Creative Climate Cafe Programme Launch Event – Combatting Eco-Anxiety and Promoting Affordable Sustainable Living
The launch of the Brighton and Hove Creative Climate Cafe Programme 2023/24 will take place on 20 Oct at the Rampion Windfarm Visitor Centre. The Creative Climate Cafe initiative will help address fuel poverty and fuel conservation for vulnerable groups by running ten intergenerational, family-friendly Creative Climate Cafes that also address the cost of living crisis. These workshops will be hosted by experienced facilitators and community leaders with backgrounds in sustainability, mental health, eco-anxiety and community empowerment.
At these creative climate cafes, people will engage in healing artistic pursuits, and build community while learning to save money sustainably in the cost of living crisis. Each cafe will address a different cost of living issue, from home fuel use, water use, food, social life and connections, sustainable purchasing, and empowering people to ask for change.
This approach builds on the Climate Psychology Association model of Climate Cafes as open, inclusive spaces for discussing climate change. Cafes allow a forum that can encourage action and educate in cost saving. Research indicates that these collective experiences can lead to better mental health outcomes and be better for the planet, as people move from anxiety to action.
The project will improve support and awareness of marine ecology, nature conservation and environmental improvements through community outreach. Sessions will run in the Rampion Visitor Centre and others at the Cornerstone Community Centre.
The launch event will feature talks for project partners gluten-free and vegan, refreshments.
Entertainment will be provided by award-winning comedian Lorelei Mathias (from comedy collective Melon Comedy) and Phil Johnstone, a songwriter and musician in the Bedford Celts. Lorelei is a resident mermaid protestor in Brighton, has made comedy shorts about the plastic crisis in our oceans and has been featured in the Guardian and the BBC. There will also be a soundscape from Remember Glaciers, a project that aims to recover stories of glaciers from the past like bubbles of air trapped in ice cores and to share them as fragments of memory echoing and fading into glacially slow generative ambient soundscapes.
This project is funded through The Rampion Community Benefit Fund at Sussex Community Foundation and is a partnership between Magnetic Ideals, Arts for Life, Ecotopia Now! and the Rampion Windfarm Visitor Centre.
As part of our community Reconnect! Programme we were very excited to run a Bee Friendly workshop, which aimed to educate local residents about the plight of pollinators, and build confidence in engaging with others in the community while tackling this issue in our city, where there are many solitary urban bees. The workshop was designed to build community, teach people new skills about their lived environment, build confidence, reduce eco-anxiety and educate!
Our expert facilitator Xenia led us through her story, and how her initial fascination with bees started with honey, she is now about 30 years on from that initial fascination, and as a vegan, she is no longer consuming honey. However, she was still as enthused by this nature’s little wonders as she was when she first learned about their existence. Bees are, on the whole, very interesting insects that are indelibly linked to humans’ food security. They pollinate over 130 fruits and vegetables, and on many occasions, they are the only pollinators adapted to these plants. They are responsible for pollinating three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants. They pollinate seeds and nuts, helping plants and trees to grow – which is vital to clean, breathable air.
There is about 26,000 known bee specie, however, out of those, only eight have the capability of building colonies that contain honey. There are a huge variety of bees, from cuckoo solitary bees known as ‘brood parasites’ to leafcutter bees. In the UK, there are over 250 known species, primarily solitary bees, there are twenty-four species of bumble bees and only one species of honey bee! It is important to remember it is not all about just bees – there are other pollinators, including, but not limited to wasps, butterflies, moths, and flies, that are equally important.
What is happening in the countryside?
As humans have industrialised farming to feed a growing global population, pollinators – animals vital for plant reproduction – have seen their food supply decline. In the UK, intensive agriculture has eroded biological diversity in large portions of the countryside, with vast swathes of cereal crops and ryegrass pastures now replacing flower-rich habitats.
Agriculture represents approximately 70% of England’s land use (DEFRA, 2011b) and as such agricultural production can have a substantial impact on the resources available to bees throughout the landscape. In particular mass flowering crops, such as apples or oilseed rape, can provide short-term but highly abundant forage for local bees, and pasture grazing can influence the quality of nesting sites and bee forage in grassland.
