Scene

scene#1ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010

EDITOR | Nick Comer-Calder www.caldercentral.com +44[0]7779 320823DESIGN & ART DIRECTION | biz-R www.biz-r.co.uk +44[0]1803 868989DRAWINGS | © Alice Leach www.aliceleach.comSPECIAL THANKS | To all Dartington staff who helped with this edition – your contribution was essential. Thanks also to our outside contributors, in particular Bob Holman.PRINT | Kingfisher Print & Design www.kingfisherprint.co.uk Printed on Cyclus Offset – FSC certified 100% recycled. Ink used is from sustainable and renewable sources. PHOTOGRAPHY | p5 © Marcus Crouch pp6-7 © Ben Smith at sitfoto.com p8 © Victoria Narewskipp9,10, 24 © Nick Comer-Calder p15 © Alice Carfrae LEGAL | The views expressed in scene magazine are not necessarily those held by The Dartington Hall Trust or its Trustees.Reproduction in whole or in part without formal written permission is prohibited and all artwork and texts remain copyright of the artists, authors and The Dartington Hall Trust. Drawings by Alice Leach remain solely copyright of the artist.

The Dartington Hall Trust is registered in England as a company limited by guarantee and a charity. Company No.1485560 Charity No.279756Vat No.402196875 Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington, Totnes, Devon. TQ96EL Tel: 01803 847002 Fax: 01803 847007

Scene \'s¯̄en\(noun)

1.One of the subdivisions of a play.2. A stage setting.3. A place of an occurrence or action.4. A sphere of activity.

Dartington is a place of experiment,thought and creativity. Our ambition for scene is that twice a year it will offer readers insights into what is going on at Dartington: the artistic work we are creating, the new programmes we are working on, the people we are working with and the debates we are engaged in.

We live in turbulent times and though based in the beautiful countryside of Devon,Dartington is very much part of the world.This participation in the wider social fabricand the interplay between art, social justiceand sustainability is reflected in the mix of articles in this first edition.

scene contributors will include artists,musicians, architects, ecologists,philosophers, teachers, entrepreneurs and indeed anyone who has something to say which is relevant to our mainconcerns.

I am particularly pleased that for our firstedition we have two thought provokingpieces from academic and social activist Bob Holman and Guy Watson, founder of Riverford Organic.

We welcome contributions from readers in all forms – letters, articles, photographs.So if you have something to say aboutwhat’s in this edition or about somethingaltogether new, then please get in touch.

send contributions and letters to:The Editorscene magazineThe Dartington Hall TrustThe Elmhirst CentreDartington HallTotnes, Devon TQ9 6EL

email: [email protected] may be edited

from the editor

001

It is true that focus can achieve a great deal, but fine analysis has limitations.The narrow, detailed view risks missing the organic linkages and interdependencies that make our society work. There is a risk of arriving at oversimplified goals that,whilst appealing in their clarity, miss the complexities of the real world.

Focusing on a single issue – like profit –while important, will be unbalanced ifconsidered in isolation. For example,we need to question the use of carbonoffsetting as the single measure forenvironmental impact. While themeasurement of the carbon produced by human activity has provided a powerfuland simple metric to raise awareness ofglobal warming, it also runs the risk ofreplacing one unbalanced single measure,profit, with another, carbon.

As Professor Arthur Zajonc argues later in this issue, crucial insights into the challengesof today will not flow from reducing issuesdown to their smallest parts, but in combiningthis approach with a broader awareness ofthe interconnections and complexities of the world we live in. It is only by taking thisapproach that we will achieve the abundantlife that was Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst’soriginal vision for Dartington.

This is why the Dartington way is consciouslyto resist any pressure to focus on just oneissue or programme area. We believe there is a place for an organisation that activelyseeks to encourage a broader perspective. It is for this reason that we have chosen theharder and more complex path of developingprogrammes across three areas – the arts,social justice and sustainability. By sodoing, we have made Dartington a littlemore difficult to grasp than more specialisedorganisations – but it is this very complexitythat means we offer a unique perspective.

We do not turn our back on specialisation,but rather we seek to combine it with a more inclusive view. By so doing we strivecontinuously to see the wood from the trees.

‘More focus... greater specialism...depth not breadth...’ so cry many who seek to solve the pressing problems we face today.

ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010

the Dartington way – taking a broaderperspective

Vaughan LindsayCHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

‘More focus... greater specialism...depth not breadth...’so cry many who seek to solve thepressing problems we face today

002 DARTINGTON SCENE ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010

contents001 the Dartington way

a broader perspectiveDartington CEO, Vaughan Lindsay, stakes out a place for Dartington in the world today.

010 the Royal visitSunshine, flags, children and lots of hard work for the Queen’s visit in March.

011 biomass heating:a fundraising success story

Funding a £1.2m project needs skilfulplanning, Dartington’s plan to convert to biomass heating is off to a strong start.

012 capturedThe richness of a year’s activities at Dartington in photographs.

019 RooksA poem by Devon poet, Peter Oswald.

004 a place where new work is created

Director of Arts, David Francis, outlines his plans for making Dartington a leadingcentre for the production of new work.

