Community resilience isn't survivalism

A recent blog from Alex Steffen of worldchanging.org (below) echoes some of the dynamics I've encountered in conversations recently.

One set of conversations goes 'cultivating resilient, localising communities is one key to marrying mitigation and adaptation efforts (or 'prevention' and 'cure' for climate change bound together) - but in ways strongly rooted in starting from community strengths - which is why it is taking off in movements such as transition towns'. My work at Carnegie UK Trust owes much to this kind of analysis.

Others see resilience as old-fashioned; a harking back to times gone by and the 'war spirit', so less helpful because it underplays the critical role of innovation and creativity (and adaptability) in the transitions we are all facing. It's useful to ask at this point whether 'resilience' is a term worth breathing new life into, updating, and advocating as a dynamic, creative and utterly ecological (or compexity/systems-thinking) based approach - and thus very different from a single-stranded 'dig for victory' type message. As John Robb says on his community resilience-focussed blog,

the resilient community isn't a step backwards to 19th Century approaches (survivalism, scarcity, and low productivity), but rather a move in a direction that makes it possible to generate rapid and sustained (as opposed to the relative stasis and irregular progress of the current system) improvements how we live.

Alastair McIntosh, in his excellent new book 'Hell and High Water' (Birlinn), presents a depth critique of how consumerism, nihilism and lack of presence are linked together in blocking us from addressing the root causes of climate change. He ends with a 12-step plan, a theology of hope in the face of the death that already characterises our times. His analysis of consumerism is the clearest and most powerfully written I have come across. The book leaves me wanting more - in particular, for Alastair to meld into his analysis the implications of oil shocks on mass consciousness, and how these may present opportunities to augment his '12 step' plan for climate activism. Broadly the argument is a strong one however - a cancerous material culture can only be transformed by a resurgent spirituality founded in sure values of justice and sustainability. What, then, are the qualities of leadership necessary to cultivate such a shift? And what might be some of the crystallising focus points to galvanise such leadership?

This blog's focus suggests that 'cultivating resilience' is one such focus with great potential to lever profound shifts in consciousness and transformation beyond a monopoly of deadening consumerism. There is already a broad movement working through how this looks in real places. For me, resilience thinking must first be grounded in a resilience practice - that is, a practice of staying present and connecting - in loving relationships with partners, friends, community. Meditation, gardening, improvised music... can all be practices to support this core intention, and which offer powerful grounding as we stay present with the unfolding patterns of disruption and chaos brought by oil, climate and other shocks. These and many similar practices are surely at the heart of creative, life-affirming contribution to the emergence of a global movement such as the one Paul Hawkin describes in Blessed Unrest.

Alex Steffen presents another perspective. Responding in his post to an ardent localiser, Steffen re-emphasises the dangers of sinking into survivalist thinking, likening it to the millenarian cults who dose up on catastrophe as a way of being less than present. I'd suggest that the numbing process that comes with spending too much time in the future (whether it's being terrified or blankly optimistic) is worth looking out for - it can lead to nihilism or radical dislocation from the choices and opportunities of the present. Steffen writes:

I think pretty highly of John Robb. I don't always agree with him -- and sometimes I think he's way off base -- but I think he's really grappling with the new realities of violence, conflict and system instability in our times.

In particular, I find his on-going series of posts on Resilient Community a source of both worry and insight.

First, the insight. John's posts themselves tend to focus on work-arounds for brittle infrastructure, things like smart local networks (sort of the information equivalent of energy smart grids), community scrip and local fabrication. There are some really thought-provoking ideas here, new thinking applied in new ways, many of which fit well with a strategy of increasing neighborhood survivability. The world is getting bumpier, and preparedness, learning and innovation are called for.

But I worry as well about the role these sorts of ideas seem to often end up playing in the public debate. At the very least, I see these sorts of ideas playing into a misinformed understanding of the possibilities of localism, one which has the potential to seriously drain needed energy from efforts to stave off collapse. At the worst, I see it playing into an insane survivalism, one that's quite oblivious to the real nature of big systems failures.

Because, it bears repeating again and again and again, responses based purely on localism and scaling-back can't save us now. We need to remake our material civilization. If we don't do that, no amount of community preparation or personal bunker-building is going to save our bacon. If we don't avoid the tipping points, we're headed into an atmospheric singularity, which will likely involve cascading systems failures and a total inability to meaningfully plan our own lives.

