THE POWER OF PLACE.
REGENERATIVE PLACE-MAKING FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGEMAKERS.
Course Overview
Registrations for Spring/Summer/Autumn 2023 are now closed! The first cohort of 2023 is about to set sail on their regenerative journey!
Power of Place is collective learning journey in regenerative placemaking. The aim of our course is to provide a living systems and regenerative thinking approach to how we design our places so that they can become places in which humans can fulfil their potential and true roles and all life thrives in harmony – so that the places that are precious to us beome Places For Life.
We will explore key principles which underpin the transformation of our places to centres of evolutionary potential, vibrant ecology, resilient economies where people can live with dignity and in right relationship to each other and the living systems on which we depend whilst actively applying principles, frameworks and approaches to a live project on which participants are working.
We will dive into many different questions and explore pathways forward to create the regenerative places, stories and economies our hearts deeply desire:
- What are the root causes of our current ecological, economic and social crises?
- What would places and economies look like that are consistent with living systems principles that have created the conditions conducive for 3.8 billion years?
- How do systems really change, including human systems?
- What happens if we put life at the centre of all our place-making activities? How do we design Places For Life?
- What are the unique patterns of ecology, culture and economy in each and every place which define how we evolve its story and strategy towards the next stage of development?
- Are there more collaborative and co-creative ways to lead, gather communities, and engage together in projects, missions and movements if we look through a regenerative lens?
- How do we align our economic and cultural structures to enable place-sourced potential to emerge?
- How do we shift ownership, finance, technology to serve regenerative placemaking and culture?
Place is the scale at which life works.
Life is Ecosystemic & Bioregional.
Place is where the natural and human systems connect most closely.
CITIES | TOWNS | DEVELOPMENTS | DESTINATIONS | ESTATES | FARMS | LAND STEWARDS
We can transform our places.
One by one.
If we transform the places of the world, we transform our planet.
This learning journey is for leaders who want to do just that.
OUR NEXT COHORT BEGINS in 2023.
In 2023 we are extending Power of Place to a 9 month deep-dive programme to enable participants to birth new knowledge and life into their work.
Power of Place offers an imaginative and practical way to embrace and reimagine placemaking through a living systems and regenerative perspective whilst working on a live project.
Is Power of Place for you?
Power of Place is for people and organisations who deeply sense that a different way of relating to the world around us is called for at this time. It is for people who feel that the way in which we have understood how the world works may be flawed and that they are longing for a vibrant, vital approach that generates understanding, relationship, community – and life.
Regenerative Places For Life harmonise the human systems we have developed with the planetary evolution processes that have created the conditions conducive to life for 3.8 billion years.
- If you sense that sustainability is no longer sufficient.
- If you wonder whether there is a different approach that might realise your potential, and the potential of people and places around you.
- If you have woken at 3am in the morning with your heart pounding in a combination of fear and frustration that you have been unable to find a way to shape, incubate or guide the change your heart knows is possible.
- If you want to find a way to go beyond systems change….to evolution.
- If you have seen the potential of a living systems approach but felt like a long voice in the wilderness, craving the company of like-hearted souls on the journey.
POWER OF PLACE was designed for you.
You may be:
- Sustainability and Human Resource Directors of place-based organisations
- City, town and municipality development, sustainability and strategy officers
- Government departments that have stewardship of economy, culture, environment
- Housing developers with a desire to put life at the heart of developments
- Architects who want to design places that heal – relationships, nature, people
- Land owners and estate managers who are interested in holistic regenerative approaches
- Tourism professionals – destination managers, venue owners, place-based businesses
- Brands who want to draw new inspiration from the source of the places in which they find themselves
- Arts & Culture venues such as museums, visitor attractions, learning centres
- Communities who Care and want to find a way to take practical regenerative action
- Any Organisation that is custodian or steward of land, waterways or shorelines
If you are not sure that Power of Place is for you and would like to ask more questions, please book a call with Jenny Andersson. Email jenny@reallyregenerative.org by 31st January 2023.
The Future Our Hearts Know is Possible….
We are in a time of breakdowns and breakthroughs. In the last 15 years we have experienced significant disruption of our social, cultural, economic and ecologial patterns. Many of our planetary boundaries have been breached. The 2008 near financial system collapse seems to have accelerated extraction from the environment and people. The experience of the global covid19 pandemic has cast a bright light on the frailty in our global economies. The invasion of Ukraine has highlighted our economic interdependency – even with unfriendly actors. We need an accelerated conversation about what needs to change in our world. Not just to adjust to the possibility of future viral anomalies, but to the greater challenges following in its wake.
