Caring for Burton St Leonards

With love from
Paul
http://additionalinfo.blogspot.com

St Leonards Sharing -Trying to provide clearer navigation

Dear all,

There have been a number of confusions/ misunderstandings about the way I've presented 'St Leonards Sharing'. I copy this now to the blog -http://agoodweek.info and say clearly now that it was never my intention to divert NatWest money to compensate Hastings Pier Victims; I simply wanted to pay back the community for voting for "St Leonards Sharing" in as rich a way as I could. And if I didn't manage to raise this £6,000 for the "Hastings Truth & Reconciliation Commission (& associated reparation fund), my intention was to hold myself publically accountable for this shortcoming.

Unfortunately, it looks like (9 hours before the vote has closed) that the votes have not come in sufficiently for our £6k seed capital and we work on volunteer time and timebanked credits still.
The press release which was not printed by the Observer in the last two editions (much to our collective loss), I have this morning now published on:
http://actionforhastingshappiness.blogspot.com/p/ideas-bubbling-out-of-happiness.html

Kind regards
Paul
0780 70 66 202 - if a call will work better for you than an email?

"St Leonards Sharing" can be explored on the web at these three locations:
1)Our NatWest Community Force page: http://communityforce.natwest.com/project/5827
2) Our Wiki Site: http://stleonardssharing.info
3) The Blog about the Timebank etc - this page of which has an intro to Timebanking video by the pier and a link for how you express interest: http://actionforhastingshappiness.blogspot.com/p/ideas-bubbling-out-of-happiness.html

Thank you for your time reading this/ actioning it.

Clowning about whilst NatWest voting for 'St Leonards Sharing' Timebank ends at noon

Hello to anyone interested in St Leonards developments & beyond,
I'm still wanting to get loads more to St Leonards residents at no cost and Maria Arpa from http://centreforpeacefulsolutions.org has rung this weekend and offered to come down again before Christmas to provide more team-building support.
There are now 7 roles to be filled (a commitment of 6 hours a month) to power the St Leonards Sharing Timebank & you earn credits for those hours too so it's a win-win-win(St Leonards being the last win) if you contact me and offer some volunteer time- or come along to a Timebank monthly meeting to learn more - there's one at 11am today, even!

Clowning workshops I'm trying to get here soon so here's the message just sent to my mentor in clowning:

> "Hello Jayachitta, I hope that you are well? It may seem strange to you that I get up in the middle of the night just to send this message. For me it has become time to carry on our dialogue about what I could do for you that's worth as much as money. I'm confident that you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn how hours put into St Leonards can now be reclaimed in hours delivered by a range of skilled people local to you in London. Today, the St Leonards Sharing Timebank takes it's next major step -in an 11am meeting, and we have someone from East Sussex County Council visiting to see how we are innovating here and support this initiative which is now keeping me up at night & will hopefully lead to a clowning workshop or two from you down here. As I'm very interested in the 'Silver Dreams' lottery project goals too (which will have funding attached), I'm also interested in how you'd tailor clowning for less mobile senior-citizens?
> Kind regards
> Paul (that guy you accompanied around the streets of NW London door-knocking one fruitful night.)"

http://actionforhastingshappiness.blogspot.com/p/ideas-bubbling-out-of-happiness.html -web link for an introduction to Timebanking.

Before noon on 24th October -if you haven't yet- please go to the address where you can make the difference to St Leonards Sharing getting another vote of support, even though it's now unlikely that we'll get the £6,000 prize from the NatWest bank.
The address for info about "St Leonards Sharing" is http://communityforce.natwest.com/project/5827
You can also gonthere to become a volunteer - which will boost the St Leonards Sharing Timebank.
Thank you for your time reading this/ actioning it.

TIMEBANK PRESS RELEASE IMMANENT FROM Elize from Sussex Police & Paul Crosland (St Leonards Sharing & Hastings 4 Happiness)

Just had a very successful hour and a half with Elize from the police (including photo shoot & being booked to co-facilitate a Restorative conference in the next fortnight) - the Sussex Police & St Leonards Sharing Timebank arrangement is in place and active. Press release follows.

Alsoon Cooper, who as co-ordinator of Soundspositive, has come forward to be the main recipient of the timebanked hours being given to the police to help them with restorative justice says: "I am absolutely thrilled about this because it means the police hours will be put towards more support and police participation in my ground-breaking community project that builds new and improved relationships between groups that do not usually get along- thorugh the medium of music. So I am putting in a funding bid, for a group of police and young people (at risk of offending or who have offended in their past) to put on a music concert, each performing songs or anything else they would like to do. It's not just about the music but having the time and space to build a better understanding of each other, the differences and similarities, and being ok with that. This ultimately would lead to changes of attitude and could have a huge benefit to the town and those choices individuals from either groups make in their future, whether that be more offending or how to approach each other. If anyone is interested in playing in the band please give me a call on 01424 444330. Cheers!".

Maria Arpa & Ray Chapman's reflections after her two day-training in #Hastings #StLeonards #afhh

One of our wigs was in the fireworks show tonight!

And here is Action for Happiness's Great Dream Poster: 10 Keys to Happier Living

Now the first "A Good Week" is over, what do you do in the same building?

