Home - Seeding Our Future

The aim of Seeding our Future is to evolve and share ways that individuals, communities and front-line public services can grow their resilience skills and wisdom, to thrive and adapt to meet climate change and other pressures positively. We aim to do this by running pilot projects, and then sharing our experience to encourage others to use it.

Seeding our Future (SoF) is a non-profit project, started in 2017. The founder and prime mover is Alan Heeks, a social entrepreneur and writer (see www.naturalhappiness.net). Alan has been exploring resilience for many years: he has led numerous workshops on this theme, and has a strong interest in sustainable communities, which includes co-leading the creation of two cohousing projects. He has been involved with several sustainability initiatives, most recently the Deep Adaptation Forum. SoF is an independent project within Schumacher Institute, a registered charity and environmental think tank, through which SoF receives grants and donations.

You can keep up with our latest insights and updates by following Seeding our Future on Twitter and Facebook. You may also be interested in our companion project Natural Happiness: follow on Twitter and Facebook.

Pilot programmes

We currently have six active programmes: two of these are in Alan’s home town, Bridport, Dorset, and two, Future Conversations and Front-Line Futures, have completed successful pilot programmes and are available for bookings from new clients groups and partner organisations.

A. Adaptive Communities: Strengthening local communities is becoming crucial as disruption grows. SoF can offer a range of workshops and processes, plus online resources. See more here. To support this work, SoF has just published a research report which it commissioned: Whatever Next: Risk Review – UK 2030, which you can download here.

B. Future Conversations: This project offers know-how and processes to help members and organisers in local communities to explore the upsides and downsides of the next 10-20 years, including impacts from climate change, and raise their skills and confidence to enjoy the years ahead, drawing on natural resilience, deep ecology and other methods. The format is a series of facilitated conversations, covering individual/family issues, global concerns especially climate change, and community needs. In 2019 we completed successful pilot programmes of 6-8 sessions in three locations: South London, Nottingham, and Clydeside. We can now offer programmes for individuals or groups, online or in person: for more info, see Future Conversations.

C. Front-Line Futures – Nature Resilience Immersions: The capacity of front-line public services is crucial to everyone’s wellbeing: these include the NHS, local authority functions, and parts of the voluntary sector. Currently we are seeing a severe upturn in burnout and staff turnover in many areas, alongside rising demand and shrinking resources. To help address this, Alan Heeks developed the Nature Resilience Immersion programmes in collaboration with Professor David Peters of Westminster Centre for Resilience, and they trained other facilitators to work with them. Evaluation results have been very positive, and more programmes are ongoing. Enquiries from individuals or groups are welcome. See more here.

D. Bridport Climate Response: This project aims to increase local awareness and practical action, including emission reductions, resilience for emergencies like flooding and power cuts, etc. Plans include free workshops, a new website, social media campaign, and giving young people a voice on these issues, and helping them to share their views. See more here.

E. Bridport Food Matters: Disruptions to food supplies and prices are forecast to be a major impact of climate change within the next few years. SoF, in partnership with Bridport Local Food Group and Transition Town Bridport, has set up a Bridport Food Matters website and newsletter. Initiatives under way include Allotment Ambassadors to advise home growers, information resources including local food poverty projects, and support to increase local production. See more here.

F. Food and Farming: Climate change is already impacting food supplies, and is forecast to create much greater disruption in the years ahead, both in the UK and across the world. However, future weather patterns in the UK bring opportunities as well as threats. With adaptive cultivation methods, changes in crops, and support from consumers, the UK could increase its food security and reduce its vulnerability to imported supplies. Seeding our Future has commissioned research to explore these issues. The report on Growing through Climate Change is now available as a free download and we can offer briefing sessions on how local communities and professional producers can apply the findings. For more info, see Food Security – General.

Partner Organisations

Partners are a central element of our strategy for this project, and we welcome approaches from other potential partner organisations. Those already involved include:

Adaptive Networks

Deep Adaptation Forum: originated by Professor Jem Bendell, offers a wide range of valuable resources and online support. See www.deepadaptation.info.

Future Conversations

The Surefoot Effect: this Community Interest Company, based in Scotland, works across the UK and beyond to equip people, communities and organisations with skills for resilience and sustainability and is working with Seeding our Future to deliver Future Conversations: www.surefoot-effect.com.

Front-Line Futures

Westminster Centre for Resilience: A leading expert in resilience research and training for public and private sectors, and strengths in evaluation of such work: part of Westminster University, London.
Hazel Hill Trust: Alan Heeks is the founder and a Trustee of this registered charity which runs Hazel Hill Wood, a 70-acre conservation woodland and education centre near Salisbury, and which has proved a valuable setting for resilience programmes.

Bridport Food Matters

Bridport Local Food Group: organises the annual Food Festival and a range of other initiatives in the sector.
Transition Town Bridport: The local branch of Transition Network.

General

Schumacher Institute: This non-profit think tank and research network headquartered in Bristol, has many years’ experience in exploring futures issues.

We welcome approaches from potential partners for all of our projects.

Contact information: If you are interested in help, partnership, or staying informed, contact Alan Heeks using the contact form or tel. 07976 602787.