Resilience is a great strategy for making sure our communities are capable of withstanding the bumps we're facing in order to keep generating solutions which can be used to avoid the crash; but if the crash comes, individuals and local communities are not going to be in any position to weather it through their own actions, no matter what they do.

Prevention is the only cure worth talking about here.

Toward a resilience psychology in response to climate change

The psychology of coming to terms with climate change has attracted more attention in the last few months. It's clear that many existing frameworks - such as the Kubler-Ross model on death and dying - have much to offer us in responding to the enormity of our growing understanding of the collective calamity we face. Many schools of integral and ecological psychology suggest practices of building relationship, love and inner peace that can help cultivate and inner resilience that allows us to more effectively stay present with potentially overwhelming complexity and grief in the face of mass extinction. Increasingly, interpreters of this material are making it more accessible.

One example is a useful article in Energy Bulletin which is prefaced:

Few of us are eager to contemplate, let alone truly face, these looming changes. Just the threat of losing chunks of the comfortable way of life we’re accustomed to (or aspiring to) is a frightening-enough prospect. But there’s no avoiding the current facts and trends of the human and planetary situation. And as the edges of our familiar reality begin to ravel, more and more people are reacting psychologically. A noticeable pattern of behavior is emerging.

We call this pattern the Waking Up Syndrome, and it unfolds in six stages, though not necessarily in any particular order.

As with many approaches, the authors (Sarah Anne Edwards and Linda Buzzell) outline categories of responses which they observe as common in people who progress through denial to active engagement with the almighty scale of the challenge (and opportunity) we collectively face:

Stage 1 Denial - “I don’t believe it” and “It’s not a problem” becomes “Someone will fix it” or “It’s useless”.

Stage 2 'Semi-consciousness' suggests that as evidence mounts around us and the news coverage escalates, we may begin to feel a vague sense of eco-anxiety which we might respond to by misdirecting our anger/sadness toward other things - familiar bug-bears, or media-constructed scapegoats.

Stage 3 - The moment of realization suggests that at some point we may encounter something that breaks through our defenses and brings the inevitability and severity of the implications of our collective problems into full consciousness. "At such moments, suddenly we realize no matter how we try to explain away the changes that are happening, they are and will be accompanied by huge challenges to life as we know it and cause considerable pain and suffering for many, including ourselves and those we love... we begin to understand on a visceral level that the changes taking place will have dramatically unpleasant implications beyond anything we’ve faced in our lifetimes. In fact, we realize many of these uncomfortable changes are already underway and will be growing in coming months and years, affecting most of the things we love and cherish

...Some of us become obsessive newswatchers, documentary filmgoers, internet compulsives or book readers, wanting to know more and more about what’s really happening. Loved ones may think we’ve gone nuts. Spouses may consider divorce; kids may decide mom and dad are hopeless cranks.

The more fragile or vulnerable among us may get depressed or experience panic attacks. If something about this current eco-trauma retriggers earlier traumas in our lives, we may have a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) reaction. Even the more resilient may throw themselves obsessively into save-the-planet and other activities, soon to become exhausted and weary from trying to do what no one person can."

Stage 4 - A Point of No Return, is a point in the journey into awareness when we realise we cannot pretend our knowledge doesn't matter. It can also be a place of profound aloneness - a "sense of isolation and disconnection we may feel when living in a different world from most of those around us, a world we can no longer escape from, but one few others seem to notice....

...which might lead to despair, guilt, hopelessness, powerlessness.

"Some have suggested that this stage is similar to the traditional grief process, and indeed, this is a time of grieving. But there is a significant difference between this awakening and the normal experience of grief. Grief that occurs after a loss usually ends with acceptance of what’s been lost and then one adjusts and goes on. But this is more like the process of accepting a degenerative illness. It’s not a one-time loss one can accommodate and simply move on. It is a chronic, on-going, permanent situation that will not only not improve, but actually continue to worsen and become more uncomfortable in the foreseeable future, probably for the entire lifetime of most people living today. This is what author James Howard Kunstler calls “The Long Emergency.”"

The authors (and my experience over many years of working through stages of awareness with students at the Centre for Human Ecology), sense that there is a natural unfolding into acceptance, empowerment, and action once through the 'despair' stage.

