United Diversity

Co-produce something tangible as a group of equal peers

2020-07-27T14:31:34Z

I <3 the Participatory City Foundation’s “Every One Every Day” initiative.

There is so much wisdom baked into their approach, wonderfully summed up as creating as many opportunities as possible for people to:

Co-produce something tangible as a group of equal peers.

Thereby creating a participatory culture.

Please watch the below video, take the time to study their Illustrated Guide and delve into their Designed to Scale report.

And if you work in central or local Government, be sure to book yourself onto their Cities Programme to learn more about how to replicate what they are doing in your municipality.

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What if… Co-operatives UK had £70 million a year?

2020-07-27T14:31:34Z

This article was originally written for Issue 14 of STIR, the magazine for the new economy and was also published online at Co-operatives UK What if…? blog that fed into the UK National Co-operative Development Strategy. I recently noticed that blog has since gone offline and so have re-posted the article here so I’m able to share it with people.

The first in a four-part series looking at 1) the scale and success of co-ops funding co-ops internationally, 2) existing examples and recent developments in the UK, 3) how platform co-ops empowered by open source tools could rapidly scale these models, and 4) how to spend £70 million a year.

Co-ops in the UK turnover £35 billion a year but rely on £333k a year from the Co-operative Bank to fund co-op development. This needs change if we’re to navigate the perfect storm of climate, energy and economic uncertainty and accelerate the transition to a fair economy that thrives within planetary boundaries. Justice demands it. Our shared future depends on it. How might we do it?

This year (2016) The Co-operative Group are “Back to Being Co-op” and UK Co-op Congress 2016 explored three themes:

Embracing co-operative excellence
Practicing co-operation among co-operatives
Being open to innovation

To me, “Back to Being Co-op” starts with rediscovering the practical solidarity and bold ambitions of the Rochdale Pioneers. These 28 weavers, cloggers, shoemakers, joiners and cabinet makers each pooled 2 pence a week (about 50p a week today) and built up enough capital to open a shop. But it was way more than just a shop. Their 1844 rule book states:

“That as soon as practicable the Society shall proceed to arrange the powers of production, distribution, education and government” — Rochdale Piooners Rule Book, 1844

They also encoded cooperative best practice into a set of principles that evolved to become the internationally recognised guidelines by which co-operatives put their values into practice.

The 5th principle is: Education, Training and Information:

“Co-operatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-operatives. They inform the general public – particularly young people and opinion leaders – about the nature and benefits of co-operation.”

This is surely where “embracing co-operative excellence” must begin. But how to finance it? Enter principle 6: “co-operation among co-operatives”. This has been a co-op principle since at least 1966, but large networks of co-ops systematically pooling resources are virtually non-existent in the UK. As a result the UK’s 7000 co-ops and 17.5 million members are punching massively below their weight.

What could be achieved in the UK if this changed?

In 1991 Italy passed Law 381/91 which created two types of multi-stakeholder “social co-operative”: 1) social, health and educational co-ops, and 2) co-ops who employ disadvantaged people. Today 14,000 social co-ops serve over 5m people, employ more than 400k and turnover €9 billion a year. Social co-ops invest 3% of their annual income in the “Marconi Fund” to finance new co-ops. I’ve not yet found any detailed info about the size and operation of the Marconi Fund, but 3% of €9 billion is €270,000,000.

Spain’s Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa (MCC) is probably the best known cooperative network in the world. Starting life as a small vocational school in 1943 the first Mondragon Co-op made up of five of its students was founded in 1956. It is now complex network of 289 business (of which 110 are co-ops), has a turnover of over €14 billion and provides a livelihood for over 80,000 people (at present just under one third of these are owner-members but this is due to rise to over 75% in the next 3 years). They have their own bank, 15 technology centres and a university. Wages ratios between the highest and lowest paid members are democratically agreed upon and average 5:1 with low paid workers earning on average 13% more than they would elsewhere. Individual co-ops are federated into four sector-wide co-ops: Industry, Knowledge, Finance and Retail. Member co-ops contribute between 15-40% of their profits to these sector co-ops in order to fund joint marketing, branding, and research projects etc. These contributions also help smooth out and share the losses and gains made by individual co-ops – losses made by one co-op can be partially offset (up to 40%) against profits from another. 10% of sector profits are paid to MCC Investments to fund co-operative development. In addition to this, individual co-ops contribute 10% of their profits to the MCC Foundation, 2% into an education fund and 2% into a solidarity fund. About £20 million a year is invested in educational and social projects alone.

Japan’s Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Union began in 1965 when a group of housewives organised a collective buying club to purchase quality milk at affordable prices, one of the earliest examples of Community Supported Agriculture. Seikatsu is now an association of 30 consumer co-ops, employs about 1300 people and has over 300,000 members organised into 200 independently managed branches across Japan. Members contribute 1000 yen (about £7.50) a month, and also invest substantial sums in the association. In 2010 the accumulated contributions of the members was roughly £220 million, an average investment of about £750 per member.

The Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives is a Californian cooperative network made up of seven member businesses: six cooperative bakeries and a co-op development and support collective. The first business The Cheese Board opened as a small cheese store in 1967. In 1971, the two original owners sold their business to their employees and created a 100% worker owned business of which they remained a part. In 1995 the Cheese Board funded the Association’s part-time staff who then helped to create 5 more bakeries all named “Arizmendi” after Arizmendiarrieta (the founder of Mondragon). Together they have about 100 worker owners. The co-ops share a common mission, share ongoing accounting, legal, educational and other support services, and support the development of new member cooperatives by the Association by pooling the lower of 4% revenue or 25% of profit. Older more established co-ops pay the equivalent of 1 full time wage per 20 full time equivalent members.

Founded in 2005, The Valley Alliance of Worker Co-operatives (VAWC) is dedicated to building a sustainable local economy by facilitating the growth and development of worker cooperatives in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont. Their 9 member co-ops include 6 businesses who converted into co-ops, have a combined annual revenue of $7.2 million. Members pay dues of 1/8 of 1% (i.e. 0.00125%) of their revenue to cover the association’s operating expenses and pool 5% of their profits into a co-operative development fund. If the UK’s 7000 co-ops pooled the same amount of revenue and profit as VAWC members it’d generate about £70 million a year.

