End of April and another synchronistic moment squeezed in....

Had a lovely day today, April sunshine and showers and time spent with good friends.... I organise workshops to aid health and wellbeing,  I arrange either healthy eating/cooking/exercise or therapeutic crafts workshops to anyone who wants to come and join in, and thanks to LPFT/NHS funding the workshop, any materials and refreshments are free.  

Today's workshop was making up cute little craft items that come free with Mollie Makes... donated to us a little while back.  I brought along just enough for one each (not careful planning, just synchronicity!!) , and each person was delighted with their pack and over the 2 hours about finished them.  We chatted while we were sewing, all sorts of random topics, and laughed, drank tea and ate jaffa cakes....perfect for improving our wellbeing!

At the end of the session, instead of heading back to our usual car parking area, PW had parked right across the other side of the City (to save the £6.50 parking charge!!) en route, i spotted a 'Friend of Revival' (Revival is a project that I manage, but which is relocating at the moment, long story....) and so stopped for a chat with Amy - big hugs followed and a catch up on where Revival is moving to etc - during this chat I spotted another Friend of Revival, Lauren with baby Alfie, so quick catch up with them......very quickly followed by another Revival volunteer - Stuart, and then Kylie.... 

Couldn't believe that by going a different route and standing in the High Street for just 10 minutes I would see 4 special people and have the chance to catch up with them all..... Loving the synchronicity of this experience, but more was to come..

Once we had chatted with Amy about the relocation plans, we got onto our plans for Abundant Earth Community (housing and worker co-operatives....will share much more on this later, if you can't wait see our Facebook Page plus blogspot..) it turns out that not only is Amy very interested in both these concepts, but knows lots of other people who will also be interested, I had forgotten that she has herbal skills that could certainly be used to great benefit as part of the project....and then she shared the magic.... she just happened to mention homes built with hemp bricks....I stopped her there and then, Hemp Bricks!! I had never heard of them but new that hemp was popular as a fabric and in Body Shop, so this had to be interesting!!  WOW - what a great idea!! Will have to investigate this one further as yet another material to consider for our 'self build/low carbon' housing project!! Don't suppose anyone reading this has any experience of building with hemp bricks now do they??? that really would be synchronistic!! :)

Thought I would share this photo too, took it straight after the workshop, its the St Barnabas charity Shop next to Soundlincs where we meet - and i am LOVING what they are doing with their window displays.  This Mad Hatters Tea Party has to be one of the best so far!!

The Arboretum in Lincoln - on a glorious Spring day  

makes you feel good to be alive!!

Loving todays swim with synchronicity!!  thought I would throw this in now, while it is fresh in my mind, had really wanted to do blogs chronologically and record some of the biggies, but....time is never quite on my side!

Today we booked our holiday (walking the Camino de Santiago!!) and I decided to look for a few bits of walking kit up in the loft.  Had a look around, and straight away found my Platypus bottle (without cap or tube! doh!) and eventually some other bits, was about to head out of the loft, when something made me just stand still and look around - some pictures caught my attention and I went to look at them, had forgotten all about some of them so it was nice to see them again, next to them was a large plastic box and for no reason at all I picked it up and there was an intact Platypus bottle underneath it quite hidden, just what I needed (and saving me quite a few quid in purchasing a new one!!) - thanks synchronicity!!!

so, let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start....

Though not really sure how far back to go, I could talk about how I have always been involved in community work, personal development organisations, running large events and projects, 




and thinking up new enterprises having had my own assortment of businesses for 33 years. 

How I have always cared passionately about our beautiful planet and all lifeforms on it. 

 I could talk about how I have been involved in the 
co-operative movement for the last 15 years, plus I could talk about my early spirituality and involvement in organised religion.

But, I will talk primarily about how all this led towards my running a community 
co-operative called Revival Lincolnshire, and what that is now leading towards!

Let's go back to 2005, I left my employment at Lincolnshire Co-operative to become a Social Enterprise Development Worker at Lincolnshire Co-operative Development Agency (LCDA), supporting the creation and development of co-operatives and social enterprises across Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.  During this time I assisted with the creation of a wide variety of community projects all the time gaining knowledge, training and experience - and LOVED it!!  Around 2010 the economic climate in the UK meant that funding for business advice was reduced and our client base for free development and support was lost, being replaced with paid for consultancy work.  We were therefore tasked by our Directors with actually setting up community co-operatives in partnership with the community.

I had been fortunate prior to this to have been tasked with setting up a Creative and Cultural Activities Cluster Group, where creatives were being prepared to offer workshops to those paying with a proposed Personal Budget (Independent Payment), I became well aware that creativity was seen as therapeutic and this knowledge stood me in good stead when in 2011 I was diagnosed with a chronic illness which initially I feared was life threatening.  I turned to creativity to support me through the few months of adjustment to this life changing knowledge, and was relieved and delighted to find that it did indeed give support and benefit.  I realised that I was now well placed to try and share creativity as therapy with others who were going through difficult personal health journey's through the development of a community co-operative for skill sharing art and craft - and even better, the LCDA Directors agreed with me!!  I was given the green light, and the instruction to 'just get on with it'!

And so I did....   I also just got on with the 'illness'....I knew I had to do this .....

I undertook feasibility, networked, planned, plotted and prepared and later in 2011 launched the Revival Lincolnshire project in the Involve@Lincoln centre with pilot workshops and a number of new friends who I had engaged with during the preparation phase (and was bemused to find that the majority had names beginning with either A or J  (my initials too!!)  (Photo shows our first workshop - making a 'bug hotel' with Jay!)

Welcome to my World!!

Welcome....to my new Blog!! 

A chance to share my photos and thoughts, plus experiences of synchronicity in my life......

I want to be able to record how synchronicity came into my life, the role it has played and the differences it has made, and how it continues to affect my life in ways I could never have imagined.