Iain Stuart
Hi, I'm Iain Stewart.
I live in Easton in Bristol with my wife Emily and my 14 year old daughter.
I came to Bristol about 12 years ago study permaculture with the Shift Bristol Permaculture course then after completing that course I I got the opportunity to become a director of Shift Bristol and ended up running the year long permaculture course for 4 years.
Prior to that I had had a career in engineering in the north east of England and I've spent many years running and maintaining large-scale chemical plants however one day I realised that I didn't want to do that forever and I resigned and retrained as a medical herbalist at the Scottish school of herbal medicine graduating from their four year degree program in 2008.
For the last 4 years I've been a project manager working for Sustrans (the walking and cycling charity) in the south west of England.
My role is to involve a wide range of people and communities in building new walking and cycling infrastructure to make it easier for people to make those everyday journeys without using the car. I love the work ... I just wish there was less paperwork!
I'm delighted and honoured to be asked by the rewild project to hold a sharing circle for your organisation.
This is a process that I have facilitated a number of times in the past for different groups and from all of my previous experience it's a process that can lead the way to a more harmonious way of working in any organisation.
Lastly, I would like to explain a little bit of the process behind a sharing circle.
The process itself is very simple.
We get together at a time where everyone is able to spend about an hour or two in the circle.
Each person in the circle has 5 minutes to say anything that they wish to say.
The remainder of the people in the circle simply listen and pay attention to what is being said there's no need to respond or ask questions or do anything else other than simply listen to what is being said.
When the 5 minutes is up we move on to the next person in the circle and repeat the process.
This carries own around the circle until everyone has been heard for the first time.
Then ask "is there anything else that needs to be said".
At this point there usually is more to be said and so we begin the process again and we repeat the cycle around the circle 5-minutes each with everyone listening carwfully to what being said.
So, as you can probably gather, it's a very simple process that gives each person in the circle and opportunity to speak from the heart and be very clear about what it is that they would like to bring to the group.
We only stop the process when - if I asked the question "is there anything else to be said" then everyone in the circle responds "no", and at that point everything that needs to be said has been said.
It's as simple as that.
I'm very much looking forward to working with you and looking forward to playing a small part in the amazing work that all of you do in this world.
Thanks. Iain.