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Open Co-ops: Inspirations, Legal Structure and Tools

2021-11-19T23:06:28Z

this post originally appeared in Stir Magazine

illustration by Daksheeta Pattni

In 2002 I described United Diversity as “a member owned and stakeholder governed network of mutual advantage.” In truth, it was aspirational. At the time, the flexible off-the-shelf legal structures and open source tools needed to make such a network a reality simply didn’t exist. Now they do. Co-ops that combine best practices from the international co-operative movement with best practices from the open source software and hardware communities are now possible. Soon anyone will be able to set up an Open Co-op and invite all their stakeholders to help finance, govern and organise the co-op online.

Imagine transparent, democratic and decentralised organising for everyone. A society in which anyone can become a co-owner of the organisations on which they, their family and their community depend. A world where everyone can participate in all the decisions that affect them. This is the world United Diversity and the emerging network of people working on the legal structures and open source tools that enable Open Co-ops are working towards. Here I share some of the projects and ideas that have inspired us on our journey, and some of the legal structures and tools that are now available to put our vision into practice.

Inspiration

The Open Organisations Project

Out of a desire by the Indymedia UK London Working Group to go beyond both the formal top-down power structures found in governments and corporations and the informal ‘Tyranny of Structurelessness’ found in many voluntary and activist groups, The Open Organisations Project emerged. Their goal was “to explain how to set up and maintain transparent, accountable and truly participative communities” and they came up with a useful set of six process and eight functional rules together with some basic guidelines for how to implement them. At the time (2002), it was the clearest guide to organising openly we’d found and we still point people to it today.

A New Way to Govern and Gaian Democracies

Two books, A New Way to Govern: Organisations and Society after Enron by Shann Turnbull (2002), and Gaian Democracies: Redefining Globalisation and People-Power by John Jopling and Roy Madron (2003) were both very influential on our thinking. They introduced us to the principles behind Spain’s huge co-operative network Mondragon, and other large scale business with innovative organisational structures such VISA International and Semco in Brazil.

In A New Way to Govern Turnbull summarised the terminal flaws of command and control hierarchies: the tendency of centralised power to corrupt; the difficulty of managing complexity; and the suppression of “natural” — human —checks and balances. In their place he proposed organisations which are able to “break complexity down into manageable units, and decompose organisational decision-making into a network of independent control centres.” In short, his thesis argued that command and control hierarchies must be replaced by “network governance” and that where this includes stakeholders — not merely staff but customers, communities, suppliers or distributors — a whole new dimension of economic, social and political benefit opens up.

Viable System Model (VSM)

The chapter about network governance in Gaian Democracies explained Arthur Koestler’s term ‘holon’ (from the Greek ‘holos’ meaning ‘whole’, and the suffix ‘on’, meaning ‘particle’ or ‘part’), which he devised to describe entities that are simultaneously self-contained wholes made up of parts, and themselves a part of a larger whole. Stafford Beer used the term ‘viable system’ to describe the same thing and outlined some of their properties in the VSM. In short, the model says that in order to be viable (i.e., able to autonomously adapt and survive in response to a changing environment) a system must have the following five sub-systems:

System 1: Interacting operational units. Think organs in a body, or players in a team.

System 2: Responsible for stability and conflict resolution between operational units.

System 3: An ‘Internal Eye’ optimising and generating synergies between operational units.

System 4: An ‘External Eye’ allows strategies and plans to adapt to a changing environment.

System 5: Where ultimate authority lies and is responsible developing policy.

Bettermeans and The Open Enterprise Manifesto

In April 2010 a project called Bettermeans “formed to promote the values of openness, transparency, autonomy, contribution-based-rewards (meritocracy), democracy, integrity, and values-oriented, purpose-driven work” released The Open Enterprise Manifesto. It was a familiar story: replace “the command and control hierarchy” with “collaboration and open participation;” create organisations “more like living dynamic networks, and less like pyramids;” plus the standard mentions of Linux, Wikipedia, Mondragón and Visa to demonstrate how aspects of the model had already been shown to work at scale. Bettermeans were trying to bring these various aspects together in a single cohesive model, and they made a pretty good stab at building the necessary tools to make such a model widely available and adoptable.

Sensorica

Sensorica are an ‘Open Value Network’ focussed on two primary activities: creating open hardware products; and developing the Open Value Network (OVN) model. OVNs are variously described as “people creating value together, by contributing work, money and goods, and sharing the income” a “framework for many-to-many innovation” and a “model for commons-based peer production.” The basic concept is very similar to the Bettermeans “contribution-based-rewards” idea, but in OVNs contributions other than completed tasks are also accounted for. They are currently working with Bob Haugen and Lynn Foster at Mikorizal Software to develop a prototype open source value accounting platform called ValNet.

The Enspiral Network

Enspiral is made up of three parts: The Enspiral Foundation, Enspiral Services and Startup Ventures. I’d say they’re the best current example of an Open Co-op, but how they actually describe themselves is as “a virtual and physical network of companies and professionals working together to create a thriving society” and as an “experiment to create a collaborative network that helps people do meaningful work.” A core part of their strategy is to open source their model. In short, not only are they doing almost exactly what United Diversity wants to do — they’re also building the open source tools actually needed to do it!

The Enspiral Foundation is the charitable company at the heart of the Enspiral network. It’s the legal custodian of assets held collectively by the network, and the entity with which companies and individuals have a formal relationship. Decisions are made using Loomio and budgets are set using Cobudget (see below).

A network of professionals work together in teams to offer Enspiral Services, a range of business services under one roof. By default members pool 20% of their invoices into a collective bucket, 25% of which goes to the Foundation. Loomio and Cobudget are then used to decide how to spend the rest. For Startup Ventures, Enspiral works with social entrepreneurs to launch start-ups who then support the work of the Foundation, and Enspiral as a whole, through flexible revenue share agreements: ventures choose their own contribution rate, usually around 5% of revenue.

Legal Structures In some countries there are a fixed set of legal structures that co-operatives must use. Here in the UK we’re more flexible. We do have legal structures specifically designed for co-operative and community enterprise: Co-operative Societies and Community Benefit Societies — but you don’t have to use them; off-the-shelf co-operative model rules for a wide variety of other structures are readily available. That said, pretty much all of the UK co-operative and community enterprises that most inspire us at United Diversity, i.e., those creating community-scale, community-owned renewably-powered infrastructure of all kinds, have chosen to incorporate as societies — and for good reason.

Societies have a number of special attributes that make them particularly suitable for community investment. A big reason most community land trusts, community energy projects, community farms, pubs and shops and so on. register as societies is because doing a Community Share offer is the best way to finance such projects. In recent years such Community Share offers have been growing exponentially and there is now a Community Shares Unit that offers advice and guidance on how to do it.