Bees in the City
While we might think about bees as countryside critters, about 83% of the UK population now live in an urban area. Urban areas are complex patchworks of different land uses, from green spaces like parks and gardens to pavement, road verges to roofs. Recent research conducted in 2021 in the UK suggests that urban landscapes are hotspots of nectar diversity. This means that there are more kinds of flowering plants producing nectar in towns and cities than in the farmland and nature reserve sites we measured. Bees are drawn away from monocultures into this diverse landscape, because just like in humans, a balanced diet is important for keeping pollinators healthy, helping them to fight off diseases.
What can we do?
While the picture may seem bleak globally, with so many pollinators in urban areas, there are actually many small ways we can work to help support the pollinators in our city and beyond!
Create a Bee Hotel for solitary bees to lay their eggs in lay their eggs as they don’t live in hives, or a Bee Bath for the hotter months.
Plant your own wildflowers by transforming an unused urban space (e.g. tree base, road verge etc.) or if you have a garden space you can plant pollinator-friendly wildflowers there!
In the last part of our workshop, everyone made a bee hotel out of recycled materials to take away and place in their local community. It is important that with all of these global issues, we can take little local steps, helping our nearby pollinators one larvae at a time!
We hope you enjoy these pictures of our Bee Hotels creations and are inspired to go forth and make your own!
The WaspLove Game. Wasps are nature’s pest-controllers and pollinators. This game is based on observations of the complex social life of the European paper wasp and was created by UCI and fo.am, funded by NERC, UKRI.
Tew, Nicholas E., et al. ‘Quantifying Nectar Production by Flowering Plants in Urban and Rural Landscapes’. Journal of Ecology, vol. 109, no. 4, 2021, pp. 1747–57. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13598.
… so a while ago we got a kind invite for one of our Menopause and Mind team (Heather McKnight) to speak on Menopause Mindset by Sally Garozzo, it’s now up on Apple Podcasts if anyone is interested in listening. Some show notes below from Sally summarising the show!
*** Menopause Mindset Podcast – The Power of Art and Collective Care ***
Self care not working? Maybe you need collective care.
When I first heard the term ‘collective care’ it dawned on me, maybe that’s why self care often falls short, because it doesn’t quite reach the part of the nervous system that is often disregulated in menopause.
Let me explain. The ventral vagal branch of the parasympathetic nervous system (the part that’s responsible for our sense of safety and belonging) can only be healed when we are in safe communion with others. When we feel lost, alone and unheard, which we often do at menopause, no amount of SELF care is going to fix that.
My guest today, Heather McKnight is a utopian scholar, an activist and a community worker with a special interested in menopause and in our conversation we talk about:
What Utopianism has got to do with menopause.
Why community healing is perhaps MORE important than self healing when it comes to menopause.
The good thing that collective care can actually lead to (that we don’t always think of).
The thing that we are not told BEFORE menopause that might help so many people during it.
The powerful community practice that can help with navigating the feelings attached to your own personal menopausal experience.
The one thing that holds people back from participating in helpful alternative practices for menopause (no it’s not their mindset!).
The serious mental illness where oestrogen has a greater positive effect than drugs (no it’s not depression or anxiety).
What ‘catching ants’ can do for our mental health.
The challenges we face in trying to be inclusive around the menopause conversation.
How this particular type of thinking can help us feel so much better about what we’re going through (hint: it has nothing to do with positive thinking).
Heather’s new DIFFERENT chosen word for menopause.
So if you’re ready to get a much broader perspective on the menopause, this episode is for you.
Our Creative Climate Cafe event last weekend, on 7 Jan 2023, was an inspirational space where we connected with a diverse group of people interested in climate issues from different perspectives, experiences and generations. People came together for a few hours to reflect, share and create together. We were particularly inspired by our youngest attendee, who aged seven, was furiously making save the planet posters before we even got a chance to get started!
Climate Cafes, as defined by the Climate Psychology Alliance, are open, inclusive spaces for people to talk and act on climate change. Everyone is welcome to join the conversation and get involved. When running this climate cafe, Magnetic Ideals and Arts for Life wanted to build on this idea by running a climate cafe with a difference; the option of engaging with art and creative practices.
We believe that art helps people connect so they can come together and creatively engage with ways to take action, create community, and process eco-anxiety and dread about the future of our planet. Art can help process difficult feelings because it activates the imagination allowing us to sit with our feelings, acknowledge our feelings, and then transform our feelings. It also allows us to look at different possibilities for the future to reimagine what we want the future to look like. Any art can help with feelings of eco-anxiety: think about all of the amazing art that has been present throughout different protests in the last couple of years and how those visuals on social media allow people to connect and ingest the information differently.
