Monday

Win Back Control of Hastings Pier in #2066

Here's the playlist “Win Back Control of Hastings Pier in #2066Country”:
Please upload your own “Hastings Pier -My legitimate co-claim via #2066Country” film on YouTube & add your name (unless you upload anonymously obvs!). 
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This film is my Part 1 (apologies that my talking to camera is so quiet -before the music comes in).
As/when I go on to record Part 2 of  my legitimate co-claim to Hastings Pier , I imagine revealing the inside story and extent of my involvement, policy making, provocation and investment with the HPWRT/Pier Charity. Also how this inter-played with the Community Development in Hastings and St Leonards, not least of which was the #2066 Timebanking gallery at the Southwater Community Sentence (by St Leonards Warrior Square Station): some of the legacy and ongoing work which is at http://2066.info

The promised links/land (#2066Country) and more:


FYI:
I’m a self-appointed (and think-tank award winning*) advocate of the “New Society”, accountable to a group of organisations collectively called the St Leonards Sharing Consortium, which, with sufficient support -eg crowdfunding- would/(will?) morph into a political party provisionally entitled “The Care4Caring and Sharing Party”; the leading branch of which (#2066Country - https://Twitter.com/2066Country) challenges our collective perspective on the non-collective ownership of property, as drawn out through the campaign to “Win Back Control of Hastings Pier in #2066”

I aspire to lead two Triratna Buddhist “Team Based Right Livelihoods” which model and recruit innovators/leaders in:

 a) the innovations in “Care for Caring” that was akin to a religious conversion for Professor Heinz Wolff: https://youtu.be/i_MZZnJhsvI ; in dialogue with me at https://youtu.be/sd5BRptG_Ek

 b) the conscious attempt to live only a third of one’s economic life in the monetary economy, with a third lived via close relationship to a Timebank and the first or last third lived in http:/Twitter.com/gifteconomics 
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 Please note that when I've emailed some of the above text and links, it has been interpreted as “trying to sell me something”!! 

 Given the opportunity to respond to this “ouchy” judgement, I would seek an agreed rephrasing that as “Lend-It-All Man”, I stand for generosity, mine and yours, asking all to reconsider how to bring about a more caring and sharing society, modelling new routes to common ownership as championed in “The 10 Pillars of Buddhism” by my profoundest teacher, Urgyen Sangharakshita.
Please connect, subscribe or follow - a quality first follower would enable so may of these ideas to gain traction; that quality "first follower" could be you!:

 http://YouTube.com/toothpaste007
http://Facebook.com/paulcrosland1
http://twitter.com/paulcrosland
http://2066.info
http://iwantyouradvice.blogspot.com/2008/05/between-okehampton-crediton-devon.html

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It really helps my/(our?) project development if you Google videos about “Refuge Tree Woods” and  comment on one of my films from the first three pages of YouTube films:
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 Some more background:

 One of the Restorative Justice books I edited: http://restorativejustice.pbworks.com/f/40_cases_final.pdf
The history of other key projects; click on links to my calendar, CV and some of my #CommunityDevelopment letters published in Newspapers: http://additionalinfo.blogspot.com
With this poem I (almost) close “Before we decompose”: https://youtu.be/fmALyCKIOZcz
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 *RE “Think Tank Award Winning” - this includes leading the presentation that won the Social Innovation Camp award - judged by representatives from the Youth Justice Board, Police Improvement Agency and Prison Reform Trust - for the mobile/web app that best reduces youth crime & custody: https://youtu.be/HUkjV2JVRPs
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Tuesday

“Brexit: An Uncivil Debate” reviewed


Review of the cultural, spiritual and healing potential of the drama: “Brexit: An Uncivil Debate”.
The fractious malaise of current times, underpinned by a lack of valuing and cultivating the skills of cross-tribe dialogue, action planning and review is the last thing I wish to perpetuate in reviewing the pithy drama: “Brexit: An Uncivil Debate”. It doesn’t even matter to me whether the key individual dramatised as the well-spring of the “leave” result, Dominic Cummings, was accurately portrayed. I do not wish to write about Benedict Cumberbatch’s acting for modern media is over-obsessed with actors etc rather than unfolding the themes to get at the underlying values and then holding these values up to the light of the standard of the highest an individual can become, which, for me, as a Buddhist, is a Buddha. First one needs to become a “true individual” and James Graham‘s drama was foremost for me a plausible account of what happened behind the scenes of the Brexit vote, showing the immense impact a “true individual” can make; in this case summarised as “the largest political upset since the fall of the Berlin Wall”.

 I could just cut to the chase now and show that what we need for healing are more Dominics. I refer you to the work in Brazil etc of my friend Dominic Barter, recognised in the “Radical Efficiency” report as one of ten project leaders whose projects have cut through the conventional state/politician-led ways of working and found cheaper, more effective ways of working. Dominic Barter and Dominic Cummings (as portrayed in James Graham’s drama) are, for me, both archetypal examples of the application of the key concept in Stephen Covey’s culminating work, which added a third dimension to his previous blockbuster of living and working from deep spiritual values (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People). Covey’s swansong work was “The Eighth Habit”, which all too gliby can be summarised as “Find Your Voice and Help Others Find Theirs”. For me, this ideology of how to empower people was the strapline underpinning the drama “Brexit: An Uncivil Debate”. The tragedy of what happens when people rally round the concept of “Take Back Control” only to have Westminster politics undermine the kind of Brexit they had mythologised was the closing of this drama (set in 2020, when Dominic  was being held to account in a fictional Independent Review of the Referendum); and the rolling of the credits was preceded by endnotes on Cambridge Analytica and another company engaged in “creative data use”(my phrase, seeking a better one), the funders and the election of Donald Trump.