Multi-stakeholder Co-operatives

Rather than being organised around a single class of members the way that most co-operatives are, a multi-stakeholder co-operative is any co-op that draws its membership from two or more different classes of stakeholders. After two decades of local experimentation, Italy was the first country to adopt a multi-stakeholder statute in 1991. Over 14,000 ‘social co-ops’ now exist across Italy and provide social care, health and educational services to over 5 million people. In Quebec, home to one of the most productive and vibrant co-operative development sectors in the world, multi-stakeholder co-ops are now the fastest growing type of co-op, with more than 50% of all new co-ops opting to register what they refer to as ‘solidarity co-ops.’ The movement is just getting here in the UK, but there are now over 20 multi-stakeholder co-ops who have incorporated using the Somerset Rules.

Somerset Rules

Launched in 2009, the Somerset Rules were one of the UK’s first set of model rules for a multi-stakeholder co-op, and they’re arguably still the best. Packed full of best practice gleaned from decades of co-operative development experience, they’re structured to closely follow co-op principles, written in relatively plain English, and are cleverly drafted to allow for a wide range of different configurations. You can define the percentage of overall control each stakeholder group has. They are also ‘social accounting ready’ and are designed to enable the widest range of options for financing. In 2012 they were fully revised and overhauled and a version for use as a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee was developed. In May 2014 a Community Benefit Society version was created and we’re now in the process of adopting them for the United Diversity equivalent of the Enspiral Foundation.

FairShares Model

FairShares is a new brand and model for self-governing social enterprises operating under either Company or Co‑operative Law. It offers a unique approach to enterprise ownership, governance and management through its recognition and integration of founders, producers, employees, customers, service users and investors. At the heart of the FairShares model is a definition of social enterprise based on: Specifying the social purpose(s) and evaluating the social impact(s) of trading activities; conducting ethical reviews of product/service choices and production/consumption practices; and promoting socialised and democratic ownership, governance and management by primary stakeholders. In addition, all intellectual property created by FairShares Enterprises and their members are managed as an Intellectual Commons using Creative Commons licences. This all sounds perfect for Open Co-ops and so we’re really looking to learning more at Inaugural FairShares Conference in Sheffield on July 1st.

Tools Microgenius (and other funding tools)

Originally started by Cambridge-based entrepreneur Emily Mackay, Microgenius is the UK’s first platform for community share offers and is now part of the Community Shares Unit. Societies can also sell shares via Crowdfunder and BuzzBnk, and can advertise share issues on Ethex, the Trillion Fund, and on Shares.coop — where the widest range of live Community Share Offers in the UK are listed. Co-operative Companies Limited by Shares can do equity crowdfunding on Crowdcube (which also powers Microgenius) and Seedrs. Open source platforms specifically created to help open and/or co-operative projects include: Goteo for crowdfunding the commons; Open Funding and Bountysource for cofunding free software; Gittip for giving small weekly cash gifts to people you love and are inspired by; Snowdrift, a monthly matched patronage system; and Coopfunding.net, a wordpress powered crowdfunding platform for co-ops in Spain (we’ve got plans for something similar in the UK). Catarse, Selfstarter and tilt are other open source options, and there are numerous bitcoin powered platforms out there, too (e.g. Swarm).

One Click Co-op

One Clicks Orgs, a social enterprise whose strapline is “Legal Structures and Group Voting Made Easy,” created the One Click Co-op in partnership with Co-operatives UK and NESTA. Launched in June 2013 and approved by UK regulators it is the first fully-online co-operative structure in the world. The open source platform permits members to contribute agenda items, browse archived minutes and participate in votes electronically. It’s pretty awesome, but having been built on a relative shoestring also pretty basic. Only Co-operatives UK’s multi-stakeholder co-operative rules are supported and you can’t, for example, the balance the interests of stakeholder groups by giving them different proportions of overall control (like you can with the Somerset Rules).

Loomio

Loomio — a free and open source tool for collaborative decision-making — is what happened when Enspiral met Occupy. Enspiral were committed to being a flat organisation, empowering employees to be autonomous and involved in leadership and decision making. But without the right platform, the overheads of engaging lots of people made it hard to deliver on this grand vision. In practice, only a few people were making most of the important decisions. Similarly, Occupy activists were finding it hard to make consensus decisions with large groups of people. Loud voices dominated and people with less time to commit to the process were being marginalised. They were missing out on the power of including a truly diverse range of perspectives. Together they developed Loomio.

Cobudget

Cobudget is another open source app being developed by Enspiral. It works like this: each month contributions to collective funds are published. Everyone can see who contributed what and how much money is in the budget. Basic core expenses (previously collectively agreed on Loomio) are subtracted and what’s left is the discretionary budget. Each person or company retains the right to allocate their part of discretionary funds and anyone in the network can start a “bucket” — a proposal to do work that requires funding. They write up a proposal making their case for why the work they want to do will benefit everyone and why they are the right person to deliver the project. Everyone then considers the buckets and decides which ones to “fill” with their portion of the discretionary budget. If people collectively feel like a project is a good use of resources, it will get funded. If there are critical budgeting priorities taking precedence, “nice to have” projects won’t get any funds that round. Funders can split up their allocations as they like, or put it all in one bucket. In aggregate, the result is a budget that reflects the collective priorities of the group, determined in proportion to real stakeholding and in the context of the big picture goals. The entire process takes place transparently.

The Open App Ecosystem

Building on the work of Loomio and Cobudget the Open App Ecosystem is an Enspiral project to develop suite of integrated and open sourced apps which support transparent, democratic and decentralised organising. The aim is for the software to act as a delivery mechanism for cultural viruses which decentralise money, information and control and promote happiness, empowerment and wellbeing throughout an organisation. They also have the side effect of helping organisations become more efficient, resilient and adaptable. Bring it on.

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Josef Davies-Coates helps people discover, contribute to and replicate intelligent responses to climate, energy and economic uncertainty. He is the founder of United Diversity | @jdaviescoates

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United Diversity at the London Permaculture Festival

2020-07-27T14:31:44Z

I’m off to Cloud Cuckoo Land Festival now, but thought I’d better whack this presentation I did at the London Permaculture Festival up first.

I gives a brief history of United Diversity plus details of our exciting plans going forward.

The sound isn’t too good so when I get the time I’ll do a full transcript with links any everything, but for now, enjoy!

The post United Diversity at the London Permaculture Festival appeared first on United Diversity.

Josef’s Journey to John O’Groats

2020-07-27T14:31:44Z

Since this journey has ended up being a major milestone in the development of United Diversity I though I had better re-post this write up I did for the Brake The Cycle blog here too. Enjoy!