005 South West MusicSchool Residential

A photo essay on a weekend of youngpeople making dance and music.

006 Meredith Monk:on being an artist

The renowned US composer, performer and vocalist gives her take on what artists need to be creative.

008 new on the sceneThe Clockwork Moth

The founders of The Clockwork Moth shadow puppet theatre tell how they created their new show.

009 from the collectionOne item from Dartington’s art collection.

014 focusing on process as well as outcomes

Director of Social Justice, Celia Atherton,argues that social justice should be aboutchanging the way we think and act as well as generating measurable outcomes.

015 stand up in courta Research in Practice (RiP) case study

A RiP initiative helped social workers bemore effective in Court, so that decisions onchildren and families are better informed.

016 modest livingconsumerism makes us miserable

Bob Holman, academic and communityactivist, suggests we would be happier with less not more.

018 the power of telling stories

Todor Proykov from Research in Practice for Adults (ripfa) is at the forefront of new work on learning from telling stories.

ARTS SOCIAL JUSTICE

Dartington is all about developing newideas and supportingnew talent. With this in mind each edition of scene will be a showcase for work by an artist withconnections to Dartington. We are delighted to have Alice Leach as our first artist.

Alice was a pupil of Dartington Hall School and studied at ChelseaSchool of Art and City and Guilds of London Art School. With a growingreputation, she was recently featuredin the Saatchi Online top ten chosenby Rebecca Wilson, Saatchi Gallery’sDirector of Development. Alice is a member of the DartingtonPrintmakers and lives and works in South Devon.

Alice has a solo show at The Bowiegallery in Totnes 10th-21st July.

www.aliceleach.comaliceleach-artist.blogspot.com

003

020 The Salzburg Global Seminar

Director of Sustainability, Charlie McConnell,describes a major new collaborationbetween Salzburg and Dartington.

021 Arthur Zajonc:looking for the underlying issues

A regular teacher at Schumacher College,Professor Zajonc on why a holistic approach is needed to the challenges facing the world today.

022 green grows the garden

Schumacher College’s SustainableHorticulture course draws on the Dartington estate as a living classroom.

023 think big: act bigThe Carbon Disclosure Project is hailed by world leaders. Schumacher Collegeinspired Paul Dickenson to set up the project which is now supported by half the world’s largest corporations.

024 living sensibly‘Opinionated and anarchic’ entrepreneur Guy Watson founded Riverford Organic but still doesn’t believe organics is the whole answer.

024 seasonal recipespring greens with wet and wild garlic

Thoughtful food from the Riverford Farm Cook Book.

025 Dartington directory

Useful numbers and email addresses.

SUSTAINABILITY

ALICE LEACH

this issue’sfeatured artist

‘I have long been fascinated by crows and rooks – with theirstrong form, restless movement,gimlet eyes, oversize beaks and contrary natures. PeterOswald’s poem Rooks gave me the incentive to revisit a favourite theme for scene.’

a place wherenew work is created Our prime focus for the Arts is to moveDartington from simply being a receivinghouse for artists’ completed works to becoming a major creative centre. We willof course continue to host existing works,but we want the emphasis to be Dartingtonas a place where new work is created.

The new Dartington Space initiative is criticalto our achieving this goal. Dartington Spacewill mean we can provide studios, technicalresources and a place for creative ideas.Space will be for artists locally, regionally,nationally and internationally. In particularwe want local people to feel this is a resourcefor them. I hope that in five years’ timeartists planning new work will automatically call Dartington.

Our plans for Space will build on areas wherewe already have a strong track record. Forexample, our existing film programme will be enhanced by a second screening space.

This new screening room will be digitallylinked to the live performance space inStudio 3. So this will give us a powerful set of new resources for our existing audience for film, as well as meeting the local demand for training in digital media.

With all this in place, we can offer peopleweekend courses around film-making, music,sound and digital media. Space will enableus to develop our relationship with majorcreative organisations such as the EnglishTouring Opera. Last year ETO were wrestlingto lift a complex new opera off the writtenpage into three dimensions, so they came to Dartington for a week of workshops. They found that taking the company out of the mainstream enabled them to focusentirely on the piece, and they madetremendous progress.

At the same time as creating new physicalresources for the arts, we want to establish a new community of resident and associateartists.

We will have an associate artists programmewhich will provide opportunities for alumni of our key partners – Idyllwild, CalArts,University College Falmouth and KEVICC.Dartington will develop more opportunities that will help our associate artists buildsustainable careers as artists or in the arts industry.

As a start, we will have an artist in residencethis summer from Iran. We’re working on this residency in partnership with VisitingArts – a charity that looks to strengthenintercultural understanding through the arts.Hosting an artist from Iran will build on thelegacy of Dartington as a refuge for artistsfrom conflict zones. The artist (who works in film and digital media) will be based withthe Schumacher College team. Having anartist embedded in a community focussedon sustainability is exactly the sort of cross-fertilisation of disciplines that makesDartington unique.

