Treeplanting

We had to do without the much hoped-for sunshine, but the Leafy summer programme in Castle Head Field Studies Centre made more than up for that with lots of bright fun and excitement. It was great working with the children from Chorley New Road Primary School, and the families from Webster Primary School, and we all hope to see you again next year.

So what did we do? We learnt to navigate and paddle together during the canoeing, felt the cold when jumping into the river; we transplanted trees for a new forest to grow; we searched for small forest mammals and found two bank voles in the carefully set traps (and of course let them run free after taking a close look!); we learnt to relax and switch on our personal “superpowers” during Colm’s mindfulness sessions; we giggled and laughed with Robin and his laughing witch; sang songs about the planet and our food with Pauline; learnt about carbon dioxide and the little things we all can do to stop climate change… and had a whole lot of other special moments that we will remember for a long time to come.

And here are some of the comments the kids gave us about the Leafy experience:

“I really liked the canoeing best because everyone was smiling and everyone worked as a team.”

“I will always turn the lights off when I go home, and also tell my mum.”

“We need to do something about climate change before it is too late.”

“I learned that we are wasting too much energy.”

“I’m sad because we have to go back today.”

“Laughing makes you happier and feel better.”

“I like the canoeing because we jumped into the water at the end.”

“Can we come back next year?” (We very much hope that you will be back next year!)

For more  photos of the week, have a look at our Facebook page!

Not surprisingly, the last few weeks have been incredibly busy. Although we have a fantastic team of education officers that prepare and deliver our different activities, the residentials always come with a load of expected and unexpected organisational tasks that all have “priority”…

At the same time, we were setting up our new family programme – a two-day residential for families that will be piloted this week. For that, we were working with Webster Primary School in Greenheys, Manchester, introducing the programme to parents at a family taster session at the end of June. Our little sessions of laughter for health and mindfulness, and a mini eco-excursion into the school grounds, seem to have caught on, and more than 30 people signed up despite the late notice – leaving us happy and swamped with things to organise! If the actual programme goes equally well, which I’m sure it will, the family days will become a regular feature in the Leafy calendar next year.

Unfortunately, this affected our activity on here – so apologies for the silence. But this is sure to change in any case – as soon as we are back, you will find a whole lot of pictures, comments and experiences here to give you a flavour of an exciting week of eco-adventure and mindful relaxation. So watch this space….

Mindfulness can sound a bit alien and even esoteric, but really, there is literally nothing more natural than being mindful and reaping benefits from it.

I am mindful when I am engrossed in doing something I enjoy that requires care and attention. For example, gardening. I am mindful of stepping lightly, pressing on the ground gently and thinning the plants just right so that the ones that remain grow healthily, and, at the same time, so that I do not remove too many of the plants. When I am mindful, I feel most alive.

This is why some people cannot get enough of mountain climbing or surfing. When you are at the peak of concentration and awareness it feels like a whole world opens up to you. In mountain climbing, you have to be aware of the position of your body in relation to to the rock. In addition, you have to be aware of the particularities of the the rock surface around you. Finally, you have to concentrate on where when and how to move, coordinating movements of all parts of your body. And when you have enough skills, it all comes together to produce an exhilarating experience of climbing a mountain.

All of this doe not mean though that in order to experience mindfulness you have to engage in extreme sports. Mindfulness can be present at each moment: there can be mindful lying down, mindful sitting, mindful walking mindful gardening, mindful washing up. It is difficult to believe, but any mindful activity can give the same sensation of being fully alive as any extreme sport.

When I am mindful, I am aware of my own body, feelings and thought, of my surroundings, and of the interaction between myself and the world. When I am mindful, I concentrate on the task at hand, while being aware.

When I am not mindful, I might suddenly realise that I have been surfing the Internet for two hours, cannot remember a single website that I have seen in that period, and that I am hurting with hunger.  This is unmindful. I can see clearly that it is better to be mindful than otherwise.

When I am mindful, it is less likely that I will harm either myself (by running too hungry, too tired, too stressed), or others – by being inattentive, rude, dismissive and treating other people and beings as objects.

When I am mindful, I am more in tune with my own wishes, needs and abilities. I can see more clearly what is desirable and what is possible. This way, I am inserting myself into the world in such a way that is more sustainable, than if I were to push myself, or push my environment to the limits of what either of us can take.

Mindfulness in daily life can be described as a continuous “reality check”: the internal and external realities of my life. I am mindful of being hungry – I eat (instead of working until starving, collapsing and snapping at people around and overeating). I am mindful of being full – I stop eating (instead of overeating and wasting resources). I am mindful of being upset – I might avoid compulsive buying, because I know I do not really need that something, I am only thinking of buying it to ease some pain. I am mindful of the flower bed being overgrown – I go and weed it when I have time and energy.

Like I said in the beginning, there is nothing more natural than being mindful.

We are really entering new territory here. None of us have much experience with writing blogs or any other form of online presence (with the exception of our website, and a standard travel blog and an under-used facebook page in my own case). Yet at Leafy we jointly feel that new media, and a blog in particular, can offer a new way to reach out and provide another dimension to our work. I received very valuable hints on how to start out from Chi-Chi Ekweozor of Real Fresh TV, who gave me a run-through of social media basics at the Connecting 2.0 Communities Event in Manchester in February. And so I am making a start to the Leafy blog.

This blog is intended to do three main things. The first, and possibly most important, is to inform you of the developments within Leafy. We have a news section on our website, but we feel the blog can give a more informal and regular “behind-the-scenes” look. As we are still a very young organisation which is run entirely by volunteers, it is important to us to show the dedication and experience that all the contributors bring in (as the term ‘volunteer-run’ sometimes carries a slightly amateurish ring to it).

A second idea for the blog is to use it as a space to discuss and work on the conceptual basis of Leafy’s activities. We place a lot of emphasis on the holistic and integrative nature of our programmes, which combine adventure, volunteering, mindfulness and eco-learning to give young people the skills to make a positive change in the world. Yet these terms carry a variety of meanings and approaches, which we want to clarify and constantly refine to provide the best programmes possible.

Thirdly, we would like to offer the blog as a platform for schools, teachers, and the young people on our programmes to give an account of their Leafy experiences, and how they followed them up with other events and activities. This might take a little while to kick-off, but in the future you can expect a variety of different stories and accounts here.

Thanks for visiting the Leafy blog and reading our very first post, and we look forward to seeing you as a regular visitor!