Josef happy climbing a hill in Glen Coe.

(note: click on images to enlarge)

Last month I cycled about 1200 miles, from the south-easternmost tip of mainland England (Land’s End) up to the north-westernmost tip of mainland Scotland (John O’Groats). I thus completed one half of the Brake the Cycle End to End challenge!

It was the UK’s coldest spring on record.

And I was on my Brompton (one of those folding bikes with tiny wheels).

Yes, more than 1000 miles. In the cold. On my Brompton.

Please help me to complete the other half of the challenge (raising £500+ in sponsorship before Friday May 31st!) by contributing to our shared crowdfunding page here:
https://www.sponsume.com/project/end-end-building-man-fundraiser

Our End to End route.

Why did I end up going on this crazy adventure? How did I survive the cold? What were the best and worst bits? All will be revealed….

For me, it all started when Joe Reid and Marcus Letts met. They were working together as ‘charity muggers’ or ‘chuggers’, those street fundraisers who ask you to sign up to a direct debit on the spot. They figured there must be a more exciting and creative way to raise funds for causes they care about. Something that would get them off the streets of London. An adventure.

Their ambitious plan to cycle from Camden to Cape Town was born.

I had heard about the project via Marcus’ sister Amy, who I knew due to our mutual involvement in Peace Not War, but at the time I’d never met either Joe nor Marcus. I had no idea how our fates were due to be intertwined…

Joe and Marcus never quite got to Cape Town. They did a Lands End to John O’Groats trip as a warm up, raised over £11,500 for Afrikids and Otesha, had great fun and made lots of new friends. They left London for Cape Town in Sept 2011, but having reached Turkey they found themselves unable to continue their journey.

“Syria was in the middle of a civil war and didn’t seem too appealing, the British have spent the last few decades ruffling Iraqs feathers, and all ferries from Cypress to Egypt, Israel and Lebanon had been cancelled. As committed non flyers this was the end of our epic adventure, it was time to wave goodbye to the dreams of hippos and lions.” —

Whilst in an Internet cafe in Istanbul, wondering what to do next, Joe and Marcus stumbled across my idea for Building Man Festival which I’d first written about in Sept 2005. They’d already been a great community arts festival called Cloud Cuckoo Land and had had very similar ideas and so they got in touch. I was VERY happy for them to run with the idea (and they have).

Then they went and organised an End to End cycle ride, raising funds for Building Man and visiting cool eco projects around the UK – how could I not join in?! And so I did

Below are some pictures and a brief day by day outline of my journey so you don’t have to do it yourself! Please help me to complete the other half of the challenge (raising £500+ in sponsorship) by contributing to our crowdfunding page (asap).

Day 1 – March 28th, London -> Exeter -> Land’s End -> Plan it Earth

We all met at Exeter station at midday, loaded up the Landrover and bus and then drove down to Land’s End. We then cycled 7 miles to Plan it Earth, a small holding based around the principles of permaculture. I had got the train from London to Exeter in the morning, having stayed up all night working on the website for The Slaley Rose and Crown. Silly me.

Excited cyclists gather at Exeter station

Stacking the bikes on the Landy.

Plan it Earth Hobbit House

Day 2 – March 29th, Plan it Earth -> Trevalon ~ 65 miles

This was the first long ride. For most of us (including me) it was the longest we’d ever cycled in one day. Not yet having got into the slow and steady groove of long distance cycling, I was attacking each hill a bit too much. I was fine most of the way, and surprising people with my ability to climb hills with tiny wheels and very few (6) gears. Our group stopped at quite a few cafes and bars along the way and so it was late and dark before we arrived. I also stopped at one of my oldest friend’s house near Mount Charles in Cornwall. Sadly he wasn’t in, but his parents were. The picture on the left is me and his mum Jane

Josef stroking a wild baby rabbit at Trevalon

We got a call from camp when we had about 10 miles to go, asking if we wanted to be rescued. The unanimous decision was that of course we didn’t want to be rescued – only 10 miles left, we’re going to smash it! 5 miles later I felt terrible and really would’ve quite liked to have been rescued. I had terrible wind and digestion issues. Turns out I had over exertion sickness. After using the very last bit of my energy to get changed and pitch my tent in the dark, I threw up. I was also freezing cold. It had been cold all day, but whilst cycling you don’t really notice it that much. However, the final descent (before an absolutely ridiculous 17% ascent that I walked up, obviously), was by far the most freezing. Apart from being sick, I was bitterly cold. I got very little sleep at Trevalon (a nice organic farm and Community Supported Agriculture project)

Day 3 – March 30th, Trevalon -> Landmatters ~ 46 miles

Landmatters Co-operative

Having been sick and not slept the night before, I decided that instead of cycling I ought to take a ‘bus day’. Rich (who had also been on my team the day before) took a bus day too. We helped to pack down the bus marque, I packed people’s tents into the Landrover, and then headed off for lunch in Totnes. It wasn’t really much of a rest (I failed to get the siesta I was hoping for), but at least I got a rest from cycling. Although I also missed the first day of cycling in the sunshine.

We arrived at Landmatters before any of the cyclists had arrived and so proceeded to put up people’s tents. We also had time to meet and chat to the residents of Landmatters Co-operative, an inspirational permaculture community.

The next morning lovely Charlotte gave us a tour of the site. I videoed a load of that, so you can all go on the tour too!

Day 4 – March 31st, Landmatters -> Embercombe ~25 miles

A relatively short cycle ride to Embercombe “a charity and social enterprise established to champion a way of living that celebrates the opportunities inherent in this challenging time and that inspires people to contribute energetically towards the emergence of a socially just, environmentally sustainable and spiritually fulfilling human presence on earth”.

I’d been to Embercombe before. A great place with great facilities.

Day 5 – April 1st, My Birthday! Embercombe -> Fernhill Farm ~80 miles

Broken Brompton Rim

Our first 80 miler. And my 35th birthday. After a relatively steep 8 mile descent from Embercombe into Exeter, my wheel broke. I was incredibly lucky that the wheel didn’t break going down those steep hills, or in the middle of nowhere, but just as we arrived in a city. I was even luckier that the very first cyclist who cycled past (literally the very first one) was a bicycle mechanic. At a Brompton dealer. On his way to work.

The bike shop didn’t have a whole wheel in stock and so had to rebuild my existing wheel using a new rim. This forced us to spend a couple of hours in a lovely little cafe on the green beside Exeter Cathedral. A very nice relaxing start to my birthday

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. Whilst it was a long ride, it was mostly flat and the weather was almost pleasant. Still, with the delayed start it was dark by the time our team got to the bottom of Cheddar Gorge.

