At the start of October, we hosted ‘Love Ecology’ in Morecambe Bay. We started the day by reminding ourselves of the journey so far, through Love People, Love Society, Love Economics and Love Politics (I’ll be writing a separate blog on this soon).
We then welcomed the force of nature, who is, Professor Alastair McIntosh, aka Radagast the Brown (!), who is an incredible mix of Academic and Activist. He took us on an amazing journey of our disconnection from the land and how we can reconnect to it. This is seriously worthy of your time! Listen – this is so good!
In my view, it would be impossible to host a day on ‘Love Politics’ without it including my great friend, Roger Mitchell. He is a brilliant thinker and one of the kindest people I know! His thesis, ‘Church, Gospel and Empire’ (or ‘The Fall of The Church’, if you want an easier to read version!) is vital reading for anyone who wants to seriously engage with the idea of a politics of love. Here, drawing in his own work and that of Luke Bretherton, he gives an absolutely brilliant insight into why love is such a powerful foundation and force for a new politics. This is really worthy of your time and energy!
Following on from the incredible input from Zahra Delilah, we hosted a ‘panel in the round’ as the room was full of great thinkers. Then we had a world cafe conversation in which we asked the question: “What might be possible with a politics of love in Morecambe Bay?” We then challenged each table to write a poem as a summary of their discussion! They had the choice of and ABAB four liner, a limerick or a haiku! There were some truly excellent and amusing offerings.
Here are the links to the panel discussion and the poems. Enjoy!
On July 17th we hosted another conversation in our series on how Love and Kindness might serve as important foundation stones for a reimagined future that is socially just for humanity and sustainable for the environment. So far, we’ve looked at ‘Love People’, ‘Love Society’, ‘Love Economics’ and this time the focus was ‘Love Politics’. We welcomed the incredible Zahra Delilah, political activist and organiser. She took us on a beautiful tour of love and it’s prepositions! Enjoy!
So….as has become our custom in Morecambe Bay, we tend to deliver the ‘Art of Hosting/Art of Connecting’ trainings over 3 days, but we have a bit of a break after the 2nd day and then invite people back a few weeks later, partly to let us know what they’ve tried out in the mean time, but also so we can invite our wider community of practice back into the fray!
Or 3rd day of ‘The Art of Connecting Communities’ focussed in on how our connections create new possibilities. As a team we felt like we needed to ground a bit more of the undergirding theory that gives depth to this way of working, as well as remembering some of the great practices involved. We checked in, this time using triads, to help us get a bit deeper straight away and then we headed into a 90 minute immersive and reflective piece of learning on the four-fold practice. We drew out a quadrant on the floor to represent the four different ways of thinking about ‘hosting’ and then used circle practice in each quadrant to really reflect together on what it means to: host yourself, be hosted, host others and host together.
In each of the quadrants we put a question for the circle to explore. Learning to host and host well is a shift in practice for many of us. But it is a leadership style that is open to all and gives each person a deep sense of value and confidence.
In the ‘host yourself’ quadrant we asked: How do you host yourself well in the midst of chaos? There were some really creative insights. Some which stood out were: Breathe! Be Patient. Just be. Take care of yourself. Accept Chaos.
In the ‘be hosted’ quadrant we asked: When were you last hosted well? Our key agreements were that humour really helps, along with knowing the space is safe, there is no hierarchy, lots of voices are recognised and given space and lived experience is given space to come to the fore.
In the ‘host others’ quadrant we asked: What are your strengths in hosting others? It would be fair to say that this is the question that people struggled the most at. we are so used to knowing what we don’t do well, that we felt a bit of ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ was needed. We all realised that we have strengths to bring to hosting and it’s ok to play to our strengths. It allows us to use empathy and bee aware of the needs of others as well as using humility.
In the ‘host with others’ quadrant we asked: Why host with others? There are, of course, tonnes of reasons, but the ones which stood out for us were: it’s more fun, we learn from each other’s, we support each other, we play to each other’s strengths, we value our diversity and we make better connections.
We then had a ‘knowledge cafe’, which enables some quick space for learning about things people might want to go a bit deeper on. It’s adult-led learning! We had 3 rounds of 15 minutes in which people could choose to go to 3 of 4 options around core theory for the ‘art of hosting’:
After lunch we then had an OPERA! No – we did not all start singing (although much more the shame in my view!). Opera is an excellent way of helping to converge a conversation around consensus and decision making. It’s a beautifully relational and democratic process in which a group of people can make collective sense of the options available to them and what they feel really need to be the priorities.
We used OPERA to explore a question around saving money in the NHS locally. Basically what happens is this:
First you have to ask a good question! Ours was “What ideas do you have about how the NHS can save £120million pounds over the next 3-5 years (with some context given of the issues involved)?
Then everyone works silently on their own to come up with the OWN ideas. After this, they work in PAIRS to agree on their top four ideas. Then they EXPLAIN their ideas to the rest of the group. The group, having heard all the ideas, then RANK them in order before ARRANGING them into groups for action planning. It is quite remarkable to watch this process in action and to see participatory democracy really work in practice! I LOVE IT! There were some really great ideas and it was amazing to see what the group had appetite for and what they resisted or didn’t think would make enough difference. It’s a hugely helpful process that we will use again and again!