David FrancisDIRECTOR OF ARTS

004 DARTINGTON SCENE ARTS

005ISSUE ONE | SPRING.SUMMER 2010

South West MusicSchoolResidential

Over three days in February, 41 students from South West Music School and eight dancers from SwindonYouth Dance Academy were in residency atDartington.The studentscomposed and improvisedmusic for animated filmsand footage from theDartington Archive.The culmination of the weekend was newmusic and dance created to accompany a 1935 film of ‘Danse Macabre’ shot in Dartington’s Barn Theatre. Today’sstudents danced on the same stage usedfor the performance 75 years earlier.


MeredithMonk:on beinganartistThis is an edited extract from an interview with award winning composer/performer/ vocalist Meredith Monk while she was in residence at Dartington last year.

What is your sense of how it is to be an artist today?MM: ‘You have to have an inner intention tobe an artist, and I think it has to come out of a sense of love and commitment... There’sa sense of taking a vow to be an artist – it’skind of a calling – more than being a job –and there’s something good about that. The financial ebb and flow is part of thelifestyle... it’s not this steady thing, likehaving a job which is always going to be the same, but that’s one of the things I love about it – there’s a sense of freedom.And one thing you learn to do is to be veryimaginative and to be able to flow withchanges that come... I think that this is just one of the principles of life.

I always say to young people that are startingout as artists just don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t follow your dream...We have very short life spans and I think that if you ignore your calling or your dreamor what you love to do, in a sense you’refrittering away your time on earth.’


What support do artistsneed to enable them to work well?MM: ‘I know what I need as an artist andthat is time. I need time to have thiscontemplative period, to find the sources of what I’m going to be working on. I needtime to be able to explore and not have to produce a product. I think artists needtime to work and not have to come out with something right away, too early in a process, but be able to follow a process.Ultimately art is about mystery, it’s aboutarticulating the unknown and articulatingwhat cannot be articulated...

And so if you’re always just taking your firstsolutions and you never have the time to goa little deeper – into what other possibilitiesthere are – I think you end up making thesame thing over and over again. I’m mostinterested in each piece being able tostumble around in the dark and leading me to something that I don’t know. I feel if I start with something that I know – then I know that already. So to me making art isalso uncovering and I think you really, reallyneed to have time to do that. You can’t justgo into rehearsal and think... I’m coming up with a product in the first minute.

This has been a wonderful period for us hereat Dartington, I wish we could be here a littlelonger because already I can feel the endcoming. We’re doing a showing and so whatwe’ve been working on is already turninginto a structure. But to be here and able tohave the luxury of not having to think aboutother things and just being in one place – I just think that’s what every artist needs.

In the States, there are artists’ colonies andpeople can stay from two weeks to eightweeks – and everyone I know thinks this is a kind of paradise – and I think this iswhat Dartington is – it’s a kind of paradise.

You get a lot from all the arts being together,the visual artists, writers and everybody in the same place. I’m very stimulated bytalking to a painter, it gets me thinkingabout what they are doing with paint andwondering how that would be with music...it’s so interesting.

I want to say how grateful I am toDartington – it is an enlightened place at so many levels, all the projects onsustainability, the research and the arts. I don’t know of any other place like this –it’s really a privilege to be here.’

Meredith Monk will be at the DartingtonInternational SummerSchool this summer.

Just don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t follow your dream... “”

‘There are lots of Eastern countries thatperform shadow puppetry; China, Bali, Javaare the main centres. But we come from a Western tradition of shadow work whichdeveloped from the 17th century onwards.

We chose Philip Pullman’s Clockworkbecause it’s a lovely story and so short wedidn’t have to cut anything. Pullman drawsparallels between life and a big clockworkmechanism where everyone has a part to play. Once the mechanism is in motion all the parts affect each other... but thecharacters don’t know that they are part ofthat mechanism. The puppets perform theirparts but never see the story as it unfolds.

We’ve been working on the piece for a year.We lived with our parents for free to giveourselves time to design the storyboard and work out the administration of the tour.In May last year we bought a little van andlived in that, while we rented a very cheapworkshop in which we could finish thedesign process. Now we live in our workshop,with all our puppets and we rehearse in that room – everything gets done in that one room!

We’ve had to give up some aspects of thecomfortable lifestyle that we might want,but we plan that once we’ve done this we’ll have a little bit of cash to put into the next project so we can get a biggerenterprise going.

I think the most important thing is – andfunnily enough this kind of philosophycomes from Philip Pullman’s ideas onartistry – you can’t wait for the rightmoment and for inspiration to dawn on you. You have to treat it as a job.

We sometimes have to work harder than we want to. There’s a point where you mightthink, “You know what, I’m just going tostop, that’s it for today.” But you know that if you do that, you won’t have everythingyou need for the next day. If you want to be a creative practitioner then you have to always be at work. So you have to pushyourself – and if you don’t want to do thatthen you need to get a normal job. There’snever a point in time when we’re notthinking about the show. I dream aboutcutting out puppets! But because it’s a creative practice we enjoy it.’

Dartington College of Arts graduates, CharlieScullion & VictoriaNarewski, founders of The Clockwork Moth,discuss their first shadowpuppet show, Clockwork,and living & working as emerging artists.

