Written in Stone

I made this collage of my poem Written in Stone as a gift for a friend. It's made from paper torn from magazines and an old manuscript of the poem. The frame was second hand.

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Written in Stone

A stony beach hard on my feet,

a restless sea, green, grey, brown,

splashes of white where ocean waves

meet rocky outcrops, tiny islands.

Here the veil is thin between

earth and heaven, eternity.

Sheep, regardless, eat the seaweed

stranded on the strandline.

This the beach Columba landed,

stones are sacred, water holy.

Bow your head, take off your shoes,

walk on sacred ground.

Among the pebbles, one stands out,

a pretty, pinky marbled grey

with two meandering veins of white

right angled in a central cross –

random chance of nature’s craft or

blessing from Columba?

inspired by a stone I found on a beach on Iona

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167 Years of Revolution

The Co-operative is a well known feature on High Streets across the UK. They have 5, 000 outlets, including shops, banks, funeral services, legal services all of which are ultimately owned by The Co-operative's six million members.

This model of business ownership has become well known to a lot of people and is used by a lot of organisations, for example there are housing co-operatives, health care co-operatives and many small co-operatively run businesses across the UK. All are owned and democratically controlled by their members, who may include employees, customers and local residents. The co-operative business model is a great way of running a business as it spreads risk and reward equally among those who have a stake in the business, it is often more intimately connected with the community in which it is based than many businesses are. The Co-operative can give help and advice to people wanting to set up their own co-operative business.

When the Rochdale Pioneers set up the first co-operative in 1844 it was revolutionary! Right from the start the Rochdale Pioneers distributed a proportion of their profits to their members. The Co-operative continues profit sharing to this day.

As well as its commitment to member ownership, The Co-operative has also been a pioneer in ethical business practices, for instance in 1985 The Co-operative banned the use of animal testing for its own brand toiletries and in 2003 it made the decision that all own brand coffee would be fair-trade. In 1992 the Co-operative Bank became the world's first bank to introduce a customer led ethical policy, which makes it the first choice of bank for people who care what happens to their money.

To mark this long term success, The Co-operative has just launched a multi media advertising campaign Join the revolution to highlight their ethical credentials. The campaign features people and groups that The Co-operative have empowered to bring their own revolutions to life. One of my favourite highlighted projects is Urban Bees, which was set up by bee-lovers Brian McCallum and Alison Benjamin. Brian and Alison have set up 20 new hives on rooftops and in community gardens and allotments across London, and they will have given training and start-up equipment to approximately 300 people in the city by the end of 2011. This taps in very well to the current increasing interest in self sufficiency and urban food growing.

Urban Bees is not just a one-off either. The Co-operative is very committed to bees and runs Plan Bee a campaign to save the honey bee.

Do you think you could set up a project as vital as Urban Bees? The Co-operative is looking for new ideas for revolutions in the UK, in the following categories:

• Benefiting the community


• Combating climate change


• Inspiring young people


• Tackling global poverty

If you have an idea Get involved - the most popular idea in each of five regions of the UK will win £5 000 to help make it happen!

You can also follow The Co-operative on Facebook. Sponsored Post

Partage propulse par ebuzzing

Hornbeam, Birds and a Fox

We had a lovely wander along the Water of Leith today. I took this photo of the hornbeam tree for Tree Year, if you compare it with the photo in this earlier post, you can see that the catkins are developing! It was lovely also to hear a chiffchaff calling from the tree too, we even had a glimpse of it as it flew around in the upper branches.

We also saw a wren gathering nesting material in a clump larger than its own head! Crafty Green Boyfriend took some photos of a grey wagtail that was dancing around over the water. For a bird named grey, it's very yellow!

We also had a really good view of a fox, whose eyes caught the flash in this photo taken by Crafty Green Boyfriend (who had his zoom lens with him!). It's a very autumnal looking image, but it was actually a lovely Spring day today!

It was also lovely to see a lot of bees, buzzing around, low to the ground, looking for new homes. Lovely to see celandines and wood sorrel in bloom too!

For Nature Notes

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Birthday Greetings from a Moongazing Rabbit!

gazing

at the rabbit in the moon -

white rabbit

It's Michelle's birthday today, and bunny bloggers and others across the blogosphere are joining Donna of Brynwood Needlework to wish Michelle a very happy birthday! You can also visit Michelle's blog to see her beautiful crafts and her adorable bunnies Harrington and Sugie. Happy Birthday, Michelle!

The piece in the photo was the first project I made using felt I had made from the shed fur of our rabbit Anya. You can read more about it here.

As ever, red text in this post takes you to other webpages where you can find out more!

Climate Week

Climate Week (21 - 27 March 2011) offers an opportunity for everyone to do their bit to protect our planet and create a secure future. The event highlights the positive steps already being taken in workplaces and communities across the UK, with the hope of inspiring more people to get involved. Thousands of businesses, charities, schools, councils and others will run events during Climate Week on 21-27 March 2011.

I share Suitably Despairing's cynicism about the sponsors of Climate Week. However, it does offer a great opportunity to highlight the issues and galvanise people into action. If you're in the UK, you can find an event close to you or run your own event! There's even an Ideas Bank too!

To mark Climate Week the Carbon Trust have created an infographic that explains why business holds the key to meeting UK carbon reduction targets. If you click yes on this site, they’ll use your support to get more businesses to prove carbon reduction.

Woodland Trust Creative Campaigning

The Woodland Trust is devoted to saving the UK's forests and has been particularly active in the face of the UK Coalition Government's plans to sell off England's forests. (The Government has seen some sense at least thankfully and the plans have been abandoned, though the future of England's forests is probably still not certain.)

One of the things I particularly like about the Woodland Trust is the fact that they have a Creative Campaigning section to their website. This is full of poetry, art, films and other creative responses to woodlands and is well worth browsing. I was delighted to be contacted recently by the Woodland Trust and asked to contribute a page about haiku. You can read this page here.

Earth Hour

Earth Hour 2011 is taking place this Saturday 26th March at 8:30pm local time.

Earth Hour is a campaign run by WWF. The aim is to get people and businesses to simultaneously switch off their lights for an hour, in an attempt to highlight our need to reduce consumption if we are to tackle climate change and save the natural world.

Last year hundreds of millions of people across 128 different countries and territories took part, which is pretty impressive! Will you be taking part this year? You can sign up here.

You can like the Earth Hour Facebook page to demonstrate your support for the campaign and to show the world’s governments how seriously people now consider climate change to be.

I blogged about Earth Hour two years ago here.

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