"As we come to accept the limits of our general powerlessness, we also find the parameters of the power we do have in this strange new situation. We discover we no longer need to resist our current and emerging reality. We don’t need to feel compelled to save the entire world or to hold onto a world that no longer makes sense. We are freed, instead, to pursue what James Kunstler calls “the intelligent response, ” seeking and taking whatever creative, constructive action will best sustain those aspects of life that are truly most important to us in the context of the changes unfolding around us. At this point our curiosity and creativity kick in and we can begin following our natural instincts to find what is both feasible and rewarding to safeguard ourselves, our families, our communities and the planet.

And indeed, growing numbers of people are beginning to respond with a plethora of creative, socially and personally responsible actions along four paths that are similar to those identified by Joanna Macy in her book World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal and Richard Heinberg in Peak Everything: Waking up to the Century of Declines."

There are of course many more resources on psychological responses to the global ecological news. Mary-Jayne Rust is an old friend and fast becoming one of the best known eco-psychologists in Britain. See her website for recent talks on the psychology (and eco-psychology) of climate change.

Another approach is that of climatedenial.org, whose most recent post asks "Why do the websites of progressive civil society organisations pay virtually no attention to climate change?".

An eclectic update

Over the past weeks, internet activity on the theme of resilience has begun to hot up. I have a 'google alert' set to tell me every time someone writes a blog, or creates a web entry, which mentions the term. I also track some relevant blog feeds - such as World Changing and Resillience Alliance - as well as relying on many good friends who are helping to develop thinking on genuinely integrative approaches to cultivating resilience, from local community actions through to state and international level work. This process of sensing the field has also accelerated for me in the last couple of months now I am travelling widely across the UK and Rep. Ireland, connecting with many intersecting networks as I do so.

This entry is really just a list of bullet points of useful resources/ideas that you might find helpful to share:
- The Resillience Alliance held a gathering in April and has many talks up on the net. The presenters are, by and large, thinkers who have been in the field a long while. It would be exciting to find ways to connect this wisdom with the fiery energy of social change/community activist/organisational change folk. [thanks Anna for the link to the WorldChanging blog]

- Christine King has published a research paper on community resilience ... reconnecting people and food, and people with people in Systems Research and Behavioural Science 25, 11-124 (208) [thanks Tony for the paper!]

- Hazel Blears (writing in a Local Government Association report, 2007), Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, affirms that

All my life I've been a firm believer in local activism. My whole political
approach, fashioned on the streets and estates of Salford, is anchored in
localism and devolution. I've seen how genuine empowerment can bring
positive change and build the resilience necessary to prevent problems such
as anti-social behaviour, which left unchallenged will blight communities. I
believe that the best experts, advocates and leaders for local communities
are people within local communities themselves. It's they who know most
about community problems, and they who are best able to provide common sense
solutions.

Although this analysis falls short of a deeper understanding of the implications of resilience thinking for community development, it's a healthy sign that doors are open to the conversations we all need to be having [thanks Alastair for the quote]

- WWF UK have recently published a report which tackles behaviour change issues in building a resilient society. Essentially, I read this report as advocating opening deliberative spaces where people are able (as Erich Fromm observed so many years ago) to evolve beyond consumerist identities of 'having' toward 'being'... an awakening into care, compassion and insight into the interconnectedness of the web of life and the necessary to respond to the challenge of climate change by complementing the behaviour change tools of the dominant paradigm (social marketing etc.) with the cultivation of 'communities of meaning' and practice such as those that I and many others are involved in facilitating. The report stops short of calling for community development programmes which encourage people to 'unpack' the dynamics of economic growth and consumerism (or perhaps they have yet to adequately connect with this rich tradition?), alongside experiential work (in nature, using meditation, as well as the more hard-headed strategic planning of using power tools to create community ownership of resilience responses...). It does call for increased 'self determination' which I see as exactly the positive, resilience-based commuity of practice agenda we need to be collectively on the road towards.

Over the next months, I'm working on a synthesis paper pulling together the many strands I've begun to track in this blog. In the meantime, look out for new links and update posts like this.

The Transition Handbook... we all need a copy yesterday...

A review copy of Rob Hopkin's Transition Handbook arrived in the post on Thursday. It's due to be published in mid-March. My advice is to get hold of a copy, as soon as you possibly can; the first print-run is sure to sell out. It's £12.95 in paperback, available from Rob's transition culture website.

