Workshop with Alastair McIntosh

A day and a half workshop

with Alastair McIntosh

Saturday, 10 November and Sunday, 11 November 2007

at

Ruskin Mill

Old Bristol Road

Nailsworth

Gloucestershire

Gl6 0LA

£65.00 including meals

Saturday 10^th of November 2007

12.45 p.m. Meet at Gallery, Ruskin Mill for Welcome and Registration

1.00 p.m. Lunch

2.15 p.m. The Spirit of Place – Connecting with the Horsley Valley: Exercise and Walk led by Aonghus Gordon, Founder and Director of Ruskin Mill Educational Trust

(bring boots and coat)

3.45 p.m. Tea and Coffee Break at Ruskin Mill

4.00 p.m. People and Land – Artistic Activity with Linda Frosch, Art Therapist

5.00 p.m. Share Experiences in Small Groups and Gather Questions

“What brought you here?”

“A short story of your connection with a special place for you or/and experience from the Walk you want to share.”

“What questions have you come with about land, community and spirit?”

Plenary to share questions and experiences

6.30 p.m. Supper at Ruskin Mill

8.00 p.m. “Land, Spirit and Community”

Songs with Jehanne Mehta and Earthwards

and Presentation by Alastair McIntosh

Christchurch, Nailsworth (open to the public)

Sunday, 11^th of November 2007

9.00 a.m. Community music led by Marc Arles

9.30 a.m. Reflection on Yesterday’s Content in small groups and plenary facilitated by Martin Large, Gloucestershire Land for People

10.00 a.m. Alastair McIntosh – Land and People Questions and Discussion arising from Reflections and the Evening Event

11.00 a.m. Tea and Coffee Break

11.30 a.m. 1) English Community Land Trusts for Homes and Farms – Martin Large.

2) Comparing the Scottish and English land reform stories – what can strengthen and deepen the English and Welsh land for people movement? Dialogue with Alastair McIntosh

1.00 p.m. Lunch

2.00 p.m. Songs with Jehanne Mehta and Earthwards

2.15 p.m. Biodynamic Land Trusts led by Bernard Jarman, Executive Director of the B.D.A.A. and with a presentation by Tablehurst and Plaw Hatch Community Farm

3.15 p.m. Tea and Coffee and Small Group Work on Areas of Special Interest

(e.g. Ways of Reconnecting with Land and Developing Community; Exploring Setting up a Biodynamic Land Trust Federation; CLT Development – from Vision to Action)

4.45 p.m. Plenary: Brief Reports from Groups followed by Summary and Overview from Alastair McIntosh

5.30 p.m. Conclude

SUMMARY

Land in Britain is treated as a commodity, to be bought and sold on the market. This has resulted in market failure, as homes are now unaffordable for most young people. People feel disconnected with the living earth, with place and community, and social inequality is growing as ordinary people are ‘cleared’ from rural communities.

Alastair McIntosh is a radical ecologist and land reformer who shows how to take on corporate power successfully. As a founder member of the Isle of Eigg Trust, he worked to help clear the Laird from the land in a spectacular community buy out. This paved the way for the Scottish Land Reform Act of 2003. He will present his radical philosophy of community, spirit and place.

He will also give challenging insights about the nature and power of English landlordism. Many of us know the story of the Scottish clearances, but the English clearances, sanitised as enclosures, are less well known yet had enduring, disempowering effects that reformers such as John Ruskin sought to remedy.

This workshop will also present the work arising from the English and Welsh Community Land Trust (CLT) movement, and consider in the wake of the Fordhall Farm community buy out, and the Soil Association Land Trust, how best to secure farmland for biodynamic farming.

The weekend will start with a walk through the Ruskin Mill Horsley valley to engender a sense for the power of creating identity within a “sense of place” both for individual and community education and development. The workshops will then invite you to consider artistic, spiritual and practical ways of reconnecting with our land heritage.

Jehanne Mehta and Earthwards perform songs that call us to remember who and what the Earth truly is and celebrate the powers of renewal in our connection with her.

For further information and enrolment please contact:

Laura Cammish, Ruskin Mill Educational Trust

Telephone: 01453 837605

E-mail: laura.cammish@rmet.org.uk