Joe Letts (Marcus’ Dad, who runs The Big Red Bus with his wife Thea) had popped out in the Landy to buy some nice local cider (in part so we could properly celebrate my birthday), and was about to drive back up the gorge to Fernhill Farm just as we got to the bottom of the hill. Since it was my birthday I decided to fold my Brompton up and jump in, thus missing out the steep hill.

Josef with his ‘cheese cake’ – 2 cakes and a giant chunk of cheese!

Upon arriving at Fernhill Farm I was greeted with a warm welcome and a delicious cheesy dinner made especially for me (yes, despite it being only day 5 my love of butter and cheese was already widely known because whenever we stopped somewhere I bought some to share at dinner). I’d cycled, showered, eaten, been given lots of birthday love and was looking forward to sleeping in a nice big warm bed (Fernhill has lovely facilities). It felt like the best birthday ever.

Day 6 – April 2nd, Fernhill Farm -> Bristol ~20 miles

Another day, another Brompton disaster. This time my handlebar snapped in half! But again, amazing luck both where it happened and how easily I managed to get it fixed. Our relatively short ride down into Bristol had it’s fair share of steep downhills. But thankfully my handlebar didn’t break on any of them (that could’ve been very painful). Instead, much like had happened the day before, it happened just as we arrived into the city. And I was on the flat. I cautiously cycled (with a half a handlebar) to the nearest Brompton dealer. But they didn’t have any handlebars in stock… turned out they did have a mangled Brompton that had been in a bad accident that someone had given them for parts… turned out it had the same model of handlebar as me… they sold me it for a fiver – bargain!

Lamas as we came into Bristol (just before my handlebar snapped in half). I swear the one of the right smiles at me as we rode off…

In Bristol we threw a Gift Economy party at Hamilton House/ Coexist. We split into teams to set-up, to go skipping (getting food out of bins behind supermarkets etc), ask local shops for any food they can spare/ is about to go to waste etc. Somehow, seemingly out of nowhere, we put together a huge, delicious, nutritious food waste banquet and fed over 100 people for free. Amazing. There were then some talks about Building Man and a load of great live music. All in all a great day and a great party. Together with fellow cyclists Rich and Sam, I then went to stay with my old friend’s Tom and Hannah (I also borrowed Tom’s excellent sleeping bag – no more cold night – thanks Tom! )

Day 7 – April 3rd, Bristol -> Bodenham Manor ~70 miles

Another long day. This time to Bodenham Manor, the site of Building Man Festival 2013 and where I am now. This was a great opportunity for the all the End to End cyclists to visit the place we were all raising funds for. For those of us who had visited previously for Building Man planning events, it was also really great to see how much the residents had got done themselves last time we were there.

Day 8 – April 4th, Bodenham Manor -> Karuna ~50 miles

Kathleen and Oli in the Snow

It was snowing as we left Bodenham Manor in the morning. As we travelled further north and up to higher altitudes towards Karuna (a permaculture project focussed mostly on growing 1000s of trees) the hills got more and more covered in snow. It was a cold night camping under clear skies on ground still wet with snow melt. But most of us doubled up in our tents and wrapped up extra warm. I actually got one of the best camping nights sleep so far.

Day 9 – April 5th, Karuna -> Riverside Organics ~80 miles

A long but lovely ride, including more love from the cycle gods in the form of being rescued by ‘Steve the Saviour’ (sung in the tune of Bob the Builder). As we got to Nantwich, about halfway to our destination, Tom, as usual, got another puncture. Again. He got over 10 during the the course of the ride and had already had at least one so far today! Whilst Tom was busy fixing his puncture, I stood in the doorway of a shop sheltering from the cold winds. I was concerned that the quality of his spare spare inner tube and puncture repair kit weren’t up to scratch (by this time he’d already had numerous brand new inner tubes explode whilst being pumped up – there were of poor quality and not really wide enough for his tyres) and so I decided to use the last bit of battery on my phone to try and find cycle shops nearby. It was 6.45pm and so all the ones I tried didn’t answer the phone because they were already closed. Thankfully, Steve’s Cycles lists a mobile number. I immediately gave Steve a call. He’d closed at 5.30pm, but had just finished locking up and, whilst he was already on his way home, he wasn’t yet too far from his shop. I told him we we’re doing Land’s End to John O’Groats and explained our predicament. He went back to his shop, picked us up a couple of inner tubes, and then came and delivered them directly to us. He even helped to fit them – what a saviour! Thank you Steve!

Riverside Organics is a lovely organic farm and has four generations under one roof. The children here were really excited about our arrival because they remembered and loved Chris from Up-Cycle, one of the participants/ team leaders who had been on the trip two years before. After a nice big meal we all slept together in their (cold, drafty) barn.

Day 10 – April 6th, Riverside Organics -> Offshoots Permaculture Project ~50 miles

The thing that really made my day on this ride was seeing the urban sheep near Waterfoot in Rossendale, Lancashire. Right here, to be exact. A bit further on we passed Co-operation Street, which also made me smile.

Urban Sheep

Co-operation Street

The last downhill into Burnley had epic views. The perfect end to another great day of cycling. To really round it off we arrived at Offshoots a LAND demonstration site which along with Landmatters was my favourite of the projects we’d visited so far. Phil gave us a really informative tour of the place which I filmed and put online:

Day 11 – April 7th, Offshoots Permaculture Project -> Sprint Mill ~60 miles

As usual for this trip, it was a cold morning as we left Offshoots, as evidenced by this picture of a frosted helmet someone (thankfully not me) had left outside for the night.

A frosted helmet in the morning before leaving Offshoots

I don’t remember too much about this day’s ride, but did take this picture of a another road sign that made me smile.

Giggleswick and Wigglesworth

Sprint Mill is a beautiful site in the Lake District. A small holding that specialises in woodland management with only hand tools used on site and a lot of green woodworking. I really liked how they gave newly felled hazel poles etc to the goats to de-bark before stacking them up to dry. The goats do a really great job. Edward, who owns/ runs the place was a lovely eccentric chap too. He collects all sots of random stuff and neatly organises and indexes it all.

