3rd Local Spirit of Humanity Forum- CHANGE OF DATE!!!

Local Spirit of Humanity Forum in Harrogate, UK

6pm for 6.30pm – 8.30pm on Monday 2 February 2015

The Primeast office, 5 Greengate, Cardale Park, Harrogate, HG3 1GY, UK

Would you like to participate?

Please contact: Clive.Wilson@primeast.com

Fourth Local Spirit of Humanity Forum is announced!

This is the first Local Spirit of Humanity Forum located in Rye East Sussex! (But, 4th in our history!)

Date: Friday, February 6, 2015
Time: 4pm for 4.30pm – 7.30pm
Location: The Rye Club (opposide the Dry Cleaners)
                 Market Street,
                 Rye, East Sussex
                 UK

If you would you like to participate, please contact Michael Moore: Michael.Moore@primeast.com

The second Local Spirit of Humanity Forum

The second Local Spirit of Humanity Forum was held in Harrogate on 10 November 2014!

As planned, those present shared their most significant challenges in values-centred governance. Every challenge presented was compelling and would have been a great topic for exploring.  After consideration, the challenge we chose to work on was regarding a project to engage with people from a council estate in the northwest of England where unemployment is high, health is poor and people have low aspirations to improve their lives.  The local authority and various institutions have tried to intervene but have been unable to achieve sustainable transformation.  The specific challenge was about how to adopt a more “bottom-up” approach that really engaged the people with compassion, taking account of their world as they saw it.  The idea being that, with time and rapport, people would come to know their own strengths and feel supported to be proactive in improving their lives and community.  After the action learning rounds, our challenge owner made a commitment to take the ideas from this forum to the next working party in order to determine the best way forward.  What particularly resonated was a suggested approach to ask people how they wanted their community to change and what effort they were willing to commit to do this.

The next forum is in Harrogate:
6pm for 6.30pm – 8.30pm on Monday 12 January 2015
The Primeast office, 5 Greengate, Cardale Park, Harrogate HG3 1NP, UK

Would you like to participate?
Please contact: Clive Wilson Clive.Wilson@primeast.com

Yoko Ono Awards Jón Gnarr Grant for Peace Award

Former Mayor of Reykjavík Jón Gnarr is among five recipients of this year’s Lennon-Ono Grant For Peace awards, visir.is reports. Artist Yoko Ono, who is the founder of the awards, stated that Jón has inspired others to get involved in politics.

“He was a comedian who decided to become a politician. It takes a lot of courage and many people didn’t take him seriously to begin with ... then some started to think to themselves ‘I could really become mayor or a member of parliament,’” she said, adding that she has a lot of respect for him. 

This year’s other recipients include the publisher of Rolling Stone magazine Jann Wenner, founder of Peace One Day Jeremy Gilley and founders of Art Production Fund Dorren Remen and Yvonne Force Villareal. Previous winners include Lady Gaga, Doctors without Borders and Vandana Shiva.

Ono will light her Imagine Peace Tower on Viðey island off Reykjavík tonight, on her late husband John Lennon’s birthday. A special ceremony will be held on the occasion to which members of the public are invited.

Viðeyjarnaust will be illuminated with candles and people can have a seat around Ono’s wish tree, purchase hot chocolate, coffee, beer and snacks, write their wishes for peace and hang on the tree while listening to Snorri’s music, as stated in a press release from the City of Reykjavík.

Text from Iceland on review line by Zoë Robert, October 09, 2014

Photo from Jon Gnarr's Facebook page

Sophie Vrolijk

Sophie Vrolijk 

Dancer from The Netherlands

My experience from the Spirit of Humanity Forum

As one of the youngest participants at the Forum in April, the first big forum I have ever attended, I received one of my greatest gifts in life. Meeting smiles, looking into sparkling eyes, feeling the energy of others. A connection with a magic twist. I got the feeling that I had already known participants for years as I met them although they were all new to me. I felt at home, that we all had the same passion for life. Thanks for creating this. With my little red folding bike from Amsterdam, I enjoyed every little adventure during the Forum and outside in the nature of Iceland.