 To enhance this review, I may well follow the link to watch the programme on Channel 4 and pull out the quote from Dominic about how poor a form of politics a Referendum is, as it creates a false ‘black and white’, polarising much more nuanced matters to be worked through collectively. If you are watching the programme, I’d be grateful for your pulling this out, for me.

One of the compliments I value most highly in my 3.5 year relationship with my partner, who, like me, is not ashamed to declare her vote as having been Remain, as she sat watching Dominic ‘own’ the managing board that was attempting to sack him is that few people could handle a meeting like that but that I was the only person my partner knew who could do what Dominic did in this meeting; no spoiler alerts needed –but watch it if you ever intend to plan a coup or make any difference in the world (#Textbook).

 What I take away from a night reflecting on this drama is the importance for healing dialogue of engaging respectfully with that theme that galvanised so many, and for which "Europe" (however understood) was just a symbol: Take Back Control. My intention dialoguing with Brexit voters is to talk more about the wish for and techniques of community empowerment. As for dialogues with the "rabble rousers", some as bizarre to me as Jacob Rees Mogg (to whom I was simply polite on my last encounter), I'm wondering how they can be spoken to more effectively in service of "Good Will To All Men"? (NB It was Christmas Day when I had my poignant hour with Jacob Rees Mogg…)


 The Buddhist movement to which I belong runs retreats entitled  “What the World Needs Now”, all of which arrive –spoiler alert- at a very different answer to the chorus of John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten)in his song Shroom. 

 The political and economic (and; dare I say ecological/spiritual) upheaval indicated by the Brexit vote has decades to run its course (which fits nicely alongside my plug to focus your energies as I attempt to on http://2066.info). My greatest of many mentors, Sangharakshita, effectively said that what we need are whole communities of “true individuals”, more Dominic Cummingses and Dominic Barters etc etc, not less: From FreeBuddhistAudio.com please absorb “Evolution or Extinction?” and absorb and live this template for how we get out of this Brexit / Climate Change / power in the hands of e.g. Donald Trump, Vladimir Putins... Once this teaching is observed, and it will take decades, my greatest fear is voiced well in the Leonard Cohen song “First We Take Manhattan”:

 “You know the way to stop me, but you don’t have the discipline”.
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Monday

Imagine this as a leaflet that you receive - or preferably deliver - with an open heart and a cup of tea

Dear Neighbour

I believe in community and with your positive response to my brother’s suffering we could have a wonderful community here at no cost; just a little mutual care.

My family is trying to get a bicycle for my brother for Christmas and it’s harder than you might think. Part of the difficulty is that he’s been diagnosed as having a type of terminal cancer that affects the choice of bicycle. Maybe he’ll be able to handle a mountain bicycle for now, but after the last attempt at surgery it will be a fold-up bicycle that will work best so that friends and neighbours can drive him to a favourite lake for him to cycle round as a break from being under mum’s roof all the time. You know how it is? Families under pressure? Anyhow, it’s not just a bicycle my brother needs; it’s a community and a community is, for me and him, defined by how much it cares and how much it shares. 

I’ll be calling round to talk to neighbours about streetbank.com
This is a place where you can find whatever items and support you need for free; like a community tool store with advisors to hand. The problem is that the whereabouts of the bicycle racks for cars, camping equipment, fancy dress for parties etc is hidden until we put it on streetbank.com or freelender.org or similar. Then we not only have a local resource for unexpected needs, but we also get to meet each other and believe in each other again, for love grows from connections such as I’m suggesting.

Please don’t wait for me to call round about the availability of a bicycle at your house. Instead please give yourself this Christmas by opening the door of sharing and putting items that may be of use to others online. If you’re worried about what might happen to your stuff, take deposit money (or favours/work) from people until each person has established enough trust. If you don’t use the internet allow me to help add the items on your behalf that your neighbours will appreciate being behind a nearby friendly door at their time of need.

My name’s ... and my number is ... When we next meet I do hope it is to find creative ways to help all those in our neighbourhood who could benefit from just a little bit more caring and sharing...

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Saturday

The Director of Action for Happiness came visiting

- he was hoping to find a formula to copy the success of the local Action for Happiness group, and wider St Leonards Sharing Consortium, both of which I had founded. Before leaving he told me that he put the success down to “the Paul Crosland effect”. Over seven years later and I’ve still not been asked to begin a self-cloning operation!
At the time I was funded by a credit card & a benefactor who became that because of seeing how I handled criticism. May at least one of the half dozen projects alighted upon in this diverse group discussion relate to what you do for others ...and stimulate constructive dialogue between us (Text first please on Zero7807 066 202).
Anyhow, here’s the film from the heyday of my innovative version of Community Development Work (self-appointed!) in Hastings and St Leonards on Sea:

http://CommunicatingNeeds.org



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