ClockworkMothThe


newon the scene


from thecollection

One of five tapestries titled Dartmoor WinterGranite Reliefs, this piece was inspired bythe Dartmoor Lee Moor china clay works.The subtle textures of the granite and the washing out of the white clay have beenrealised by spinning local natural white,grey, brown and black fleece in the studio. It was woven on a vertical frame on one warpdividing it as needed to create the relief.

Lee Moor 2 is temporarily on exhibition thissummer at High Cross House, the currenthome of Dartington’s extensive 20th centuryart collection. Also on display this summeris Sense of Place, an installation ofcontemporary artworks created in responseto the iconic modernist architecture of High Cross House by tapestry weaver Jilly Edwards and composer Nigel Morgan.

LEE MOOR 2WOVEN BY BOBBIE COX 1978

www.dartington.org/high-cross-house

010 DARTINGTON SCENE ARTS SOCIALJUSTICE SUSTAINABILITY

theRoyalvisit11.03.2010A moment of historyDartington’s first ever visit by a reigning monarch. The sun shone, the Queen smiled, the children waved... and the staff worked their socks off.


In 2008 Dartington asked sustainableenergy agency RegenSW if they wouldfund the installation of a biomassheating system. Regen were immediatelyenthusiastic, Dartington’s reputation as a cultural centre and leader insustainability making them an idealpartner to bring biomass energy to the attention of other organisations and the general public.

For successful implementation a number of major concerns had to be addressed:1. Would biomass heating be the right

solution for Dartington?2. Could the capital cost be supported?3. Could the Dartington estate supply

the biomass needed?4. Would biomass be competitive with

the cost of oil/gas?RegenSW underwrote the cost of afeasibility study undertaken by majorengineering company Black & Veitch. Visitswere made to Castle Drogo and other siteswith biomass heating. This measuredapproach, combined with Black & Veitch’sanalysis, provided assurance that the project was technically viable.

Dartington’s woodlands will be central to the success of the project. At the presenttime the estate could produce 20% of thebiomass required. Dartington have beenincluded in a major Forestry Commissionresearch programme on short rotationforestry for biomass production. Initialstudies indicate that, depending upon the type of trees grown, between 22 and 100 hectares of woodland will be needed to support the biomass plant.

Future projections on oil and gas pricesclearly indicate that the price of biomassheating will be highly competitive over time. In addition, from April 2011 thegovernment’s Renewable Energy Incentivewill subsidise the cost of the biomass plant.

The capital cost is in the region of £1.2m,Regen SW and other government initiativeswill support up to 40% of this – Dartington will need to undertake a major fundraisingdrive to raise the remaining £750,000.

a fundraising success story

biomass heating:

Merlin Hyman,CEO of RegenSW sees Dartington as a model for their renewables strategy.

Dartington is one of the ‘pipeline’ projectssupported by the SW bioheat programme.The programme seeks to develop exemplarsites that will promote and encourage the use of biomass wood fuel installations. The importance of renewable heat has beenneglected to date and is central if we are to put the UK on course for a secure andsustainable energy future. Dartington is seen by the programme as a very importantsite, due to its overall approach to promotingsustainability and renewable energy.

Dartington’s potential for self supply, along with the installation of biomass boilers into a very mixed estate portfolio, is in itself important to establish a body of practical knowledge and experience, but the aims of promoting sustainability and renewables skills training offers a much broader opportunity to accelerate the uptake of renewable energy.

RegenSW are extremely interested indeveloping a relationship beyond the bioheat programme with Dartington as part of its core aims and goals inaccelerating the uptake of renewable energy and promotion of skills and economic opportunities.

Merlin HymanCEO REGENSW


captured:a year at Dartington


If you have photographs of Dartington that you would like us to consider for the next edition of scene please email them to [email protected]

Please do not send hard copies of photographs.

Rosehips, Leaves © Richard Moran | People in Great Hall © Kate Mount | Monks, Casting, Birds © Alice Carfrae |Dancers on steps, Singer, Earth & Moon © Kevin Clifford | Bridge, Deckchairs © The Dartington Hall Trust | Bring the Carnyx– Apparitions by Stephen Montague, image © Alice Carfrae

014 DARTINGTON SCENE SOCIALJUSTICE

What should a social justice programmefocus on? While only very recentlybrought together as a unified programme,social justice initiatives have long been a key aspect of Dartington’s work. Our list of achievements over the last 50years is substantial: we established one of the first sheltered housing sites,hosted discussions central to the birth of a national health service, broughttogether children from very diversebackgrounds to live and learn together,researched the impact of our institutionsfor vulnerable young children and led thechange of national policy on supportingvulnerable families. In addition, we werefirst to seriously consider the need forsocial workers and other professionals to use research effectively. All this is aproud backdrop to the start of a formalsocial justice programme at Dartington.

Our mission is broad: to promote equality,fairness and the fulfilment of potential. I will explore each of these aspects in thisand future articles. It all starts with thefundamental concept of equality – an idealthat has been with us for centuries and is as vital in richer as well as poorer societies.The last three decades have demonstrated,often painfully, that becoming richer as a society does not lead to everyonebecoming better off. Quite the opposite,some become obscenely rich and societybecomes unhealthily obsessed withindividual wealth. This in turn creates wide-spread social dis-ease.