Our session began with tea, coffee and check-ins. People had a chance to share why they wanted to attend the event. People expressed eco-anxiety in different ways, from activist burn-out to concerns for the future, and frustrations with local and national politics and corporations. We also heard about people’s interest in nature and community projects and a desire to connect with others on these issues.
Then we began looking at some positive news stories from the last year; it is so easy to focus on what is wrong that we felt a bit of inspiration would be helpful. Each group worked on a mind map of their thoughts and feelings. We discussed a broad range of hopeful issues such as organic farming, spaces for bees in the city, circular economics and political campaigning. There were also some really productive talks on what we can do individually, starting from where we are, slowing down and changing little things in our lives.
Following our mind mapping, people worked with old books and magazines to create collages, some as a group, others as individuals and other artworks. This allowed people to focus, chat, and visually explore ideas and feelings. Themes about potential futures, food chains, anger, action and appreciating the beauty of nature were abundant. We will let these pictures speak for themselves!
Our next Creative Climate Cafe will be a drop-in session on 18 March 2023 as part of the College of Self-Managed Learning’s Festival of Learning. We hope to run more of these cafes as the year progresses. You can sign up for our mailing list here to be kept updated with issues and view our other events as part of the Reconnect! Programme here.
Finally, we want to thank Andrea, who also wrote a narrative to her artwork and has allowed us to share it below…
This art is Mother Nature, with all her colours, with all her kindness.
Being one with Nature by Andrea Lopez Alba
One of the issues has been to take Nature as property and not as one of us. This has allowed some people to use her as a resource to enrich themselves (understanding wealth as an individual economic benefit). Instead, other people have created communities with another way of living. It is to perceive Nature as a mother and provider of food for her children, therefore as someone to be respected and cared for.
I will refer specifically to indigenous communities: native people with a deep connection to Nature, with the consciousness to analyze her and learn from her cycle and her movement. From those communities, we have much to learn. Unfortunately, the indigenous communities that exist are threatened day by day by problems of power and territoriality, by an economic system that results in forcibly displacing them, losing in the process, the land they care for, and, progressively their culture and way of life.
My invitation is to continue in contact with Nature. To feel her. To allow ourselves to appreciate sunrises and sunsets, to walk on her land and while doing so, I want you to think and understand how she works and how our daily actions influence her. If the impact is negative, in our consciousness, we will start to reduce it, and if the impact is positive in our consciousness, there will also be the desire to replicate it.
With many thanks to our funders at the National Lottery Community Fund.
Skill-Sharing Sessions: Come and join our skill-sharing sessions and find some inspiration! There is something for everyone, don’t worry if you don’t feel super confident, we are here to help make these sessions as fun and accessible as possible. No experience needed, we create a safe space where you can be yourself, learn new skills, meet new people and reconnect with your purpose!
Sat 7th Jan 2023 – 2pm – 4:30pm – Creative Climate Cafe at the Cornerstone – Climate Cafes are open, inclusive spaces for people to talk and act on climate change, everyone is welcome to join the conversation and get involved. Magnetic Ideals and Arts for Life are running a climate cafe with a difference where there will be the option of engaging with art and creative practices to engage with issues around the climate crisis. More details and booking here.
Sat 14th Jan 2023 – 2pm – 4:30pm – Painting at the Cornerstone– An open painting session where we provide paints, canvases, tea and coffee. Work on your own or collaborate with others and have a fun afternoon of creative expression! More details and booking here.
Wed 18th Jan 2022 – 2.15pm -3.45pm – Wreath Making Workshop – Magnetic Ideals Artist Layla Hignell-Tully will show you the art of wreath making, showing you how you can use natural materials to produce beautiful results. This workshop gives you time to sit with and map your intentions and hopes for the future. You will walk away with your unique wreath to guide you through the wheel of the year, which can be added to celebrate or reflect on important events. Places are limited so please book ahead. [please note this is now fully booked – waiting list places only – please email heather@magneticideals.org to join the waiting list!]
