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Comment by Ann Clark on April 12, 2011 at 2:30pm

My current interest in resilience is two-fold: personal and professional. Personally the last year has been particularly challenging due to family illness and professionally I am interested in the links between community resilience, health and health services. I really enjoyed reading this document - it was lively, easy to understand and packed with useful metaphors and practical tools for applying resilience thinking. As a researcher, I welcome the fact that the document combines the practical experience of 'fiery spirits' with the way in which resilience has been theorised in psychology and ecology. While we don't want to spend hours debating definitions, 'community resilience' may be in danger of becoming the latest political/policy buzzword. So it's important to be able to critique whether it's use in any particular context is appropriate and helpful to rural communities. For some policy makers community resilience seems to equate with communities taking on more responsibility for public services. A couple of contributors talk about real change coming only when communities are willing to do things for themselves. But what about those communities that are least able to self organise? What if the public services that are currently under threat have an important part to play in providing some of the resources communities need to build their resilience? The 'dark side' of community resilience may need some further exploration - now that would be a great action research project!

Comment by Nick Wilding on March 21, 2011 at 1:49pm

This is an archive post - that sums up activity in this group until mid 2010. It makes way for feedback on a draft publication 'Exploring Community Resilience'.

Introduction to this Group In a blog post earlier this year (2009), Graham Leicester kicked off a conversation about the potential for the 'fiery spirits' community to engage more deeply with what we mean by building community resilience - with a view to helping inform future 'resilience' policy by bringing a fieryspirits community voice alongside that of more established thinktanks, military planners etc. Catch up with the blog discussion here.
Introductory resources:
(1)'Sense of Place' Resilience Podcast (2) Resilience video 2 (recorded at CAT's Power and Place event) 
(3) Resilience video 3: Dunfermline seminar, October 12th 2009 (37 mins) and flipchart outputs: 
Resilience Podcast 4: Ceiluradh, Tipperary October 2009 
Direct Link: http://ruralresilience.ning.com/video/resilience-podcast-no4Resilience Podcast 5: Kendal - Annual Rural Convention November 2009 
direct link: http://ruralresilience.ning.com/video/fieryspirits-resilienceNote that a longer audio version of this workshop is also available to listen to here: 

Comment by Davie Philip on July 9, 2010 at 6:31pm

"The point of personal and community preparedness can be summed up in one single word: resilience."

Chris Martenson is the creator of The Crash Course, a twenty-chapter online video seminar and has recently become a a Fellow of Post Carbon Institute. In the past he was a vice president at a Fortune 300 company and spent more than ten years in corporate finance and strategic consulting.

This PDF article is on his own journey to resilience.
Resilience: personal preparation
PCReader-Martenson-Preparation.pdf

Its really worth a read.

Comment by Davie Philip on June 15, 2010 at 6:58pm

Hello from Belgium where I am working with a partnership of European partners on a new course which we are calling Transition to Resilience. I will talk more about that as it takes shape.

On my way here from Ireland I attended the Transition gathering in Devon, this was a great event with over 300 people sharing their transition experiences and an opportunity to reflect on where the movement is at. The highlight was Stoneleigh's talk....

‘A Century of Challenges: Peak Oil, the Financial Crisis, and how to prepare for what’s to come’

Stoneleigh is an energy industry consultant a financial analyst and a former editor of The Oil Drum Canada.

Her analysis of the collapse of global Ponzi finance and peak oil as a “perfect storm” of converging challenges that threaten to accelerate the changes we face and have dire consequences for unprepared individuals and families.

She shocked most people at the transition gathering, which surprised me as I thought those in transition would be well aware of the scale of the challenges. She was the was the talk of the gathering, most trying to find a way to say she was wrong.

Sean Chamberlin has bogged on the talk on Rob Hopkin’s Transition Culture site here http://transitionculture.org/2010/06/14/my-conference-shaun-chamber...

Its worth listening to her talk here http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/media/2010/06//453357.mp3

This is not really anything new but reconfirms a lot we have been talking about here in Ireland and is very well said. It also highlights the need to strengthen our resilience, both personally and that of our communities.

