Winter Seminars: Forest Gardening for Well-being; Mind, Body and Ecology Coming Together
Dear Forest Gardeners,
Following the successful online summer seminars, we're planning a second series through Jan/Feb drawing together themes around Forest Gardening and Well-Being. Proposed areas for discussion include:
Green Social Prescribing and Forest Gardens
'Healthy' Health Environments: Using land around healthcare facilities for forest gardens for well-being
Designing and Delivering Forest Garden's for Well-being
Open discussion
The seminars are planned to be about 90mins long giving time for speakers and break out rooms for discussions. We would like the seminars to generate lively discussion and to also support all of our well-being too!
We would welcome your suggestions and comments. If you've got ideas for speakers, or a burning topic you'd like to see as part of the series or if you would like to speak yourself, or to help out in some way please reply to this thread.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Deleted account Fri 30 Oct 2020 9:20AM
A few thoughts come to mind. The first is probably already in your thinking. It's 'how to make the business case to funders', and 'presenting the case within wider agendas', like the organisation's sustainability strategy. Would it also include the research? And the potential research agenda? Behind my thinking is the question what would attract more health care professionals like you Nickie!
Could there be an element with academics who have done the on the ground well-being research? The second thought was how do we give people an 'in the moment' experience of well being even during a seminar. Stephan Harding the biologist who teaches at Schumacher does a lovely exercise getting people to take a plant, observe it very closely, draw it, and then image it in your mind as a living, breathing whole. It's an exercise drawn from Goethe, and also inspired theory U. Yesterday my brother told me about a breathing exercise where you imagine the earth breathing through you. Anyhow just some ideas in case they spark others 🙂
Nickie Bartlett / Jakeman · Fri 30 Oct 2020 10:29AM
Thanks Paul. All food for thought. I like the idea of finding ways to embody well-being into the seminars as well as the practical business case aspect. Looking forward to hearing more comments.