Climate change. Biodiversity loss. Soil degradation. Ocean acidification. Economic and social collapse.
Polarities. Divided communities. Individual and collective trauma. A polluted information ecology which disempowers sensemaking.
We know that these challenges are driving deep systemic change.
It’s no longer a question of why we have to change, but how.
The Power of Place is a 9 month learning journey to help leaders take a radically different approach to creating regenerative, resilient and vibrant economies that reconcile the story of separation we have all been living. It is the future our hearts know is possible.
We call it Regenerative Placemaking.
COURSE TIMETABLE
Opening Meeting for Individual Participants
Thursday 16th February
Whole Cohort Course Sessions
Thursday 23rd February 2023
Thursdays 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th March 2023
Thursday 13th, 27th April 2023
Thursday 4th, 11th, 25th May 2023
Thursday 8th, 22nd June
Optional Retreat Falkland 6-9 July
Thursday 13th, 20th July
Thursday 3rd August
Thursday 7th, 21st September
Thursday 5th, 19th October
(Optional Retreat Mallorca 29-31 October)
Thursday 2nd, 16th, 30th November
Special Guest Sessions
Each year we have a number of special guest sessions from leaders in the regenerative field and active practitioners involved in transformative projects around the world. These are scheduled at times convenient to the participants and will be announced at the start of the programme.
The cohort begins intensively each week in March and then moves into bi-weekly sessions for the rest of the programme. There is a break in August on learning but sessions with key regenerative experts continue.
COURSE DESIGN
Over 36 weeks | Bi-Weekly Live Sessions | 3 deep-dive modules
Additional live sessions with experienced regenerative practitioners working in the field.
REINHABITING PLACE
For 98% of our time on planet Earth, humans have inhabited this place in co-mutual right relationship and reciprocity with life – all life. We humans have an important and valuable role to play in the evolution of life on earth. If we are to heal the story of separation between humans and nature we must once again find our inherent gift not as owners but as living expressions of the places we inhabit.
In this part of the programme, we explore the patterns and processes that are biologically, culturally and economically unique to each and every place from which we design our pathways to towards the emergent future that story helps us to imagine.
ENERGISING FIELDS
Engaging in a process of collaborative co-creation of the emerging future is a radically different pathway into the future compared to our traditional route of public consultation and stakeholder engagement. If we are to heal the story of separation between humans and humans and go beyond the travails of human ‘messiness’, we need to do the deep work in our Selves, in our relationships to Others.
To create the fields of human connection which can withstand the challenges of complexity, uncertainty, failure and success asks radical trust, vulnerability and growth of us.
In this part of the programme we examine what it takes to travel at the speed of both trust and urgent need.
EVOLVING SYSTEMS FROM PLACE
Systems specialist Donella Meadows famously said you have to learn to dance with systems if you are to change them. Beyond just change, our work as regenerative placemakers is to play a role as catalysts of systems evolution to allow the full future potential of people, places and the systems in which they sit, to emerge.
In this part of the journey we study how to:-
- design systems evolution from place
- design bioregional regeneration – ecologically, economically and culturally
- we study how this is happening in whole landscapes, cities and municipalities, with estate owners and natural parks, in tourism and in the built environment.
New in 2023 – optional 3 day retreats in Scotland or Mallorca.
Accelerate your regenerative leadership practice in places of power.
REGENERATIVE LEADERSHIP INTENSIVES
There are two opportunities for the cohort to meet in person in a 3 days gathering in which we will focus on developing our capacity for regenerative leadership.
In early Summer 2023 we will meet in the beautiful Field of Learning at Falkland Estate, Fife in Scotland where former Power of Place participant Ninian Stuart is changing the face of private estate ownership and creating bioregional resilience.
In Autumn we will convene at the site of former monastery Sanctuari de Lluc on Mallorca – a powerful and remarkable place – where we will be joined by author, consultant and regenerative designer Daniel Christian Wahl. In November 2022 Jenny convened a mixed group of regenerative practitioners from Power of Place, Regenesis’ TRP programme and biomimicry practitioners to Lluc and found it a transformative experience.
These 3 day in-person intensives are an opportunity for us to dive deep into the practice of regenerative leadership.