Hastings / St Leonards 

Action for Happiness 

& Mediation Support Centre

At the centre by St Leonards Warrior Square Station, the UK's leading "Action for Happiness" group & Mediation Support Ltd provides:

• Happiness 101 sessions (as an introduction to developing "life's most important skill")
• Support for setting up local well-being groups. (These groups generate mutual support & skills sharing within neighbouring streets)
• The first UK depot for www.streetbank.com - hundreds of household resources being shared via the Southwater Area Community Centre.
• A space for free complementary medicine sessions for the local community.
• Support with inter-personal conflicts and award-winning innovation in communication between crime victims, their offenders and the wider community.
• Courses which support personal empowerment and the ability to "harvest the fruits of all the conflicts we inevitably have".
• "Good Weeks" and "Festival Tents which offer a happiness experience" (Some earlier work Paul did in a free tent got written-up in the book "The Moneyless Man" -extract here)

The work of the Hastings/ St Leonards Action for Happiness & Mediation Support Centre & it's founder, Paul Crosland, has been endorsed not only by the local MP, but by a partner-charity (the Centre for Peaceful Solutions), by youth offending team and police staff, and by a quick petition from over 40 people who engaged with and supported our work during our recent agoodweek, and who all wanted us to ask for rent money for the voluntary work to continue for the coming year.
Some of these endorsements are on:
http://additionalinfo.blogspot.com/2011/07/endorsements-for-pauls-work.html

America Ground Independent Day Celebrations -Hastings 4 Happiness Tent

"Hastings 4 Happiness" has a tent today at the America Ground Independent Day Celebrations.
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence and considered by some as part of one of the most well crafted, influential sentences in the history of the English language. These three aspects are listed among the "unalienable rights" or sovereign rights of man. (Wikipedia)
Amongst other things in the festival tent will be this film running:

For the full set of 5 ways to wellbeing cards, please go to the America Ground stall selling jams etc (Bullet Cafe stall).

Do let us have your:
Name....................................................................................
Address...............................................................................
..............................................................................................
Tel No …..............................................................................
Please arrange a Happiness 101 Introductory hour session in the following area of Hastings & St Leonards..........................................
Hastings 4 Happiness: www.agoodweek.info
actionforhappiness[at]mediationsupport.info

Three questions during A Good Week -and some answers

It may be sometime before all the questions put out this week are answered.
Local people have been returning the cards with the questions on.
Here's one just received:

1) Name a 'good thing' -it doesn't matter how small – that someone is doing in Hastings/ St Leonards?.....

A neighbour puts fresh flowers out in my shared hallway every week 

2) What big change would you like to see so that we create a “more caring & sharing Hastings & StLeonards”?....

I would like to see an annual Hastings Residents Fair/Forum

3) Name one step that you have taken, or will take this week to make it a good week for you & others? 

I have decided to speak to a stranger each day on my daily commute

(Multiple entries welcome; different answers to the questions please. Return entries to the pink building by St Leonards Warrior Sq. Station's Platform 2 i.e. the Southwater Community Centre)

and here's Mark, who is taking on board some of Monday's suggested Extra Acts of Kindness:

TRY
Extra acts
of kindness
Doing things to help others is not only good for the recipients - it has a positive payback for our happiness and health too. When people experience kindness it also makes them kinder as a result – so kindness is contagious!

As the saying goes: "if you want to feel good, do good"
Try performing an extra act of kindness each day.
The act may be large or small and the recipient may not even be aware of it.
Ideally your acts of kindness should be beyond the kind things you already do on a regular basis.
Do at least one extra kind act each day for a week, ideally a different one each day.
Here are some ideas for acts of kindness:

1. Take time to really listen to someone
2. Have a conversation with a stranger
3. Pick up litter as you walk
4. Let someone in front of you in the supermarket queue
5. Tell someone they mean a lot to you
6. Offer your change to someone struggling to find the right amount
7. Buy cakes or fruit for your colleagues
8. Invite your neighbour round for a drink and a chat
9. Tell someone if you notice they're doing a good job
10. Say sorry (you know who to)
11. Forgive someone for what they've done
12. Visit a sick friend, relative or neighbour
13. Buy an unexpected gift for someone
14. Pay for someone in the queue behind
15. Do a chore that you don't normally do
16. Donate your old things to charity
17 Give food to a homeless person and take time to talk with them
18. Visit someone who may be lonely
19. Give blood
20. Get back in contact with someone you've lost touch with
21. Volunteer your time for a charity

(from the Happiness Action Pack at www.actionforhappiness.org)

streetbank and connecting people

People want things. Not all of these people use www.streetbank.com. It therefore helps if people who know what's on streetbank are in contact with others who aren't and cross-polinate. These magical connectors are called Streetbees and the most magical cross-polination I've seen (even before the start of AGoodWeek) is Sue's wish to get the streetbank offered spade (who has offered it I don't know), to Anita who I met and filmed, but who is off-line and presumably still wanting a spade. Next installment follows soon... Please offer a service to friends who use the web less, and if you are not clear how to offer the service, please call the number on www.telephonemediation.org.uk and we'll take it from there. (Sue is part of the newly formed Hastings & St Leonards Action for Happiness group that is running AGoodWeek at the Southwater Centre & around between 20th-26th June 2011).


And here's Debbie, who I met today and who then offered to put her collection of healing books in the streetbank depot:

Hastings & St Leonards Action for Happiness group & AGoodWeek in the last lines of this letter

http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/observer-comment/letters