NEXT: Future Conversations

Elderhood: A Sacred, Earthy Calling?

Elderhood: A Sacred, Earthy Calling? A men’s peer group: December 1-3 Llanthony Valley, Black Mountains, Wales We’re living in a world of rising crisis and turmoil. We’re growing older, we have some talents and resources, but limited time here. How do we use them? What’s the balance between nourishing our souls/the inner life, and doing what we can for the troubles around us? Is elderhood, and the fellowship of elders, a path that can help? This will be a peer group for a maximum of seven men, organised by Alan Heeks: we will shape the way we use the time together. Our venue is Trwyn Tal, a 30-acre hill farm with amazing views and upland walks, set in the sacred landscape of the Llanthony Valley, in the Black Mountains, extremely quiet, but accessible: about half an hour from Abergavenny (nearest train station), and about 1.5 hours from Bristol by car. We will have a spacious self-catering cottage as our base, plus bedrooms in the farmhouse. See more at www.welshmountainretreat.com. The cost for accommodation will be £155, and we will share food purchases and cooking between us. For more info or bookings, please contact Alan Heeks: alanheeks@gmail.com or 07494 203014.
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The Seven Seeds Ecosystem Model: Cultivating resilience and sustainability for people and organisations

The Seven Seeds is a unique approach using parallels with cultivated ecosystems to help individuals, teams and organisations to grow their resilience and their sustainability for both human and environmental resources. Alan Heeks has evolved this model through many years of workshops, and can facilitate tailored sessions for a range of client groups, from a half day to two days. About the model It’s clear that most of the situations and resources we’re engaged with can’t be controlled, only shaped. From his experience of starting an organic farm from scratch, Alan realised that cultivated ecosystems are a powerful model for people and organisations: they show us how to steer and shape a complex natural system to achieve outcomes we need, in a co-creative approach which adjusts to the realities of the situation. Alan’s first book, The Natural Advantage, uses organic farming as its model, and applies it for managers and work organisations. His fourth book, Natural Happiness, due for publication in March 2024, uses organic gardening as the main model, and is focussed more on individuals and community groups. For a summary of the current Seven Seeds model, click here. About Alan Alan had a highly successful business career, starting in marketing with Procter & Gamble, followed by a Harvard MBA, and including seven years as Managing Director of two businesses. He was a founder-director of Caradon plc, which has been described as “the most successful management buy-in ever”. Since then, Alan has worked as a consultant and group facilitator with businesses and non-profits. He has used some of his Caradon capital to set up two environmental charities: a 130-acre organic farm, and a 70-acre wood. See more at www.naturalhappiness.net and www.seedingourfuture.org.uk. Workshop options These are indicative: Alan is happy to tailor content to the group and its needs. His aim is always to make sessions highly participative, so the learning is experiential. Access to outdoor space is desirable: ideally a city farm or market garden, but anywhere with trees or plants will do. Alan with a Seven Seeds group at Hazel Hill Wood Seven Seeds: train the trainer This workshop would guide participants through the whole model, showing how to deliver it experientially, and how to tailor it to different needs.Duration: preferably 1 day. Seven Seeds for managers This would help participants to cultivate their own resilience and human sustainability, and to understand and nourish systemic resilience and wellbeing in the organisation.Duration: preferably 1 day, but a half-day taster is possible. Seven Seeds for coaches Here the focus is on enabling coaches to use elements of the model with their clients, addressing both clients’ own sustainability, and the organisational issues they are facing.Duration: 1 day preferable, half day possible. Change management, leadership, strategy Alan has wide experience of using the Seven Seeds as a catalyst for these and other themes, often co-facilitating with a consultant or manager familiar with the client organisation.Duration: overall 1-2 days. Seven Seeds for non-profits Alan has led workshops using the Seven Seeds model for NHS professionals (doctors and administrators), community groups, and NGOs and climate adaptation projects, shaping the model to a wide range of learning outcomes. Contact: for an exploratory discussion, please contact Alan: email alanheeks@gmail.com, phone 07494 203014.
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Tailored Retreats in the Welsh Mountains

Trwyn Tal Mountain Retreat Centre A tailored retreat means that an individual or small group choose their own dates for exclusive use of a magical small retreat centre in Wales. Alan will run a couple of sessions each day, drawing on his unique Natural Happiness model, and tailoring the retreat to your issues and questions. You will have most of each day free for walks in the extraordinary surrounding landscapes, or just to rest and reflect. Retreats can be run for one or two people, or up to five with private bedrooms at Trwyn Tal, or for groups of up to ten people using additional accommodation nearby. These retreats will be held at the Trwyn Tal mountain retreat centre where you can cultivate wellbeing and resilience through parallels with nature, drawing deep inspiration and insights from the beautiful setting. The retreat offers you the chance to relax, immerse yourself in nature, and slow down the pace of life in a spectacular setting. The retreat centre was founded and is run by Sarah Maliphant who writes: ‘Trwyn Tal is a peaceful mountain farm set in a gently curving valley on the Welsh Borders. It’s the ideal place to slow down – frankly, the views kind of do that for you.’ The location is Capel-y-ffin in the peaceful Llanthony valley on the eastern edge of the Brecon Beacons, with the Honddu river running below, Gospel Pass to the North, and the Vale of Ewyas on the doorstep. Easily reached by train to Abergavenny or Hereford. For further information on the venue, follow this link. If you would like to explore this possibility, please contact Alan.
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How can we raise community resilience?