One week after my return to the Netherlands, I went to Venezeula. My boyfriend was living there and we hadn't seen each other for eight months. With the energy I brought from the Forum I was able to keep a feeling of peace and love in my body while I was staying in one of the most dangerous countries of the world. And a strong grounded open connection was created between me and my boyfriend. We were able to decide to give each other the freedom to no longer tie each other to ourselves as boyfriend and girlfriend after three years of close relationship. There still is no single emotion of pain, sadness or loneliness. I want to share with you how the power of understanding, having peace with every situation and feeling love for your own body and others can bring you in this state in every place of the world.

Now, as I am just being graduated from the Dance Academy and cancelling my student room in Amsterdam, there is a whole new chapter opening for me. I am travelling around the world, just being and creating with all the things I experience, exploring with the tools of my body without planning anything in advance. 

Participating at the Forum inspired me think and to propose a new idea. How would it be to have a space at conferences/trainings/workshops where people can experience through movements, using their bodies, not only by talking and listening? How about creating a space where we can experience stories/theory through the use of our bodies, through being it. To make stories your own truth and not only the truth of those who share them. Hereby it would be easier to translate your own new explored truth in practice to your daily life at work/home/friends.

I am passionate about activating people to listen, trust and follow the signals of their own bodies, in order to liberate their (restrained) thoughts. There are so many hidden magical places we still can go. I would very much like to explore this with you.

The first Spirit of Humanity Local Forum, in Harrogate, UK

Clive Wilson

Director at Primeast Ltd, 

Harrogate, UK

The first Spirit of Humanity Local Forum, in Harrogate, UK

At the 2014 Spirit of Humanity Forum in Reykjavik, I committed to launch local forums that would provide space for anyone with an interest in values-centred leadership to engage and encourage positive action. 

The first forum was held at the Primeast office in Harrogate on 15 September 2014.  This was intended to be a small, safe and intimate gathering to facilitate depth of conversation.

Eight people met and we each shared our greatest challenge on the subject of values-centred leadership.  Our challenges included corporate challenges where the espoused values were not what was being lived; differences between the lived values of stakeholder groups; engagement with young people; and tensions between service and family values.  The group gently arrived at consensus regarding the challenge to be progressed at the forum.  We chose to examine the work of one man whose life had been dedicated to encouraging values-centred growth with young people, something he felt “passionate about”.  He also, however, had a strong personal sense of family and was conscious of the potential clash between his attention to family and to service.  As the dialogue progressed, he discovered that the word “driven” with regard to his work had connotations that were uncomfortable, with undertones of self and family sacrifice.  The group encouraged the exploration of other words that might better describe his dedication to service.  The word “passion” kept emerging and resonated far better than the sense of being “driven”.  This shift of thinking also helped him to step back and appraise what was important and the balance and synergy between his values.  He left, according to his summary at the end of the forum, with more than he had hoped for.  In the plenary everyone shared their learning which was profound on many levels and the forum agreed to meet again in two months.  One member is also (gently) considering the possibility of setting another forum up in York when the time is right.  And so the local forum journey has begun.

The date of the next forum is 6pm for 6.30pm – 8.30pm on Monday 10 November 2014 at the Primeast office, 5 Greengate, Cardale Park, Harrogate HG3 1NP, UK.

Ramon Esquivel

Ramon Esquivel 

Interactive Technology Consultant, 

GroupMind Express, USA

It’s a common aspiration to want to be a part of something larger than yourself. I was glad to discover that a twenty-something like me had options and life experience I could contribute with the entire Spirit of Humanity Forum.

To really achieve our objectives it was recognized that the Forum needs participation from people my age who are just starting their own journey in the changing the world. Mud masks in the Blue Lagoon and the local music scene in Reykjavik were an added bonus.