Bob Holman, in his article on p16, refers to evidence that the greater the disparities in wealth the greater the unhappiness and bad health of both poor and rich. As TonyJudt writes in his new book Ill Fares the Land: A Treatise on our Present Discontents“The question of ‘usefulness’ needs to berecast, if we confine ourselves to issues of economic efficiency and productivity,ignoring ethical considerations and allreference to broader social goals, we cannothope to engage it... we are intuitively

familiar with issues of injustice, unfairness,inequality and morality we have justforgotten how to talk about them.”

This thought underlies what we in theDartington Social Justice programme havecome to believe – that real social justicedemands we focus on process as much asoutcomes. How we talk about and do things,and why we do them, is as important as the measurable outcomes.

Our Social Justice programme has alwaysbeen about helping marginalised people get the best possible service they can –therefore the best possible opportunities in their lives. To achieve this, RiP and ripfapublish research, organise events and runwebsites – with the intention of changing the culture of social agency services. TheSchool for Social Entrepreneurs supportsindividuals with great ideas in makingsocial change. All this work focuses onshifting the way people think and act, andthe values they hold. Such changes are ashard to measure as outcomes but they arejust as vital if we really want to make thegreatest difference in the lives of those weshould be most concerned about.

focusing onprocess as wellas outcomes Celia Atherton OBE

DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL JUSTICE


The method

Collaboration and pilot studyColleen Eccles, Deputy Director at Research in Practice set up a project to tackle this issue, working with Nicole Erlen, a solicitor and barrister who trains social workers.

Ten social work professionals collaborated to develop an action pack of resources. Theaction pack included tools to support socialworkers in using evidence – fact sheets,training exercises, tips, self-assessmentforms and so on. Twelve more agenciestested the materials, Bournemouth BoroughCouncil being one of the piloting agencies.

The results

Courts listen & greater use of researchBournemouth’s representatives reported that involvement in the project led to better decision-making from the court and improved outcomes for children.

‘...a much clearer and more knowledgeableanalysis was presented to the court. That canprevent delay because social workers knowexactly where they are heading; they arefocused and the courts are happy with that.That’s what they want.’

The project had wider impacts, there was anincreased interest in using research generally– from senior management to social workassistants. And Bournemouth found thatbetter use of research in court improved the status of social workers:

‘The change has primarily been aroundconfidence... within staff from the higherechelons right through to social workassistants, but also confidence from thejudiciary in the social work professional as well. That has caused a sea change. There has been an organisational change in culture, an enthusiasm and an energy that hasn’t been seen before.’

A final handbook was produced on the basis of feedback from the piloting agencies,including tools and film clips. RiP continue to hear from Partners that there is ongoingimprovement in social workers’ skills in court.

standup incourta Research in Practice case studyResearch in Practice (RiP) at Dartington is dedicated to improvingaccess to and use of research by services for children, young peopleand their families. Here we describe an innovative project to improvesocial workers’ use of research in court evidence.

The problem

Courts disregarding social workers’ evidenceChild and family social workers commonlyreported that they are not viewed as expertsby courts; they felt unconfident about citingresearch in court, and experienced cross-examination as undermining. Social workersoften felt their evidence was only givencredibility when corroborated by an expertwitness such as a psychologist.

Jane LewisDIRECTORRESEARCH IN PRACTICE


Bob HolmanRETIRED FORMER PROFESSOR AND COMMUNITY WORKER

modestliving


Another illuminating publication was The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett which established thatinequality is bad for everyone – the well-off as well as the poor. Almost everysocial and environmental problem, fromobesity and mental health to violenceand long working hours, is more prevalentin the most unequal countries like the UK than in those like Sweden and Norwaywhere the income gap is much narrower.

In Britain, no major political party has aprogramme to radically reduce inequality.My response is that we are not powerless and can still adopt lifestyles which challengecontemporary evils and inequalities.

My wife, Annette, and I spent 25 years livingin deprived areas. But I am not calling on a mass movement to deprived areas. Onretirement we moved from Easterhouse to a small, ex-council house on the other side of Glasgow to be near our grandchildren. We still try to live in a manner which we call modest living.

Few people need more than £40,000 a yearfor a comfortable life. My suggestion is not that those with high incomes give upimportant jobs but that they distribute any surplus over £40,000 to the needy oragencies serving them. We can also reducespending on cars, plasma TVs, expensivegadgets, holidays abroad and so on. Thisdoes not entail living like a recluse. Rather it entails giving less attention to the quantityof our material possessions and more to the quality of our personal relationships.

We can also use our money in consumer and financial institutions which do not just stimulate greed. For instance, the Co-operative Bank centres on ethical policies.Unlike the High Street banks, it did not make the high-risk loans which contributed to therecession and does not pay huge bonuses.

We can buy more of our goods from Co-opshops not large supermarkets which channelhuge profits into the hands of directors andshareholders. We shop every day with the Co-op where we know the staff. We get ourinsurance and prescriptions from the Co-opand I will be buried by it with my wifegetting the ‘divi’.

Mutual building societies and credit unionsexist for the good of users not just directors.Small, independent shops are also anintegral part of communities.