Research, reflections, riddles and more! As the pressures on all of us keep rising, we can see mounting discord about best priorities and solutions. One of the few topics on which almost everyone agrees is that increasing the resilience of local communities is getting ever more vital. This has been a focus of my work since 2012, so I’m offering an overview of some of my insights. As part of a project called Facing the 2020s, in 2012 I commissioned a substantial piece of action research on UK community resilience by Reos Partners, which included over thirty diagnostic interviews, extensive desk research, and exploratory workshops in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff with potential stakeholders, including national and local government, NGOs and community organisations. The main focus of this blog is the insights I gained from this research. The terms community and resilience are so heavily used that a short explanation of what I mean by community resilience may be wise: the collective capacity of a group of people to handle and grow through crises and challenges. I’ve set out below some of the main aspects of resilience in this context: part of this capacity could come from organisations, including local authority, public services and non-profit groups. Material: some capacity to respond locally to interruptions in food, energy supplies, especially for elderly and vulnerable people. Environmental: response to ecosystem damage, eg habitat loss, pollution and to extreme weather, eg floods, droughts. Wellbeing: for everyone’s emotional needs, especially those who have mental health or isolation issues. Inspirational: maintaining and renewing a sense of vision, cohesion and purpose in the community in the face of a crisis. Connective: good communication within the group, including the skills of hearing, voicing, reconciling strong differences in opinions and values. Reproducibility: On most aspects of community resilience, there are successful exemplar projects somewhere in the UK. For a concise, inspiring range of examples, see the book The New Road, by Alf and Ewan Young. Why have these not been widely reproduced? One reason is that many good community resilience initiatives have depended on a few superhuman people, who just kept going against impossible difficulties. How can such interventions be systematised so that regular humans could implement them in a bigger number of communities? Recording what was done in an accessible toolkit form would help a lot. Sustainable funding: Many good initiatives have also depended on funding that was not reproducible, e.g. a slab of one-off grant funding as part of a pilot programme by an NGO. Sustainable funding sources could include raising capital from local communities themselves, (eg crowdfunding), or a social enterprise model, or a couple of larger foundations offering a grant scheme plus support to use it. Professional services: Many community initiatives struggle to find professional support geared to their particular needs, in finance, legal, property, HR and other areas. The emergence of specialists for this sector would greatly assist reproductivity. Systemic catalysts: In my dream of raising UK community resilience, a focal role would be played by trained advocate-facilitators, who would go into a community to understand its needs and dynamics, help gather support and a project team and could provide access to reproducible role models, sustainable funding, professional services and more. Working with minority groups and communities of identity: Some communities will be more vulnerable to shocks than others, and history tells us that unresolved social tensions bubble up at times of stress. Resilient societies and communities rely heavily on social cohesion. The benefits of working on community resilience now include the opportunity to pre-empt more severe ruptures to social cohesion which are likely to arise from the major stresses ahead. It is important to involve minority communities in the resilience journey, and communities of identity such as LGBT, instead of focussing solely on geographic communities. Wider participation: Many places don’t have a strong sense of community, and in most of those that do, only a tiny percentage of people participate actively in community matters. How could larger numbers of communities, and larger numbers of people, have a motivation to participate in community resilience, including ethnic and low-income communities? This is a crucial issue, which will become more acute amid the pressures ahead: it would be great to see a couple of enlightened large NGOs fund pilot projects and gathering of best practice to move this forward. Engaging local authorities: As funding for services has moved from central government to local authorities, many local authorities have worked to further devolve decision-making and budgetary decisions to local communities. This means that in some parts of the country, local communities are strongly engaged with the local authority, and structures exist to support these partnerships. This move towards greater local control highlights the exciting potential to tackle many priorities (environmental, public service reform, etc.) by adopting a resilience approach and involving local people in community action and resilience building. In recent years, some local authorities have become real innovators in new forms of service delivery, partnership working and more. The replication issue applies here too. Is there currently an easy way to access best practice and role models in this area? Building national resilience: Most approaches towards community resilience take place at a geographic community level. However, examples from UK history and from other countries indicate real benefits in national-level approaches towards resilience. Some of the countries that are considered the most resilient, such as Japan, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, have a strong national resilience policy. If the UK had this too, it would make local initiatives more effective. Online resilience services: A massive opportunity for innovation! If I continue to dream, I imagine social entrepreneurs and progressive NGOs helping to create new apps and web services, alongside businesses. The research I’ve summarised above has prompted me to keep exploring community resilience, currently in my Seeding our Future project (see www.futurescanning.org). My work is on the scale of local pilot programmes and proof of concept. There’s a far bigger need and opportunity which I hope a few larger non-profit organisations will grasp soon.
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