of all human beings:
  • ·      Those that live in our society and those that live in other societies.
  • ·      Those that live ‘like me’ and those that live differently.
  • ·      Those that ‘look like me’ and those that look different.

I want each human to be valued, to feel safe in their life and the places they pass through - as individuals and communities.

I want each human to value the environment we are privileged to call home – that includes the plants and animals that share it with us.

I want each human to have:
  • ·      A safe, warm (or cool) home
  • ·      Education
  • ·      Healthcare
  • ·      Enough food
  • ·      Access to water and sanitation – free
  • ·      Pollution free air to breathe
  • ·      Access to Energy renewably and responsibly resources
  • ·      Meaning and purpose in their lives
  • ·      Creativity, the Arts, the Sciences to be part of their lives


I want each human to know they have something to contribute and to be able to do so, to feel they belong and matter.

I want infrastructures (eg transport) that serve communities and populations effectively, investment and connect us – locally, nationally, internationally.

People may say this is utopia yet this is much of what those who had survived two World Wars designed and worked for when there was no money in the coffers and the UK was in debt……..

Wednesday 10 May 2017

THE COURAGE NOT TO BE DISCOURAGED


THE COURAGE NOT TO BE DISCOURAGED

I came across this recent quote from the last living Nuremberg Prosecutor, Benjamin Ferencz, which connected with me powerfully on a number of levels. 

Firstly: that of the global, my despair and disappointment in where we have reached as humanity is something I’ve referred to before in these Blogs. And how people are finding different ways to refuse to be discouraged – ways that often look different to those of the past, that look like new shoots (appropriate in this spring season).



Secondly (and I’m sure not unrelated) in relation to the emergent conversation on Mental Health, highlighted in no small way by the younger generations of Royals in this country (demonstrating so clearly how mental strife knows no boundaries). One of my most admired friends has just written movingly about his own experiences with Mental Health over the last few years (http://wadds.co.uk/2017/05/08/mental-health-awareness-week/)

I truly admire this man as he is professionally at the top of his game and has the courage to speak, to and in no way be discouraged from, speaking of his struggles. That’s true leadership, inspiration and vulnerability in action.


Thirdly and close at home for me; the courage not to be discouraged as I face my own hiccups, fears and failures in the writing of Women of Wit, Wisdom & Wonder: Women Who Inspire. Random conversations remind me of the ‘why bother’ (so important as I sit glued with apprehension staring at the computer screen). 

Opportunities bring forth ever more astonishing tales – such as the woman at the recent Business and Professional Women's National Conference (http://www.bpwuk.org.uk/conference/). Scroll down to find me the ‘after dinner speaker’ on the first evening. Quite daunting given they had been in inspiring, energising and challenging sessions since 9.00am that morning and I was beginning at 9.40pm!

After sharing some of the things for which women could be put in an asylum at the end of the 19th century (including novel reading; over-action of the mind; deranged masturbation; supressed masturbation (!); domestic trouble – the list goes on…) the redoubtable BPW set to sharing who had inspired them. Cue a story from a French member – recalling her grandmother berating a German Officer, in German, thus getting her family (the speaker was small at the time and remembered it well) moved to safety from hiding in a basement into the chateau in which the Germans were billeted.


Again I'm brought to reflect on the stories told to me by the women I’ve interviewed and
 been in conversation with. So often they themselves and the women who have inspired them had lived this ‘courage not to be discouraged’. Oona King (our second Black women MP, now in the House of Lords) spoke of her Southern American grandmother who, refusing to be discouraged by colour or lack of educational opportunities actually obtained a university degree, going on to establish an early years programme which was an almost exact precursor to the Sure Start Programmes Oona herself many years later helped develop and champion as an MP (universally acknowledged as one of the most successful programmes of intervention in early years care we (in the UK) have seen).


Also living the courage not to be discouraged were the dancing Gugus (grannies) from Kaylisha who yet again came to mind through my recent experience with the joining ‘ together Dance for Fun’ and Werca’s Folk (https://vimeo.com/215015064).













AND TO FINISH
Recent Readings:
  • East West Street – Philippe Sands (a journey revealing a family’s hidden history… Nuremberg, coincidence, inhumanity and awesome humanity)
  • Everywoman – Jess Phillips (MP)
  • Peggy Seeger: A Life of Music, Love and Politics – Jean R Freedman (Biog)
  • Sailing Close to the Wind – Dennis Skinner (MP)

They've all brought me again to the theme of this blog - lives lived to core values, to purpose, with the courage not to be discouraged…….. 

So I am curious - what themes are emerging in your reading?

When do you call on the courage not to be discouraged? 

I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding 
John O'Donohue, Conamara Blues © 2000    

 a mighty river flows...


 COMING next – an Acting workshop; stepping outside of the predictable - no doubt more in the next blog...

Penni....