Particularly important is where we reside.Instead of seeking large homes infashionable areas, why not cheaper ones in less upmarket locations? Yes, it may mean financial sacrifice for such a house will not increase in value as one elsewhere.But modest living is a statement againstgreed and materialism. It challenges thedominance of inequality since it meansaccepting less so that others can have more.Not least, people who opt for modest living incheaper communities will find opportunitiesto improve the locality. This is not aboutgoing as a missionary with all the answers.More humility is required. A young couplewith professional qualifications chose toreside in an unfashionable neighbourhood.

Years later, they are not in leadership positions.Their children attend local schools. They are liked and respected as good neighbours.With others, they participate in running alarge summer camp. They are living where it makes a difference to community life.

The goal of combating social evils andinequality can be helped by the response of modest living. If enough people do so, then it becomes collective action and thatmay change society.

Bob Holman’s new book, Keir Hardie: Labour’s GreatestHero? published by Lion Hudson,is now available.

Last year a Joseph Rowntree Report published research which demonstrated widespread unease about the effects of certain social evils, particularlygreed, consumerism and individualism, on our lives.

Few people needmore than £40,000 a year for a comfortable life.


the power of telling storiesFaced with an information blizzard how do social workprofessionals keep up with developments in good practice?

Keeping up to date is key to good socialwork practice. To support their socialworkers’ development, one of Research in Practice for Adults (ripfa)’s localauthority partners developed an onlineevidence bank. Though crammed with supposedly valuable information the authority discovered that few people used the bank – so they calledripfa Research & Development Officer Todor Proykov to investigate.

TP: We talked to staff in the local authorityand discovered they were alreadyoverwhelmed with information and the dryimpersonal content of the evidence bankdid not engage or motivate them to read orlearn from it.

Todor (along with other researchers in thisarea) is discovering that people respond to the power of stories far better than toconcise Powerpoint bullets. It turns out thatstories told from a personal point of view areeffective teaching tools because individualsrelate them to their own experience.

TP: The idea of using stories is very much at the cutting edge of social workknowledge exchange at the moment. Stories deliver messages that really stickwith people. The form is as important as the content and the personal aspect of the story is essential – the best learningcomes when there is a strong personalidentification with what is being related.

The researchers found that in addition tostruggling with enormous amounts of newinformation, professionals today have farfewer opportunities to share with each other

in person. When presented with the opportunity,practitioners were eager to talk and quitespontaneous community learning took place.

TP: We are seeing clearly that people learnbest from each other, as a result we think thatthe future for ripfa is less about packaginginformation into easy to read bites and muchmore about facilitating knowledge exchangebetween people. Enabling people to learnfrom each other opens up the possibility of creating learning organisations – wherepeople are learning from each other every day at every level.

There is excitement in this field about thepotential for combining the traditions of story telling and learning through personalexperience with electronic communications.

TP: It seems like going back to the waythings were done in the past – learning by telling stories, learning by hearing howother people did things. But now with theaddition of email and the internet thisbecomes much more powerful as long term learning groups can form regardless of location.

The best learning comes when there is a strong personalidentification with what is being related.

The rooks gather in courtto defend themselves.They are not, they declare, omenseither of grace or of doom;they are not weather forecasters,accurate or inaccurate,they are not singers of raucous songs;they cannot, in fact, speak.

The rooks croak,emptying their emptiness.But there is no end to it,tiny zero bubbles of nothingnessrising out of a nought,not the least bit diminishing it.

How bright are the eyeslit by interior darkness,what piercing glances dartout of the fog of unconsciousness.

How hard it is to stand on any kind of eminenceand not take on some kind of significance.

Peter Oswald was resident at Dartingtonbetween 1998-2005 and was writer-in-residence at London’s Globe Theatre.


A poem by Peter OswaldDrawing by Alice Leach

Rooks

The SalzburgGlobalSeminar

Dartington partnership with

Schumacher College has been at theheart of Dartington since 1991. TheCollege has three main roles – education,demonstration and thought leadership.The Salzburg Global Seminar will be a two day event about thought leadershipand action on mobilising democracies to tackle climate change.

At Schumacher College we have had a longtradition of senior people from the public,private and third sectors coming on ourcourses. Last year we turned our minds toorganising a large scale leadership event with an international perspective through apartnership with Salzburg Global Seminars.

The Salzburg Global Seminars were set up in Salzburg immediately after the war. TheSeminars are a US initiative to challengepresent and future leaders to solve issues of global concern. Known as ‘The MarshallPlan of the Mind’, over the past 55 years theSeminars have attracted some of the world’sforemost thinkers. Salzburg Seminars haverecently set up a sustainability and climate

change programme and decided that theirleadership seminars need not be restricted tohappening in Salzburg. Building upon earliermeetings between senior staff at Dartingtonand Salzburg, we have agreed to organise aninternational event in London this April, andto bring in a third partner, the Foundation forDemocracy and Sustainable Development.

Following the disappointing outcomes at lastyear’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit,the seminar will focus on the question of whyis it so difficult for democracies to mobilisecitizens around the challenges of climatechange. We have a situation where a largesection of the public in all westerndemocracies refuses to accept theoverwhelming scientific evidence concerningthe causes of rapid changes in the climate.The mass media is generally ambivalentabout climate change. Elected politicians aresubject to pressure from corporate interestsand with few exceptions remain locked intopromoting economic growth at the cost ofenvironmental sustainability.