The clarity, vision and sheer optimism of the writing in this book is exhilarating. After a framing chapter rehearsing just why 'hydrocarbon twins' of peak oil and climate change mean that the only sane response is to build resilience, and fast, Rob offers a very practical feast of the core skills and strategic thinking that has helped the transition movement explode in the last couple of years across the UK. I have no doubt that this will rapidly become a core skills manual for building community resilience, and a basis for building a rapid movement for social change that will soon reach even the laggards in our institutions and governments.

As I read, I feel very at home - the book uses 'head, heart and hands' sections to move from analysis to understanding the psychology of change to an exuberent exploration of how an 'abundance' mindset can unlock phenomenal collective action - time and again Rob emphasises just what a positive focus on (re)building resilience can achieve. Rob has synthesized (and credits) three decades of pioneering, solutions-based innovators, including some good friends such as Chris Johnstone, whose understanding of the psychology of addiction is summarised comprises chapter 6. Here also are pictures from a 'world cafe' event at a convergence event run by friends at Cultivate Centre, Dublin and a lots of great stories from Totnes and the many other towns that are already well down the transition path...

When Rob says in his book that by the time I read it, the movement will have already grown... I know this is true as there are initiatives in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Grangemouth, Fife and a host more Scottish communities that haven't yet made it onto the transition site or the book. The first Scottish Transition gathering will happen on Friday, 25th July, as part of the Big Tent Festival here in Falkland, Fife, and I'll be playing a role there. For more info, contact Eva.

I am also bringing my sense of the importance of this emerging movement to my new work with the Carnegie UK Trust (see my previous post). As Mark Lynas (author of Six Degrees) says in a quote on the back of the Transition Handbook:

This is much more than a book. It is a manual for a movement. And not just any movement, but one which - in avoiding the civilisational collapse threatened by the twin crises of peak oil and climate change - could prove to be the most important social force humanity has ever seen.

The movement that the transition towns handbook contributes to is already a rising force, worldwide. This is about positive change toward cultivating resilience as perhaps the only sane response to awareness of the precipice we collectively stand upon. Thanks Rob for this gift, and for reminding me of Mary Oliver's poem, The Summer Day:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Cultivating Rural Resilience with Carnegie UK Trust

This blog post is an attempt to update old friends as well as new colleagues a bit about the opportunity to join Carnegie UK Trust as a Facilitator of a Community of Practice to support catalysers of innovative rural development for resilient communities across the UK and Republic of Ireland.

I begin to explore what will be involved, and share a bit about how I'm managing the transition.

In recent blog entries at http://www.community.nickwilding.com/, I've talked of launching two new blogs - one for local friends pioneering a 'Transition Fife' initiative, and this one focussing on how to cultivate resilience more generally. I've published reports from the Rural Leadership Programme and Get Your Voice Heard projects; explored Otto Scharma's 'Theory U' of transformational learning processes; and thought about how consultancy might be conducted with authenticity and integrity, drawing on some thinking from Buddhist Pema Chodron.

As I read back, I notice a pattern running through these posts - which connects to a lot of my work for over ten years. It is an underlying conviction that I'd like to contribute to a massive acceleration of action and learning by couragous souls who, instead of running from the implications of climate change/peak oil/eco-social collapse... are stepping up to the challenge in positive and creative and practical ways. Most recently, I have begun focusing more intently on what it takes to cultivate resilience, in practical ways, through leadership and community development programmes.

Working like crazy across several sectors in the last few years, I have become aware of many allies who are developing a similar analysis and passion - within NGOs, businesses, philanthropic organisations, even Quangos....

Time after time I find myself having conversations peppered with statements like

"we know we need a radical shift; we know nobody else is going to do this for us; we might as well step up the the plate, get courageous, and go for it.... because the time is now, not in ten years ..."

In September 2007, on the back of the emerging success and learning from the Rural Leadership Programme (RLP), I was invited by a key funder of the programme - the Carnegie UK Trust - to facilitate their annual convention of their 'rural action research programme'. We gathered in Aviemore for two days with over a hundred folk, and I wrote a blog entry reflecting on this here.

At that convention, it became clear that a good many of these 'fiery spirits' wanted the Trust to commit to catalyse a 'Community of Practice' (CoP) to support cross-fertilisation, as well as stepping up the policy impact, of our collective inspiration and practical success. The message is that transformation is possible, and in many cases already happening. And that this transformation is about a 'paradigm shift' into an asset-based, ecological and participatory way of getting innovative stuff done. The proof is not in theories but in living examples of inspiring projects that can then tell great stories to decision makers who can upscale the lessons and therefore impact of this new way of working.

