London NVC Community Day
30th Jul 2016 - 30th Jul 2016
11am - 9pm
£5-£20
Led by: Kane Mitchell | Contact Kane
Event details:
Saturday 30th July, 2016
11am – 9pm (Come for part or all of day)
Outline of day:
11am – 11.30am Arrival and Tea/Coffee
11.30am – 12pm Welcome and opening activity
12pm – 1pm Communication for Uncertain Times: post-referendum listening circles for sharing fears, hopes, uncertainties and challenges about living in the UK (held in small groups across the 2-acre site).
1pm – 2.30pm Lunch (see further info below)
2.30pm – 5pm ‘Open Space’: an opportunity to offer workshops, try out exercises, explore, learn, share or be in empathic connection. Any topic. Any activity. Any size group. Across the site.
5pm – dusk Community Barbecue, Improvisation games and Swing dancing!
8.30pm Sunset Closing circle
9pm Leave
Venue:
Olden Garden, 22 Whistler Street, Islington N5 1NH.
http://oldengarden.org
Entrance is via Green wooden door OPPOSITE 22 Whistler Street. There will be a notice on the door signposting you in.
Getting there:
Olden Garden is 1 min from Drayton Park rail station on the Great Northern Line.
It’s 0.5 mile (10 mins) from both Arsenal and Holloway Road Tube stations on the Piccadilly line.
In case part of your journey involves the Northern Line, please note there is disruption on the Northern line. Trains will not run between Hampstead/High Barnet/Mill Hill East and Charing Cross / Moorgate on Saturday 30th July. I take that to mean both branches of the Northern line going North are disrupted but do double check https://tfl.gov.uk/status-updates/major-works-and-events/northern-line-works?cid=northern-line-works
Accessibility:
Much of the garden is wheelchair accessible. (The main entrance, covered space and the lawn) Some areas aren’t (the orchard and den areas) but enough of the garden is for you to have a diverse exploration of it.
Food:
We will provide Tea and Coffee and some snacks for arrival time.
Please bring some food to share a) for lunch and b) for BBQ. A dish that is special for you and that you would love to share with other people would be amazing!
IMPORTANT: There is no fridge space so please only bring things that do not need refrigeration.
Alternatively you could pop out to the Tesco Express shop 120m away to buy things for the BBQ at the end of the afternoon session.
Alcohol is 'allowed' in the space by those responsible for the garden. We would like to add that we acknowledge the diversity of relationships people have with alcohol and would like no one to feel excluded because of alcohol. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss this.
We will provide glasses for drinks. But remember, no fridge space to keep items cool.
What else to bring:
Musical instruments if you want to play
Cash donation of £5-£20. Anything you donate will be gratefully received to support this event and the sustainability of other NVC London Community events.
Request-friendly event
We want this to be a ‘request-friendly event’, acknowledging how important it is to make requests for comfort, ease, safety, learning and enjoyment of the whole event. There will be a Flipchart space in the Summerhouse for Requests and Offers which you may like to add to or browse when you have a moment. In addition to this, we encourage all participants to make their needs known and make requests of ourselves and each other as we go through the day.
A note on the Morning session:
12pm – 1pm Communication for Uncertain Times: post-referendum listening circles for sharing fears, hopes, uncertainties and challenges about living in the UK (held in small groups across the 2-acre site).
After some discussion, the organising team decided to create an opportunity to reflect on the referendum result and current experiences of living in the UK with the uncertainty that this result has unleashed.
As we began planning and shared our needs for the day, one of the organisers said,
“I need to feel welcome. I need a coming together, peace and camaraderie. I notice a distrust in me .. .who can I trust in this political climate? It’s very scary. It’s nice to come together.”
With this in mind, we wanted to create a space for soulful and mindful sharing around how the Referendum result is living in us … not a discussion, or an analysis, but a sharing of the rawness of our emotional response; be that anger, fear, confusion, relief, hope or whatever is alive in us 5 weeks after the 23rd June.
And by doing this … sharing from the heart, not giving an analysis, stepping into trust that you will be heard in a generous way, taking a risk to express yourself and listening to each other even when we don’t agree with what’s being said, we hope that this is the best Introduction to NVC we can offer to those of you who may be new to NVC consciousness and practice. And we hope that this is best contribution we can make to our current moment.
It feels a bit risky. We believe in freedom of choice, and that everything is optional, and we also want to work towards an experience of unity and togetherness, and hope that this may be one way of getting there … although there are no guarantees and we can’t predict how it will turn out! We can only try. We invite you to step into this space with us, even if you think you have nothing to say, or you have already had enough … we invite you to witness, listen and take part with your own unique contribution.
These Listening Circles will be held in small groups, across the site.
A note on the Afternoon session:
2.30pm – 5pm ‘Open Space’: an opportunity to offer workshops, try out exercises, explore, learn, share or be in empathic connection.. Any topic. Any activity. Any size group. Across the site.
We will invite suggestions and contributions for an Open Space sessions. Please consider between now and the 30th July any topic for dialogue, practice or exercise you would like to bring to the event.
Whatever you want to do, is what needs to happen!
Between 2.30 and 3pm we will invite anyone with a suggestion to stand up and make a brief description of what they want to offer so we can all decide where we want to spend some time.
If there are many offers, we will see if some of them can merge and hook up for a larger group, and we will then match activities with the available spaces in the Garden. All spaces will be outside.
Remember these principles of Open Space when you are hosting a discussion or activity:
- Whoever comes are the right people to come.
- Whenever it starts is the right time to start
- Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened
- When it’s over, it’s over.
- And Use the Law of Two Feet: You can move between topics and discussions, dropping in and out of discussions and offerings to flow with your interest and energy.