This event is designed for leaders from all sectors – from business, the media,educationalists, cultural leaders, academics,politicians and civil society movements. This is absolutely not just a talking shop. At Schumacher College we are experts inaction learning and breakout sessions willfocus on specific problems and challengesand how leaders and change makers mightaddress them. We will provide long termsupport to these groups to ensure they have maximum impact.

The outcomes of the Salzburg Seminar will flow into our ongoing leadershipprogrammes at the College, at Dartington and internationally through our developingSchumacher Worldwide Programme. Prior to the Salzburg Seminar we shall have three consecutive weeks of coursesexamining other challenges andopportunities post Copenhagen. Speakers in these courses included, Rt Hon Clare Short MP, Vandana Shiva and Rob Hopkins.

For more information about the SalzburgSeminar visit www.schumachercollege.org.uk

DARTINGTON SCENE SUSTAINABILITY

Charlie McConnellDIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY

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My training and research combines quantummechanics with a lifelong interest in theinteraction of science and spirituality and I believe this theme is critical to our times.How do we meet the current scientific and technological challenges with our full humanity, in a way which tries to do well by our future generations?

My view is that anytime a legislature orcitizenry tries to address an issue – whetherit is climate change or education or healthcare – you want to have a broad perspectiveboth of the problem you’re dealing with, and the people who are affected by it.

I believe that very often we take upproblems and deal with them at a superficiallevel. Consider why we currently face so many issues – bank collapse, climatechange, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Are these all independent of each other – or are they several symptoms of a singleunderlying foundational cause? We tend totackle one issue and then another – but it’sa hydra-headed monster that we’re dealingwith. So unless we take time to do a deepanalysis of the problems and seek out theunderlying cause we are simply going tokeep running from one problem to the next.

This is why I think a more holistic approach isnecessary. This is what Schumacher himselfstood for and this is what SchumacherCollege stands for now. That means a multi-disciplinary approach which is open to notonly the economic, political and socialcauses but also the spiritual causes that are at the root of many of our issues.

The people coming to Schumacher are not only active in this sort of comfortablecountry space – social action and socialconcern motivates all of us. We need it all – we need the stuff that is right off at the edge of the philosophical universe,challenging our very ways of thinking. On the other hand, there are peoplehomeless on the streets – how do you work with them? I think this is part of the new architecture of our times, looking to conjoin these huge distances, to conjoinspirituality (which we think of as otherworldly) with practical action.

Places like Schumacher College are fragile,they are not like mainstream collegeseducating 20,000 people at a crack, and the resources they require are uncertain. Yet it feels to me these are exactly the sort of places that are going to bedisproportionately important for the future. Part of my coming here is an act of faithfulness to the vision of Schumacher,which, if one is honest, is at the margins of the mainstream, and yet keeps movingever more forcefully into the mainstream.Providing courses on economics, likeSchumacher himself taught – or in the new science or the new ecology – graduallythese will become accepted as beingessential to a viable future.

Arthur Zajonc is professor of physics at Amherst College, Massachusetts.This January Professor Zajonc came to Schumacher College to teach on a course entitled Science meets Spirit: the search for meaning.

Looking for the underlyingissues

Arthur Zajonc:

How do we meet the current scientific and technological challenges with our full humanity?

In partnership with Cornwall’s DuchyCollege, Schumacher College runs a nine-month certificate course inSustainable Horticulture. The course is a collaboration between Dartington’sGardens Department, School Farm andSchumacher. The emphasis is very handson, with students spending much of their time working on Dartington’s land.

The course’s Living Classroom Educator,Bethan Stagg, leads many of the courseactivities and brings to her work a deepconviction.

BS: Without wanting to sound tooTotnesian, I have deep and abiding passion for the earth, and how we can live on what it produces. Since I was a kid I have been fascinated by plants and their role in food production.

The Sustainable Horticulture course is partof Dartington’s plan to make more and more use of the estate as a living classroom.

BS: Schumacher is pretty brave andadventurous in the way it explores new ways of looking at sustainability and horticulture... they are much less conventional than many otherorganisations involved in food production.This is a good place for experimentationand there are plans to expand this wholearea of work over the next five years.

Sustainable Horticulture has proved to bepopular with 18 students on the currentcourse and many places are already booked on the next course starting in September.

Students range from school leavers, throughmid-life career changers to older people.Because the course offering is so distinctivepeople come from some distance to join –some even moving to the area. The teachingis highly practical and at least half thecurrent students intend to continue workingin horticulture.

The sustainable aspect of the course is enhanced by a programme of visitingspeakers.

Prior to coming to Schumacher, Bethanworked on the Allotment RegenerationInitiative and also works at PlymouthUniversity Open Air Laboratory. Theattraction of Schumacher is in part its long history in the area of sustainability and the potential of the whole estate.