The flip side of this message was that too much of this work still remains under the radar (and therefore not well supported) of the 'old paradigm', structures of funding, policy etc. which feel 'stuck' and lagging way behind the excitement of a leading edge of innovation which has some real answers.

The point of a Community of Practice in innovative rural development would therefore be to both support those innovators to connect and learn even faster, as well as catalysing the creation, through rigorous action research, of convincing stories with which to help shift the 'mainstream'.

The Carnegie Trustees responded to this call by making a five-year commitment to resource this Community of Practice, including creating the post of CoP Facilitator. As well as the 'bottom up' action research, the idea is to continue to hone and develop an holistic model of what sustainable, asset-based rural development could look like (being the key output from an extensive Rural Commission of the great and good sponsored by Carnegie over the past five years).

Although I couldn't be sure I'd get the job, I did have a real sense that I could bring a lot to the position and wrote an application (along with my CV) that tried to reflect this. I have pulled out my three summary paragraphs from the application to share here:

I have been focussed for many years on supporting the emergence of resilient, healthy communities in the context of global justice and ecological sustainability. I’m aware that rural communities are diverse and face significant challenges, even before we factor in likely major future shocks from climate change and energy price escalation (due to peak oil etc.). Working across the UK and Ireland will challenge me to learn rapidly about the contextual differences across jurisdictions (most of my work to date has been in Scotland).

I’m convinced that the vision outlined in the accompanying documents around supporting innovation, transformative learning and a genuinely effective community of practice based around ‘third places’ and virtual learning … can succeed by trusting in the positive energy of those ‘fiery spirits’ whose grounded, community-based visions will prove themselves again and again over the coming years. As I have the opportunity to connect with, listen to and have ‘conversations that matter’ with more of these key allies in coming months, the shape, content and culture of what’s needed to support the emerging of a really inspirational CoP (or CoPs) will become clearer.

The prospect of joining Carnegie UK Trust to work at a greater scale that has been possible for me before, within the context of the Trust’s emerging vision for change and the people who are making it happen, bringing my practical experience and skills to the service of rural sustainability innovators across the UK and Ireland… is really exciting and energising.

I went on to describe the substance of some of the ingredients of what I thought could comprise the face to face meetings of an effective community of practice. This is really a summary of ten years' experiements working with grassroots community organisations, as well as creating leadership development programmes for professionals and activists from all sectors. So, my starting advice to myself includes (in no particular order):

• be crystal clear about the purpose of the Community of Practice, and each event/area of work happening under its umbrella. This includes figuring out what the 'practice' is that folk share, and clarity about the domain (the area) within which we are working;
  
• invest in developing culture of mutuality, trust, authenticity and collaboration by evolving guidelines of participation through the evolving process which CoP participants are invited to sign up to;
• host events where we will actively support the local economy (eg by seeking out locally-owned/run accommodation etc.);
• find wild places to experience which can help ground everyone in the bigger ecological picture, to help us 'come to our senses';
• arrange for delicious, local organic food wherever possible, sometimes involving the group cooking for itself (great way to get to know each other);
• embed action research input and practice opportunities within the programme;
• use self-organising learning practices where appropriate (for example, 'world cafe' and 'open space')
• work with conflict both within and outwith the group process, as appropriate;
• insist on enough time and space (helped by walks in nature etc.) to help participants to slow down and connect meaningfully with each other;
• collaboratively invite inspiring content/speakers, as well as drawing from the experience of participants themselves;
• get out and do stuff (eg visit places, offer something back to local hosts);
• and if at all possible arrange a rockin' ceilidh of music and poems and stories and dancing (any excuse to get the fiddle/guitar out, really).
• and that's just a start ... the other critical component being to develop simple, attractive on-line ways for folk to stay connected and 'buzzing' between the face-to-face meetings; and my sense is that a raft of new 'web 2' technologies can be called on to support this, from blogging to webcam teleconferencing to 'googledocs' type applications, all of which I've been experimenting with, and which many other organisations and networks are actively developing too.
• and that's just a starter brainstorm ....

I got an interview for the post in late January. On my way home, I found myself thinking that this would be both inspiring and daunting in equal measure... not something any one person could ever hope to pull off alone... so I'd have to trust in finding allies to work with this project from the very beginning.

Since being offered (and accepting) the job, there's been a huge amount more to think through.