Bus and Marque at Sprint Mill

Edward’s Very Nicely Organised Odd Things in Jars

Josef in Freezing Cold River

Despite the cold, having not showered for days most of us opted for a quick dip in the beautiful but freezing cold river. No one stayed in for long. It was so cold that my foot went completely numb for about an hour or so afterwards. Was still nice though

Day 12 – April 8th, Sprint Mill -> Drybeck Farm ~40 miles

I was hoping that we’d see more of the Lake District than we did. And that I’d get to pop in on Helen who lives in the area. However, as we cycled into Windermere from Kendal, Brendan was knocked off his bike by a car turning into him. He was a little shaken up, but thankfully not hurt. We decided to stop for lunch. Seeing our bikes parked up outside a cafe/ bar place, a bunch of other teams stopped to join us too. We had a relatively long lunch and then hit the road again. Just around the corner from where Brendan had come off his bike an hour or so before, Julia stopped on a steep hill to pick up someone’s hat that had fallen off the back of their bike. Brendan didn’t see her. He went into the back of her bike a full speed and went flying over his handlebar. This time he was very badly hurt and his lovely old Claud Butler racer was a complete write-off too – the frame was badly bent beyond repair turns out Brendan had broken his collarbone and had dislocated his shoulder. Somehow the hospital missed the dislocated shoulder and so upon return to Bristol he had to get another operation to get it back in. Thankfully that went well he is now healing well and is back in the full swing of Bristol life (and, despite not being able to cycle any more, Brendan did rejoin the tour and stayed with us until the end )

The whole accident thing shook us all up and and created a really emotionally charged day. Tears are coming to my eyes remembering it all now. Brendan had been on my team that day, and so we were quite delayed in getting to Drybeck Farm, a diverse farm with eco tourism focus. I didn’t really get to see much of it, but I did manage to have a nice shower. And about 10 miles before we got to our destination we passed through a village called Unthank, which I found amusing.

Unthank

This was our last day in England.

Day 13 – April 9th, Drybeck Farm -> Talamh Life Centre ~80 miles

This was, by far, my least favourite day of cycling. It was long and boring. Very boring. The little wheels on my Brompton really didn’t like the bumpy tarmac on the old unmaintained A-road that ran parallel to the motorway that replaced it either. In order to pass the time I ended inventing the ‘litter game’, which was simply to say out loud the brand name of the litter we saw by the side of the road as we cycled by. Somehow it helped. Julia even started singing re-enactments of old adverts she remembered .

The highlight of the day was probably Steve the Saviour 2. Having arrived in Scotland we were looking for somewhere to stop for lunch. The first couple of towns didn’t have anywhere open. At Ecclefechan we went into the Ecclefechan Hotel. It seemed to be open but no one was in reception, nor at the bar. Eventually Steve appeared. He said we were welcome to eat our packed lunch but they were in the middle of refurbishment and therefore technically closed. But he soon took a shine to us and before long he got a raging fire going, served up some beer and put some chips on. Legend. Thank you Steve!

Talamh is a housing co-op with 50 acres or so of land. They are a member of Radical Routes a network of housing and worker co-ops and social centres whose members are actively working for social change. The team I was part of arrived very late and I was feeling poorly, like the beginning of a cold of flu was coming on. I took a load of medicines and immune boosters and went to bed.

Day 14 – April 10th, Talamh Life Centre -> Luss Campsite ~80 miles

Luss Campsite on Lock Lomond

Another ‘bus day’ for me. The cold I’d started getting the night before had made it hard to breath and therefore hard to sleep. I had barely slept and so didn’t feel up for the 80 mile ride to Luss. Luss campsite is beautiful campsite at the heart of Loch Lomond. Really lovely location and probably the most picturesque place to date. A proper campsite with full facilities I also managed to get some much needed clothes washing done.

Day 15 – April 11th, Luss Campsite -> Torlundy Farm ~80 miles

Glen Coe Pit Stop View

Best. Cycling. Day. Ever.

I can’t recommend doing this ride strongly enough. Pretty much all the way along from Loch Lomond through Glen Coe to Fort William it utterly awe inspiring scenery. Plus it seemed to be mostly downhill or flat. Absolutely wonderful day. We all stopped for celebratory drink in Fort William.

View of Ben Nevis from Tent

I logged into the wifi of the hotel where we were drinking and read an email from Zoe of the Ecological Land Co-op – they’ve got planning for three eco small holdings in Devon! Really great news. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Torlundy Farm (Fortwilliam Chalets) at the foot of Ben Nevis was a lovely site too. Be sure to check out the Organic Beats Highlands Gathering they organise on a similarly spectacular site nearby. Well worth the visit.

Day 16 – April 12th, Torlundy Farm -> Anam Cara ~65 miles

Our itinerary described this day as a “Beautiful ride along Loch Ness” which, after the incredible day before, had raised my expectations a bit too much.

Drinking from a waterfall in the Highlands

I had assumed a beautiful flat ride alongside the waterside. But the road is often not very close to the water at all, and very often really quite hilly. Especially at the beginning when we opted to try out the cycle route instead of the main road: it ended up being pretty much and off road track; parts of it were very pleasant, and I had a nice drink at a waterfall, but I wouldn’t do that bit again.

Thankfully at the end of the cycle path track there was a nice pub barge where we all stopped for lunch to celebrate Joe Reid’s birthday. The Eagle Barge Inn didn’t have the fastest of service but I really liked the lovely chap who ran the place. Quite a few of us didn’t have any cash on us. He said that we were all – all 20 of us – most welcome to eat regardless and send him the money afterwards. He said he’d been doing such a deal for anyone without money for the last eight years and so far no one had let him down. But that the first people to do so would then ruin it for everyone else. Turned out no one needed to take him up on his offer in the end (we had enough money between us), but it was lovely nonetheless.

Pushing my bike up the hill into Anam Cara

Overall, this was one of the most tiring days for me (alongside the hilly 65 miler we did at the beginning). But the views and beauty of the place made it all feel OK. The last hill, above Inverness and up into Anam Cara, was way too steep for my tired legs so I got off and walked.

Arriving at the site was a delight. A stunning location and a delicious soup our hosts had cooked up for our arrival. A really nice attention to detail seemingly runs through everything they do at Anam Cara.

Timber clad caravan with decking and green roof.

An old crofting site, they mostly have static caravans because they can have up to five without needing any planning permission. But they aren’t just any old caravans. At least they don’t look like it. They’ve all been lovingly clad on the outside with wood and decorated inside to very high standard. But all on a small budget.

I’m really glad we visited this place, because their focus on shamanism and yoga type stuff isn’t what I’m most interested in and so probably wouldn’t have been drawn to visit the place of my own volition. But I loved it. I love the fact they also have a tree nursery that produces some 40,000 trees a year too!

