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60-90-minute online workshop Cultivate your wellbeing with gardening skills! Available for group bookingsWith Alan Heeks In these stormy times, we need new skills to stay happy. A cultivated ecosystem, like a garden, is a role model for human nature: this workshop shows how gardening methods can help you grow your own happiness and deepen the roots of your resilience. For example: Mulching and pruning to nourish your rootsComposting stress as a source of energyUse gardening skills like observation and creativityFind new ways to adapt to the climate crisisDraw inspiration from Nature to guide you in uncertainty Alan Heeks has over 25 years of experience exploring Natural Happiness with groups. It grows from creating a 130-acre organic farm and education centre at Magdalen Farm in West Dorset, and from gardening with his wife at home. In this online workshop, Alan will describe the Seven Seeds of Natural Happiness, and participants will have a chance to try some of them out. Alan is happy to take bookings for this event from environmental, community and other groups, at a time of their choosing for a moderate fee by negotiation. CONTACT LINK

July 9-11 2021: at Hazel Hill Wood, near Salisbury With Alan Heeks, Jane Sanders and Marcos Frangos How can you stay happy when there’s too much change and uncertainty? This workshop shows you how: to cultivate yourself like a garden, and grow your own wellbeing by learning from natural ecosystems, using Alan’s unique Natural Happiness model. In this workshop we’ll explore these questions, with the natural ecosystem of this magical wood as our guide. Our methods will include: nourishing our roots; composting problems; using co-creative skills to work with nature; growing inspiration; and ecosystem insights about community. Along with workshop sessions, there will be solo times in the wood, plus good food, campfires and songs to nourish us. This will be a residential group at Hazel Hill Wood: if Covid restrictions prevent this, it will be run with a series of online sessions with personal time in between. We will explore how to grow resilience for individuals and communities, especially in response to the climate crisis and the related pandemic. If you are interested in using this model in your professional work with individuals or groups, Alan will be happy to offer you advice and support: the content of this workshop relates to his fourth book, which is planned for publication in late 2021. Alan Heeks has been exploring resilience with people and nature for many years, and has led many groups on this theme, drawing on experience of resilient natural systems from creating an organic farm and setting up Hazel Hill. Jane Sanders has over 25 years’ experience in working with a mindfulness based approach to wellbeing with groups and individuals, and has also incorporated deep ecology, ecopsychology and the wisdom of natural systems into her work in many different settings, including numerous groups at Hazel Hill Wood. Marcos Frangos is widely experienced in group facilitation, coaching, counselling and constellations work. He was General Manager of Hazel Hill Wood for 5 years, and has co- led many groups there with Jane and Alan. Cost including food and accommodation: £220, concessions £180. We will share cooking and other community tasks. To secure a place, we will need a deposit of £40, £30 for concessions: if, nearer the time we have to run this as an event online event, your deposit will cover the cost of this, or you can receive a full refund. Hazel Hill is a magical 70-acre conservation woodland and retreat centre, 7 miles from Salisbury. It has simple, yet beautifully crafted off-grid wooden buildings with lovely indoor and outdoor group spaces, basic accommodation in bedrooms and sleeping lofts (or camping), good hot showers and compost loos. See more at www.hazelhill.org.uk For bookings and enquiries: Please contact Carol Nourse via email on: naturalhappinesscontact@gmail.com

Featured Blog

Thriving on Chaos

Still useful, 24 years on! This catchily-titled book was published in 1987, and was a management best-seller for years. Even then, new technologies, speed of change, intensifying competition were big issues. Whilst Tom Peters’ insights may not address all our current challenges, they’re worth revisiting. In this blog, I’ll explore how they might apply to organisations of all kinds, not just businesses. Peter’s book is 523 pages long, oozing with motivational hyperbole about revolutionary leadership, extraordinary responsiveness etc, it’s key principles are by now well-established: the first is Customer focus and superior service. How might this apply to a charity or a campaigning organisation? I think it’s helpful to focus constantly on who your customers or clients are, and how you’re serving them. Setting high standards of service is a lot harder in voluntary teams, but is worth doing. It may push you to be clearer, frequently, with your own team about the vision and benefits of your project. His second principle is Constant, rapid innovation. I like his approach to this, which is a ‘piloting culture’ that enables continual small-scale initiatives, some of which are scaled up. This was the way we’ve created the Future Conversations initiative, and it’s a relevant approach for all kinds of projects, not just business. To help innovate, he advocates ‘creative swiping’, which might be better described as being constantly observant, and learning new ideas from a wide range of sources, including unlikely ones. For example, one of my maverick friends suggests studying refugee camps as a lead indicator for all our futures. Peters’ third principle is Achieving flexibility by empowering people. It’s a well-trodden path these days, but always worth checking if you’re walking your talk. And he has some good tips on how to do this, including: Use self-managing teamsListen, celebrate, recogniseSpend time lavishly on recruitingTrain and retrainSimplify, reduce structureReconceive the middle manager’s role Principles like empowerment have benefit for all kinds of organisations, and I’d add to Peters’ list the benefits of smart methods of organising people, and using virtual communications. These are two of the many things that have impressed me about Extinction Rebellion, who clearly do thrive on chaos. The fourth principle is Learning to love change: a new view of leadership at all levels. Many of his specific ideas are now well-known, but provide useful reminders. Mastering paradox becomes ever more vital in our crazy time, and it links to the co-creative approach in my Seven Seeds model. Listening, delegation, managing by example are all important for any organisation. His last principle has remained highly topical: Building systems for a world turned upside down. However, by this time you can see the limitations of his mindset. His ways of doing this are largely cerebral, about measurements and controls: what about emotional intelligence, mutual support, inspiring vision? One reason I value my ecosystem model of resilience is that it explores how we can thrive on chaos in more holistic ways than this book. Touching the heart and the gut are vital for teams in our times, and Mr Peters’ capitalist rhetoric will only take us part of the way.