Back on Track Confidence Building Programme – Wed18th Jan, 25th Jan, 1st Feb, & 8th Feb 2023 (1:30pm – 2:30pm) – – A course of four weekly sessions to build your confidence and help you reconnect with what you want to do in life. Each week we will be looking at ways to improve your day-to-day life, from getting rid of automatic negative thoughts, to looking after your well-being and planning for the future! More details and booking info here.
Little Things Workshop – 15th & 22nd February 12pm – 2.30pm – Come and learn about the basics of how you can live in a more sustainable way and connect with nature in a way that doesn’t cost the earth, problem-solving with Permaculture! These workshops are run by People into Permaculture, and give a basic intro to what permaculture is as well as a chance to look at changes you can make in your life, with simple exercises to embody the ethos of people care, earthshare and fareshare. No prior knowledge necessary!
25 February 2pm – 4.30pm – Bee-Friendly Creative Workshop – A workshop space to get creative with some eco-art and learn how we can work together to make Brighton and Hove a more Bee-friendly place! Booking info online here!
Back on Track Confidence Building Programme – Wed1st March, 8th March, 15th March, & 22nd March 2023 (7:30pm – 8:30pm, Adelaide Room) – A course of four weekly sessions to build your confidence and help you reconnect with what you want to do in life. Each week we will be looking at ways to improve your day-to-day life, from getting rid of automatic negative thoughts, to looking after your well-being and planning for the future! Booking info online here!
Find out more about Reconnect! here and find out more about upcoming events here.
Reconnect Banner with Cup of Tea and Paintbrush and Palette
Reconnect! Creative Climate Cafe – 7 January 2023 @ The Cornerstone Community Centre, Hove – All welcome!
Discuss issues and engage in creative activities around nature and the climate crisis in a welcoming environment with warm drinks!
Climate Cafes are open, inclusive spaces for people to talk about climate change, everyone is welcome to join the conversation and get involved. Magnetic Ideals and Arts for Life are running a climate cafe with a difference where there will be the option of engaging with art and creative practices to engage with issues and feelings around the climate crisis.
The session will run from 2pm – 4:30pm and warm drinks and snacks will be provided. You do not need to be an artist or a climate expert to join us! Everyone is welcome to join the conversation, and we hope to gain insight from a range of different people, perspectives and backgrounds.
The event is run by Magnetic Ideals and Arts for Life, it is taking place in the Adelaide Room of the Cornerstone Community Centre, you have any questions about accessibility please get in touch reconnect@magneticideals.org we want this session to be a safe and inclusive space.
Banner from Climate Destruction is Child Abuse Website – polluting chimneys
Magnetic Ideals support the Climate Destruction is Child Abuse Declaration – a document compiled by international professionals in child rights and protection. You can follow the Generations Together campaign on twitter @ClimateAbuse. The Declaration is to stimulate public awareness and discussion. Please read and sign this important declaration!
Generations Together Logo
As governments prepare for COP-27, the world continues to hope that they will act to remedy the currently inadequate national and international response to climate change, which already adversely impacts people and species everywhere. Up to this point, governments have continued to support fossil fuel production despite widespread public mobilization, an exponential increase in global greenhouse gas emissions, and scientists’ warnings that time is running out to ward off mounting catastrophe.
Unjustly, the global climate crisis has been driven primarily by wealthy nations’ industrialization and consumption, while its injuries fall disproportionately and most harshly on those who have least contributed to it: low-income nations and communities, Indigenous communities, communities of color, and children. Accumulating studies and real world experience indicate that due to physical and developmental factors, children are the most vulnerable to death, illness, and injury from direct and indirect impacts of climate change. They are its primary victims and they are aware of this fact, as their mounting protests attest. Recent research reports that young people feel abandoned and betrayed by adult disinterest and ineptness in dealing with this crisis that is profoundly threatening their current and future well-being. This despair feeds and exacerbates the widespread mental health problems that increasingly afflict the young. The detrimental effect of climate change on children has led many in the professional communities dedicated to children’s health, protection, and rights to classify government and corporate contributions to climate change and their failures to prevent and mitigate its harms as a form of violence against children. It is child abuse.
Magnetic Ideals are excited to announce a forthcoming programme of free training and skills sessions to develop new skills and help build community through creativity and confidence building. Will be offering courses that focus on coaching you to get back on track with work and life, learning new creative skills, putting on community events and promoting wellbeing through engaging with nature and permaculture. The programme is here to help you Reconnect with your life and purpose, and we look forward to sharing this journey with you!