Day 17 – April 13th, Anam Cara -> Chris Johnstones ~35 miles

A nice short day of riding and a great day of gathering free food. From the bins outside the Co-op supermarket in Nairn we rescued about 20kg broccoli, 20 kg of mushrooms and loads of pears. A bit later, just after Brodie Castle and about a mile from our destination, we discovered a birch woodland completely carpeted with wild garlic.

A sea of Wild Garlic. Yes, all of that greenery is a type of wild garlic. Yum!

Any idea what type of wild garlic this is? (click to enlarge)

Needless to say, we cooked up a veritable feast upon arrival at Dr Chris Johnstone‘s house, whose paddock we camped in for the night. Chris has just written a book with Joanna Macy called Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy and he ran lightning speed (but still very good) version of The Whole Spiral workshop that is part of The Work that Reconnects.

Chris is a lovely man doing great work and really made us feel at home. He has a nice little forest garden and small holding too. They have plans to collect and store more rainwater so gave him some useful pdfs about rainwater that will hopefully come in handy. We spoke briefly about working together on online courses too, which was exciting.

Chilling at Chris Johnstone’s

Day 18 – April 14th, Chris Johnstone’s -> Findhorn Ecovillage ~5 miles

This was such a short day cycling that it was basically a day off. We arrived in time for lunch at Findhorn, one of the oldest and most established alternative communities in Europe. We had the whole day to relax there. Some people went to the (very windy) beach, others had a tour. I’d been there before and so mostly just relaxed before helping to secure people’s tents and put up the bus marque in hard winds (the wind just kept getting stronger and stronger – at one point I thought it might blow the bus over!).

Day 19 – April 15th, Findorn -> Dornoch caravan park ~75 miles

The wind didn’t stop over night. By the morning there were quite bad sand storms. But the cycling had to go on.

Sand Storm.
Not the nicest of cycling conditions.

We cycled on through the wind and sand. It was pretty slow going and felt all the more so because we were cycling back on ourselves towards Inverness before heading up to Dornoch Caravan and Camp Park arriving at our last campsite before the End.

Once out of the wind it was a pretty nice cycle. There were great views from the costal bridge north out of Inverness and the scenery as we cycled around Dornoch Firth was stunning. It felt good to start seeing signs to John O’Groats too.

Just over 6km from Dornoch with lovely view of hills in the distance

Sign to John O’Groats – Only 85 miles to go!

Day 20 – 16th April, Dornoch -> John O’Groats ~80 miles

We left our tents set up and headed off for John O’Groats first thing in the morning. It was a long ride and there was a couple of killer hills along the way, but I was in good form. On one particularly long hill I over took the rest of my team despite my small wheels and lack of gears.

All the teams converged at Wick so that we could do the last 16 miles or so together. The road into Wick was great, at least for my team: for possibly the first time on the whole trip we had a strong wind behind us so we made really good time. Other teams weren’t so lucky: by the time they got to the same road the strong wind had changed direction and was blowing them sideways into the road. Pretty hairy stuff.

Happy Josef just a mile or so from John O’Groats

Happy People arriving at John O’Groats

Everyone at John O’Groats

We made it to John O’Groats!

The last 16 miles was hard work as we had very strong head winds.

A rainbow welcomes us to John O’Groats. The perfect end to and epic journey.

But a rainbow welcomed us to John O’Groats and the rain and hail stones held off until just after we’d all boarded the bus to head back to Dornoch for the night. Despite the wind and the cold we were incredibly lucky with regards to rain. It rained a little bit here and there, but I didn’t get soaked once. Pretty amazing considering we were outside for over 8 hours a day for 3 weeks straight.

On our way back to Dornoch we stopped again in Wick for a big celebratory meal at a nice little Italian place we’d found earlier. We filled the whole place up and had lots of fun eating, drinking and sharing tales.

Upon arrival at Dornoch we discovered that the wind had been VERY strong here. Quite a few tents were badly damaged and at least one had blown away completely! We didn’t let that dampen our spirits though. I went for a walk to the beach with Richard and we lay down in the dunes gazing at the stars for a while and chated about life and everything.

Day 21 – 17th April, Dornoch -> Cowgate Hostel, Edinburgh on the bus

We set off in the morning, and the bus dropped us off at Cowgate Hostel in Edinburgh before heading off back to the green fields of Dorset. Proudly and boisterously we hit the town for a celebratory meal out and party! Although, to be honest, most of the partying had happened the night before on the day we’d actually reached our destination. Still it was nice to just hang out with the rest of the gang whilst not on bikes. We visited a few nearby drinking holes, sampled some local brews and then headed back to our hostel where we had a whole flat/ floor with a big shared kitchen…

Day 22 – 18th April, Edinburgh -> London by train.

Alice lives in Edinburgh, and in the morning we were joined by some of her friends who helped to cook up a big breakfast, our last meal together as a group. People had been booked onto trains a various times of day. Thankfully mine was around 12/1pm and so didn’t have to rush too much in the morning. I shared a train back to London with Julia, Oli and Georgie and we chatted away, ate snacks and discussed Building Man (which has turned out to be a great success! )

So that is it. Josef’s Journey to John O’Groats (and back) is complete. If you read the whole thing, thanks! (it took me ages to write an such epic journey up and I still feel like I’ve only just touched the surface!). If you fancy doing something similar yourself, look out details for Brake the Cycle‘s next bike tour and come along!

And, one last time, please don’t forget to contribute to our fundraising page!

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The Finland Phenomenon – the best education system in the world?

2020-07-27T14:31:44Z

I posted yesterday about the urgent need to change education paradigms.

As such it feels fitting to final re-post this post from Gloria’s blog here:

Have you noticed there’s a lot of hullabaloo about Finland’s education system lately? I’ve been paying attention to what the Finns have been doing for a couple years now, but it is only after reading an essay by Sam Abrams I’ve thought to pay attention to Finland’s neighbour Norway.

Norway and Finland have some similarities. They are neighbouring countries that each take up about 350 000 square kilometres with populations around 5 million and about 10 percent foreign born in Norway and 4 percent in Finland. A notable difference, however, is that Norway has a significantly higher Gross Domestic Product.

Norway has oil. Finland has trees. Since the 1970s, Norway has focused intensely on developing their oil and gas resources which have risen to 45% of their total exports and 20% of their GDP. These efforts have provided Norway with bragging rights over being the fifth largest oil exporter and third largest gas exporter in the world.
Meanwhile, Finland in 1971 realised that their natural resources, largely timber, weren’t going to cut it. They needed to modernize their economy and to do it they were going to have to improve their schools. In other words, they were going to have to focus intensely on developing their children’s brains.