To finish our day, we had a ‘dream world cafe’. George Monbiot states that the only way to replace the current narrative we are living in, is not through more data, or compelling facts and figures. The only way ahead for us is to tell a better story – one that we want to live in together – one that awakens our imagination. The problem is that we have forgotten how to tell each other good stories. So, we spent some time doing just that – telling a better story of Morecambe Bay and awakening our imaginations to future possibilities. We asked ourselves: Imagine we are better connected? What new possibilities can we now envision for Morecambe Bay?
Imagine if we kept on doing this – what kind of stories might we tell and begin to live in? Here is a summary of what we came up with (not bad for 45 minutes!) – the last sketch is particularly moving:
We were thrilled to welcome Prof Katherine Trebeck of the ‘Wellbeing Economy’ to Morecambe Bay for our ‘Love Economics’ event. Katherine is a brilliant economist and has recently released this excellent book, ‘The Economics of Arrival’. You will be blown away by the hope of what Katherine has to say. Please make some time and let’s build a coalition of hope that things can and must change for good!
I hope you have had the chance to watch/listen to the excellent input we had from Prof Imogen Tyler and Cllr Matthew Brown at the ‘Love Economics’ event in Morecambe Bay. If you haven’t done so, the I would highly recommend it!
This panel discussion, chaired by my good friend, Roger Mitchell, follows on and reflects on what both Imogen and Matthew spoke about. It is an excellent panel with some really phenomenal and helpful insights – get yourself a cuppa and continue to engage with this vital subject!
The Preston Model of economics has set many heads turning and tongues wagging! If you don’t know the story, it is well worth reading about, as it offers much hope for the future. Alternatively, you can hear Cllr Matthew Brown talking about it here.
If the NHS really took on board what it means to be an anchor institution, as the largest employer in the UK, it could have a seismic effect on the economy, the environment, the health and wellbeing of the people and social justice. It is well within the gift and grasp of the NHS for this to become a reality, both locally and nationally and would involve some basic and fairly straightforward changes (and some more slightly complex ones!) Here is a starter for 10:
1) Pay everyone in the NHS a living wage
2) Reinvest the NHS pension pot, taking it out of global corporations or off shore tax havens and instead putting it into local infrastructure and regeneration schemes
3) Ensure the physical and mental health and wellbeing of all staff, through developing the 5 ways to wellbeing in the work place and leading by example by ensuring healthy food options for patients and staff. This could also include all staff having 1/2 day per month to volunteer with local charities, communities and schools around health and wellbeing initiatives
4) Create positive discrimination to employ people and offer apprenticeships/training opportunities to people from more economically deprived neighbourhoods (as per Oldham) to help generate more economic wellbeing
5) Only procure from local/regional companies, again to improve local investment and ensure these companies also have a good health and wellbeing strategy for their own staff
6) Take responsibility for developing a green strategy
7) Join with other large local employers to develop this wider strategy and economic development plan, e.g around green transport, job creation and supporting worker cooperatives – this needs to include local councils and universities
8) Be part of the new local bank/credit unions being set up so that new banking systems are more accountable
9) Work with local schools which are struggling, and create healthy school partnerships which both secure the wellbeing of future generations and can create a more committed and secure workforce through new training schemes
10) Support the community voluntary and faith sector with both practical resource and infrastructure support through the primary care networks and integrated partnerships
This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a few examples. Imagine, though, what a huge difference it would make if NHS England, every Integrated Care System, each Integrated Care Partnership and every Primary Care Network adopted this kind of plan. We might focus less on the effects of poverty on health and more on what we can do to make a difference to it, because we would be a part of generating wealth and improving health! This takes the NHS into the doughnut and creates an economy of wellbeing – why wouldn’t we do this?! It’s easy to understand and not too hard to implement!
When the economic crash of 2008 happened and the banks needed bailing out, the City of Preston in Lancashire, refused to blame the poor or adopt an economics of austerity. Instead, they developed an alternative economy, which is being hailed globally as one of the most exciting possibilities for the future in terms of social justice, environmental sustainability and human flourishing. The ‘Preston Model’ has now been well publicised and is being considered by cities such as New York as a viable model for the future. It is based on a few key principles, one of which is ‘Anchor Institutions’ (which the health foundation have written about in some detail in terms of the role the NHS could play).
I could not recommend a better way to spend half an hour, if you want to be inspired and filled with hope about what is possible. I don’t think the Preston Model is perfect, nor would it claim to be, but it does begin to offer exciting options for a way ahead. Here is Cllr Matthew Brown, leader of the Council, talking about the key principles involved and how they are working in Preston. We were really happy to welcome Matthew to Morecambe Bay as we explore an economics that is fit for the future. Enjoy!
Is an Economics of love and kindness even possible? It may seem so beyond our current context that it may seem like a dream too far. However, economics comes from the Greek word Oikos, which literally means household. Whoever heard of a household that was really flourishing that wasn’t built on love and kindness? It is true that the simple model of a household is a bit defunct when comparing it to complex economic systems, but the foundational ethical principles need not differ.
Our recent “Love Economics” event in Morecambe Bay was kicked off by the excellent Prof Imogen Tyler, head of the Sociology Department at Lancaster University, who sets out the case for the utter failure of the economics of austerity. Her devastating diagnosis of the current trickle-down economic model to (ever) deliver real human flourishing and environmental sustainability is not easy listening. Her insights and wisdom based on sound data and research set the foundations for our conversation in the current reality and pain which our economic models are causing every day. You will find in parts 2, 3 and 4 loads of reasons for hope. However, our hope must not be based in denial of what we are experiencing now, otherwise, we will go on to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