We will be running these sessions with experienced facilitators from our own network and our partners such as Arts for Life and People into Permaculture. Sessions will be running at the Cornerstone Community Centre in Hove. We also hope to make the resources from the sessions available online for anyone unable to attend in person.
Our sessions will be free, inclusive and welcoming, with food, warm drinks, and a chance to chat and make new connections. The venue is accessible, and we encourage any participants with specific needs around accessibility, whether relating to physical needs, neurodiversity or emotional needs to let us know so we can make sure you enjoy and feel comfortable in our sessions.
Full details will be available soon, but if you want to know more about the programme, please email programme lead heather@magneticideals.org to be added to our mailing list!
We would like to say a huge thanks to The National Lottery Community Fund for making this project possible, and we look forward to confirming the complete programme shortly!
Sign up to the Magnetic Ideals Academy Back on Track 2 Day Workshop.
I noticed how much the coaching has helped me to revalue how I want to want to relate to my project, thank you so much for that sense of perspective.” – Back on Track Coaching Participant
In a world that is critically difficult and damaging to PhD researchers and research culture in, both in terms of workplace stress, mental health and pandemic related isolation and disruption, these two-day long sessions aim to allow researchers to develop and maintain a positive and nourishing relationship with their thesis research and their working practice. The course is run by experienced facilitators who have lived through their experiences of completing PhDs during the pandemic.
The course is made up of two single day workshops, with two weeks structured practice and reflection time between the two dates. We offer lower rates for unfunded and independent researchers, and also run a limited bursary scheme to support those who would otherwise be unable to attend – please see the booking page for more details.
The group activities are designed to build a positive relationship between researchers and their research work. The activities are based on the activities that have yielded the most positive results for those students on the Back on Track one-to-one coaching sessions that have been running since March 2021 with Magnetic Ideals. The two-week intervals and final check-in give a chance to address what has and hasn’t worked in the sessions.
Day 1 of Group Coaching – 19th October 2022
Getting to Know You (and your research) – share concerns and difficulties, hopes and fears and connect with other researchers
Ordering Your Time and Space – here we will look at the basics of our working practices, how we plan our time (if at all) and focus on ways to prioritise rest/time-off to address exhaustion and prevent burn-out, as well as organising collectively.
Building Confidence and Reconnecting with Research Purpose – building self-worth, tackling imposter syndrome.There will be a chance to share and reconnect with the driving purpose of individual research projects in order to find self-worth and motivation.
Reflections and Goal Setting – Participants will use this session to look at their self-discoveries from the earlier sessions and set goals for the next session in two weeks.
Interim Structured Reflective Practice – Optional space for check-ins on your goals and coaching tips.
Day 2 of Group Coaching (two weeks later)- 2nd November 2022
In Depth Check-in and Reflections on the Last Two Weeks – reflect on what you have managed to change and what they have struggled with. Strategies for overcoming our personal resistance to change.
Self-Care 101: Sleeping, Eating, Communicating and Moving – we look at the often overlooked basics of self-care, discussing sleep patterns, different, healthy approaches to eating and how to plan movement, exercise, and connecting with others into your working week.
Reducing Procrastination and Managing Stress – redressing workloads in a manageable way & negotiating with supervisors. The session will look at techniques for containing distractions and staying focused. We will work against the tendency to compare with other researchers, and instead work in solidarity, and how to ‘get into the flow’ of working.
Reflections and Goal Setting – Participants will use this session to look at their self-discoveries from the earlier sessions and set goals for coming months.
For further details contact: academy@magneticideals.org
Please note – CHASE DTP Funded PhD students can arrange to have their course fees paid/refunded through CHASE, other funded PhD students please contact your funding body for details on whether they will cover your course fees.
Course costs:
£100 – Funded students – who receive stipend from their institution or another funding body (we can supply invoice in advance if required)
£60 – Unfunded students – who are self-funding their research
If you are a funded student but can not get assistance through your funding scheme please contact us to discuss this. Equally if you are unfunded and find this price a barrier, please get in touch – we have limited bursaries you can apply for. As these places are very limited for bursaries, if you are unsuccessful this time we will put you on the waitlist for the next course.
What Utopianism has got to do with menopause.