To do this, Finland focused on reducing class size, improving formative assessment practices, increasing teacher pay & notoriety, and requiring all teachers to complete a master’s program. Finnish teachers use a relatively concise national curriculum to guide them in creating curriculum and assessment at the local level, and very little time, effort and resources are wasted with standardised testing; in fact, the only time a Finnish student would ever be required to write a standardized exam is if a high school senior planned on attending university (National Matriculation Examination). Finland has worked worked meticulously to ensure equity and opportunity thus reducing the number of Finnish children who live in poverty to 1 in 25.

Today, Finland’s education system is considered to be one of the best in the world.

Conversely, despite Norway’s similar demographics, their education reforms have followed a very different path than Finland’s:

Their class sizes tend to be larger
They struggle to find enough qualified teachers
Rather than focusing on better trained teachers, Norway has thrown millions of dollars at a teacher preparation program similar to Teach for America called Teach First Norway where teachers get mere weeks of training.
They implemented a national standardized testing system of accountability
They have placed more time, effort and resources on summative assessment such as tests and grades.
Based on PISA scores, Norway’s education system falls somewhere around mediocre.

So why is comparing and contrasting Finland and Norway important?

Upon hearing about the progress Finland has had with their education system, many policy-makers in other countries may be inclined to point towards the Finns smaller, more homogenous population as the primary reason for their successes in the classroom. That Norway and Finland can share such similarities in population and yet differ with their education systems may be enough proof that policy choices, rather than demographics, can play a potentially larger role in a nation’s educational success.

In Alberta, Canada, we have dedicated a considerable amount of time, effort and resources on becoming the world’s second largest exporter and fourth largest producer of natural gas while simultaneously helping Canada become the seventh largest producer of oil, just three spots ahead of Norway. While debating whether this is something Alberta or Norway should be proud of or not may make for an interesting discussion, such a dialogue is not the purpose of this post.

Let us acknowledge that the world is changing and so must our education system in order to prepare our children for a future we can not predict.

This is not up for debate.

Regions like Norway and Alberta run the risk of being blinded by what some have coined a “resource curse” or a paradox of plenty. A dependency on oil and gas can leave us grossly susceptible to excessive revenue volatility — things are glorious in the booms but down-right scary in the busts. It’s not unheard of to hear during these busts calls to balance the budget on the back of cutting spending on education, which ends up being the equivalent to a farmer selling the top-soil to pay the bills.

While regions like Alberta and Norway can afford to pay less time, effort and resources on their education systems, Finland’s lack of resources has forced them to invest “laser-like” attention on nurturing theirs. The good news is that if Finland can do this with less, the abundance of wealth in regions like Norway and Alberta can be used to do the same.

So if Finland’s successes in the classroom are less about their inherent Finnish characteristics and more about their policies, then it might be advantageous to identify how the Finnish differ from conventional education reforms.

Pasi Sahlberg is a leading educator from Finland and former senior adviser in Finland’s Ministry of Education who writes and speaks about what the world can learn from Finland. The chart below contrasts what Sahlberg coins as The Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) with alternative policies that Finland has successfully enrolled:

In his post On a Road to nowhere, Sahlberg explains:

English education policies rely on more choice, tougher competition, intensified standardised testing and stronger school accountability. These are the key elements of the policies that were dominant in the United States, New Zealand, Japan and parts of Canada and Australia a decade or so ago. Available PISA data reveals the impact of these education policies on students’ learning between 2000 and 2009. The overall learning trend in all these countries is consistently declining. That is a road to nowhere. Many governments are taking note of the 2009 PISA results, but they are rather selective in reporting of the education systems that are doing well in PISA. Finland has been one of the few consistently high performing systems in PISA’s 10-year history. Significantly, Finland has not employed any of the market-based educational reform ideas in the ways that they have been incorporated into the education policies of many other nations, including the United States and England.

Finland’s successful pursuit of policies driven by diversity, trust, respect, professionalism, equity, responsibility and collaboration refute every aspect of reforms that focus on choice, competition, accountability and testing that are being expanded in countries around the world.

In short, it’s time to put ideology aside and focus intensely on the paradoxes of the Finland phenomenon.

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TOGETHER. How cooperatives show resilience to the crisis

2020-07-27T14:31:44Z

This great new documentary, featuring Mondragon and other co-operative inspirations shows how it is not just financial co-operatives who are more resilient to crisis, but all co-ops.

The examples are from around Europe, but the same is true in the UK.

The UK co-operative economy is performing significantly better than the UK economy as a whole with things like Community-owned Village Shops proving to have much higher survival rates than others.

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Crowd Farming at TEDxSydney 2013

2020-07-27T14:31:44Z

Huge respect to TEDxSydney for doing thing properly when it comes to food.

Watch the video for the inspirational story of how they fed the entire Sydney Opera House audience of 2,200 people at TEDXSydney 2013 with crowd sourced locally grown food.

All conferences everywhere should do this.

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Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes

2020-07-27T14:31:44Z

I love Pam Warhust. She is such a inspirational, grounded and powerful woman. This is one of my favourite TED talks, by far.

Please, watch and share it now.

It is about the inspirational story of Incredible Edible Todmorden which has now spawned the Incredible Edible Network.

But, as she hints at so powerfully towards the end of the talk, this is about so much more than food. It is about community empowerment.

This is about sharing and investing in kindness

It is about Community, Learning and Business

It is not about asking for permission

This is a movement for everyone. ‘If you eat, you’re in’

We are starting at last to believe in ourselves again. And to believe in our capacity, each and every one of us, to building a different and a kinder future. And in my book, thats incredible

See also her latest talk at TEDxExeter ‘Beyond Business as Usual‘

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97% Owned – documentary about money and economics

2020-07-27T14:31:44Z

Back in May 2003 we started a wiki to ‘discuss monetary reform and democracy‘, and I just posted Positive Money’s Banking 101 video course, probably the best introduction to how money and banking actually works.

For a long time Money as Debt was best and only documentary film about these issues. Later, the Zeitgeist films (despite their many failings) thankfully managed to get the word out to many more people.

Most recently we’ve had Money and Life cover this topic, and before that The Money Fix and Inside Job. But for some reason I’ve never gotten around to posting up this other great documentary about money and economics ‘97% Owned’ (despite having contributed to the crowdfunding campaign which produced it’s DVD run).

It is just over 2 hours long, so if you’re the impatient type you many like to watch this hour long version the ‘Positive Money’ cut instead:

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