Although Stoneleigh was the editor of the Oil Drum among many other things she now blogs here, http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

Comment by Clare Cooper on January 12, 2010 at 3:20pm

Folk might be interested in reading this key note paper which forms part of the material available at this conference in the US: http://www.apapconference.org/

Kenneth Foster, the author focuses in big time on the concept of resilience and its relevance to the arts on page 6.

Comment by Nick Wilding on December 10, 2009 at 2:45pm

The last month has been a very hectic one at Carnegie and I've not been able to attend this this group very actively; however I'm now gearing up for a burst of reflection and writing, powered on by a series of six fascinating events we've held this Autumn. Videos and audio podcasts from the first five of these are now all available (see resources in the resilience group). The last event was yesterday, hosted by Tony Hodgson from IFF and explore the concept of 'super resilience' - a look at what cybernetics and systems thinking has to tell us about designing systems that might just be able to withstand multiple, synchronous failure of our 'brittle' society. Tony's Briefing Paper Resilience.pdfinvitation document is here and I'm hoping that some of the attendees of that event will also arrive into this group to help cross-fertilise some of our thinking. Tony is already signed up here at fieryspirits.com.

My plan now is to take some time to review all the conversations to date in this inquiry (online and at events) and to pull some key quotes into themes, bring it together with some theory, and offer a document back into this group for comment (and potentially to kick start some new discussion avenues).

In the meantime, please do take a look at some of the new resources and catch up with recent posts - I sense that collectively we may be on the cusp of making some important contributions to an unfolding body of 'community resilience' practice.

Best
Nick Wilding at Carnegie UK Trust

Comment by Graham Leicester on November 9, 2009 at 8:57am

I guess many of you will have seen the recent exchanges between Alex Steffen at WorldChanging and Rob Hopkins re .... As Rob points out, they end up saying the same thing - although that is distorted in exchanges that appear to be framed in either/or terms. I recommend looking at Steffen's piece too - the conclusions are nice even if we do not agree with his straw man critique of transitioning. Two of my favourite either/ors are aired in the discussion - either plan for transition or for systemic emergency (collapse); and either secure local sustainability or change global systems to make them more sustainable. This latter is a point Steffen takes up in another post on 'community resilience' that is worth a look.

Both Steffen and Hopkins accept that we need to do both in both cases. But Steffen's need to place positions along a spectrum (bright green through dark green to grey), like other models based on hierarchies of development (eg spiral dynamics), inevitably sets up competitive tension between positions that are actually mutually supportive. This intricate weaving of subtle distinctions ('my world saving is better than your world saving') may be illuminating for those (like me) interested in the nuances of how dominant thinking cultures evolve - but overall it does not seem helpful.

What did others make of the exchange?

Comment by Mark Langdon on October 24, 2009 at 10:15am

Dear All
Just back from Palestine I fantastic and sobering trip with a great deal of discussion about Resiliance! Our 6 strong contingent of Scots recieved the warnest of welcomes and each of use was overwhelmed by the kindness, warmth and vitality of our Palestinian friends.
I was able to attend the Poverty Alliance AGM yesterday andmorining and I am keen to involve Peter Kelly and other Povert Alliance members in our discussion. It was a great networking opportunity and I have spread the wordto some new Fiery Spirit recruits.
A busy few weeks ahead with the G20 in St Andrews on the 7th Nov and the Big Wave event in Glasgow on the 5th Dec. I am keen to hear from anyone interested in organising a local discussions on Climate change Saturday 28th November - I will be holding an event in Glasgow at new arts venure Trongate 103. The aim is to give information on new paradigm thinking and to drum upsupport for the March on the5th Dec.
best wishes
Mark

Comment by Ian Jones on October 22, 2009 at 7:12am

We currently work in a culture which is driven by competition and game playing between institutions and between individual agents. If we are looking at core aspects of resilience then how do we overcome these damaging activities and focus on collaboration? This will become more relevant as our resource base continues to diminish. We will have to overcome these aspects of social exchanges at a number of levels, between different communities of practice, between individuals, neighbours, place based communities and countries.

Comment by Mark Langdon on October 15, 2009 at 11:41am

Sounds good to me Will the more practical applications of new paradigm thought and action we can evidence the better - perhaps we can make conatct with commuties in Wick Thurso and the islands and start a pincer movement!
best wihsess all out of touch for a week look forward to cattching up on my return.
cheers
Mark

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