First has been to double check that I understand the scale of the challenge this job entails. Equally importantly has been to double check that I'm confident there is sufficient commitment from Carnegie trustees to genuinely support a much longer-term process of social change work than is usually possible in short-term funding cycles.

Although I arrived with a healthy sceptism that a longer-term perspective would really be possible, borne from years of attempting to prise open such spaces within local government, agencies etc... I'm now convinced that Carnegie trustees genuinely want to make longer-term commitments to chart new waters to catalyse social change, way beyond the old paternalistic funder/funded relationships which have tended to generate unhelpful dependencies, perhaps demoralising more communities than this traditional model of philanthropy ever helped.

Shifting the internal culture is one thing, however; the legacy of being understood as a traditional grant-giver, and stakeholders' associated expectations, will be another significant challenge I imagine. There is plenty to inquire about in to what extent it will be possible to 'facilitate' from a position based within a powerful organisation with a lot of history, even as it is consciously searching to find new ways of investing in it's core purpose of 'changing minds, changing lives'. It will take me some time before I begin to grasp the opportunities and pitfalls of a post that whilst being a step closer to influencing policy, may also take me a step farther away from grounded connection to rural community activism and the levels of direct accountability I'm used to in this work.

I can also see several other challenges ahead as well. This post involves a huge professional learning curve to attempt to work effectively and with integrity across England, Wales, Cornwall, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

It seems helpful to write this publicly here. This blog and others that may evolve as part of the CoP can help to cultivate a degree of transparency about this role and the challenges it throws up. This might help me to genuinely engage with and build trusting relationships with the people and projects who are rightly wary of the traditional dynamics of colonisating 'top down' approaches that all too often, however well-intentioned, can end up appropriating or neutering the democratising energy that is so often the driver of positive change toward community sustainability.

The way through must be to start by connecting consciously with the many folk who are already connected with Carnegie Rural Programme, as well as others who may be tempted to join the CoP. My question will be 'how, exactly, can I be of service'?

As well as beginning to think all this through, I have also been thinking hard about the impacts of this decision on my consultancy business, and with my work with the Centre for Human Ecology.

Turning down the heat on Nick Wilding Consulting

Is a move away from my action research/facilitation consultancy business that has really been taking off was really such a good idea?

Although, in the last year, the business has been growing fast with lots of invitations to work with folk, it's hard to crack the reactive nature of consultancy, which militates against keeping coherent focus in one area to really make an impact. I can bring the aspects of action research consulting I find most rewarding - the face-to-face 'critical friend' mentoring and co-inquiring - into my new role.

I have decided to keep the business on the backburner; there's no need to shut up shop, just turn down the heat for a while. I can honour the commitments I've made to existing clients; and there may be times when I am able to respond to ad hoc invitations. Overall, making a contribution with significantly more coherence than job-by-job work, and the opportunity to work on large scale social and policy change as well is too good to turn down.

An opportunity to re-envision the MSc Human Ecology as I step away

The harder decision, in applying for the post, was about whether I could see myself - if I was successful - stepping away from my work co-running the Masters' degree in Human Ecology for the CHE. This has been and continues to be a place where I've been able to stay connected with many exciting 'leading edges' of sustainability thinking for over a decade; the opportunity to work every year with 15 livewires - including many mature professionals stepping out from work for a year to radically reconsider how to deepen their vocation and become 'servant leaders' for social justice and ecological sustainability - has been a challenging and humbling experience over and over again.... like being in a perpetual learning accelerator machine. In short, CHE still meets my needs for a long-term community of good friends, tough questions, and depth inquiry which I value and want to keep contributing to. It's where I've learned about what a Community of Practice can be, and been my incubator as a facilitator and action researcher.

So, I've re-joined the CHE Board of Directors, and will actively look for opportunities to continue contributing to the MSc as well as thesis supervision where this can add value to my work with Carnegie. As I step away from the central holding role I've played for five years, Im also working with my fellow Directors to facilitate a healthy transition as the course evolves again, opening up space for CHE graduates to step forward in the way I was able to. There is some powerful personal work on letting go connected with this process...

... The long and short of this story is that I will start 'officially' in mid-April 2008. If you are or know a 'fiery spirit' who is grounded and visionary all at once, working away for resilience in rural development, let them know to look out for a new Community of Practice that Carnegie UK Trust is developing... it could be just what they are looking for!