BS: The work that is going on across the estate is informative and inspirationalfor students... the organic farming at School Farm, the agroforestrydevelopments... there are not many places that have this scale of workingestate to study.

green grows the garden

DARTINGTON SCENE SUSTAINABILITY022


global business, the Carbon DisclosureProject and Schumacher College

think big: act big:

Set up in 2000, the Carbon DisclosureProject (CDP) acts on behalf of 534institutional investors, holding $64trillion in assets under management.2,500 organisations worldwide reporttheir greenhouse gas emissions andclimate change strategies through CDP. Paul Dickenson, founder and CEO,talks about the genesis of the project.

‘In 1997 I joined the University of Bath’s MScon Responsible Business Practice. Early inthe course we went to Schumacher Collegewhere I encountered ecologist StephanHarding – an associate of James Lovelock. It was Stephan who first gave me a really powerful vision of how destructiveclimate change could be – for all of us.

In late 1999 I came across President Clinton’sreport on carbon emissions – in the reportwas a graph showing the projected rise of CO2 emissions. Seeing that graph wasanother turning point – I decided to devotemy life to tackling climate change.

The next key moment was realising that just 100 people could stop climate change...if they were the managers of the 100 largestfinancial funds. These people have controlover a very large segment of the corporateworld. The idea that developed was thatthrough this group it would be possible tocreate some kind of collective governance of global corporations.

In the first wave of CDP activity we broughtin 35 fund managers managing assets of $4 trillion. – approximately 50% of theworld’s top companies. Now 535 companiesare involved – which are in total responsiblefor about 50% of the total CO2 produced by human activity.

What we do addresses the sense ofhopelessness felt by many people in theface of climate change. The nation state has lost the power to rule. Global business is the greatest source of power but is notsentient – it does not know what it is doing.If we are to harness the power of thecorporations then we need to understandthem. I see corporations as much more

complex and mysterious than is generallyappreciated. For example when people say BP does such and such – what do theymean by BP – the CEO, the money in thebank accounts or the shareholders? We tend to anthropomorphise companies and this crude approach just doesn’t work.

This is where Schumacher College’s holisticapproach is so important. The teaching atSchumacher has a nuanced comprehensionof the whole system – for example it seesthat business can either compete or co-operate with the planet earth and offers the thought that it should co-operatebecause corporations – though not sentient– are not suicidal.

So we need to find ways in which we canencompass this new world and offer ways by which people can find an interventionpoint. Global corporations are the largestfactor in climate change, these corporationsanswer to their shareholders, their customers,their supply chains, there is a sort of globaldemocracy here and the Carbon DisclosureProject is one way of shaping that democracy.’


There was no big idea behind the start ofRiverford. I was a young man who’d workedin business and wanted to do somethingwith farming and food. I was maybe anidealist in my gut but I had no consciousintention of starting a crusade.

There are always compromises to be madein business and sometimes people whocome to work for us find that difficult tounderstand. That said, I do want what we sell to be accessible and affordable by everyone. I was gratified that our lastsurvey showed the number of our customersin households with a combined income of less than £30,000 is rising and stands at around 30%.

Within the organisation we try to have afairly egalitarian pay structure and for thepast few years we’ve been slowly moving the business towards employee ownership.

I’ve never been as totally committed to theorganic cause as some people would like meto be. I don’t believe organic is the answer to everything, just as I don’t believe localfood is the answer to everything – they areboth part of the jigsaw puzzle about how wemight live more sensibly on this planet.

I don’t talk about living sustainably becausethat’s a long way off. I’ve been ranting aboutMarks & Spencer claiming they are going to be the most sustainable retailer – what do they mean?

There is almost nothing sustainable aboutthe way most of us live – Riverford is abouttrying to do things just a little bit less badly.

My underlying feeling is that the heart ofour problem is greed, if we don’t address thisthen we will never have a chance of livingsustainably. No politician or policy makerwill ever say this but it’s what I spend a lot

of time thinking about. Yes, we can beintelligent in our use of technology; yes, we can reduce the impact of what we do – and we can have windmills and solar panelsand all those things are good. But there can be no sustainability until there iswidespread acceptance that we can behappy with less.

And I do have some optimism – this sort ofthing is entering the language now andmore people are making decisions aboutwhat they do based on the quality of theirlife rather than avarice.

living sensibly

Award-laden Riverford Organic is based a few miles fromDartington. Riverford founder Guy Watson describeshimself as ‘idealistic, opinionated and anarchic’, here he offers some thoughts on sustainability and business.

I was maybe an idealist in my gut butI had no conscious intention of starting a crusade.

Dartingtondirectory

spring greens with wet and wild garlicby Jane Baxter from the Riverford Farm Cook Book

Main SwitchboardTel:+44[0]1803 847000

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White Hart Bar/RestaurantTel:+44[0]1803 847111

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

2 wet garlic bulbs, chopped (or 1 garlic clove, sliced)

2 bunches spring greens, shreddedcrossways into 1cm strips

1 bunch wild garlic leaves, shredded

1 tbsp freshly grated parmesan cheese

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter with the oil in a largesaucepan. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes without browning. Add the spring greens, turn up the heat and stir vigorously for about 4-5 minutes, until wilted. Stir in theshredded wild garlic leaves and cook for 1 minute. Add the grated parmesan,season to taste and serve.

Serves 6

www.riverford.co.uk

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