Together we will explore the qualities of a living systems leader: the courage, the integrity, the deep pattern of self-remembering that allows us to consistently manifest the individual state of being that is required of us to shape and hold a container for transformative change.
They are optional, and there is an additional cost £250 plus travel and accomodation. There are many different accommodation options at both venues, ranging from camping to cottages. We recommend if at all possible that you choose to attend one or the other.
Once you have registered for the programme, full details of each will be shared with you.
The Sources on which we draw.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants. We all build on the rock and soil which came before us.
We draw on many different fields of study: living systems theory and design, systems thinking, developmental psychology from Jung to spiral dynamics, the science of biomimicry, but also includes fields of knowledge such as restorative justice, deep democracy and the Art of Hosting.
Most of all we are informed and inspired by the regenerative design practice of Regenesis Group, J. G. Bennett’s Systematics, the work of Buckminster Fuller, Peter Senge and Donella Meadows; deep ecologists such as Joanna Macy, Elisabeth Sahtouris, regenerative designers such as Daniel Christian Wahl, and many legends of community engagement such as Adrienne Maree Brown and Peter Block. We have deep appreciate for all the place-makers out there seeking to create the world we need: from city leaders such as Ada Colau in Barcelona, to Damien Allen at Doncaster City Council to bioregional designers such as Joe Brewer in Colombia.
We acknowledge the vital importance of the way in which regenerative wisdom has been held by indigenous peoples all over the world for so long in the hope that one day we would listen.
LIVE LEARNING SESSIONS
Over the 6 months journey, there are 20 x 2 hour live learning sessions in which we meet and discuss key pillars of regenerative placemaking and design.
Each live session is preceeded by recorded lectures and reading materials to prepare and inform you for each live session.
During live sessions we meet in plenary with our whole cohort, small groups to work on our personal development, and in cohort groups to apply knowledge and insights to live projects you are working on.
If you join as an individual, we group people with similar sector interests to work and learn together.
A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
Regenerative placemaking and development is not done in isolation. Working together with a community of practice who want to share knowledge, insights, and learning openly with others is vital to progress.
We host an ongoing community of practice for all Power of Place graduates so that they can continue to develop their practice.
Annual membership of the community is included in the Power of Place fee, and thereafter annually renewable.
We meet once a month for a 2 hour peer practice session and a 1 hour fishbowl members of our community can bring their challenges and be resources.
EXPERIENCED INSIGHTS
During each Power of Place journey we invite guest contributors who have specific expertise in regenerative placemaking. These change with each cohort depending on availability.
You can see some of our invited guest speakers from 2021 and those who will be joining us in 2022 below.
In our community of practice, we invite leaders from the regenerative movement to share their knowledge with our whole community. It’s also an opportunity to connect, ask questions, and share challenges in a spirit of open and collaborative support for one another.
PARTICIPANTS COME FROM A WIDE RANGE OF PLACE-BASED SECTORS.
WHAT PREVIOUS PARTICIPANTS HAVE SAID ABOUT POWER OF PLACE.
Previous participants in Power of Place have included:-
- strategic development and sustainability directors from city municipalities,
- estate owners and management teams,
- tourism destination managers,
- construction and architecture professionals,
- entrepreneurs seeking to revitalise local economies, and
- educators and academics
Participants came from the USA, Peru, Canada, Turkey, the Netherlands, Scotland, the Channel Islands, Denmark, Sweden and the UK.
Course & COP Contributors
Past, Current & Future Contributors
JENNY ANDERSSON
Founder, Really Regenerative
Course Designer & Host
Dr DOMINIQUE HES
Zero Carbon Buildings Lead
City of Melbourne
May 2022
Dr DANIEL CHRISTIAN WAHL
Author, Designing Regenerative Cultures
Bioregional Designer & Consultant July 2022
MICHELLE HOLLIDAY
Author, Thrivability
May 2022
ROLA KHOURY
CEO & Founder
Common Earth June 2022
RUSSELL JACOBS
Partner
Common Earth
ANNA POLLOCK
Regenerative Tourism
Speaker, Consultant, Elder
WITH MANY MORE CONTRIBUTORS.
GALEN FULFORD
CEO, Biomatrix Water Ltd
Global systems acupuncturists.
DAYNA BAUMEISTER
Co-Founder
Biomimicry 3.8
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
By the end of this journey you will have experienced:-
- How to identify the evolutionary and transformative role your work/project/organisation can play in the system in which it sits
- How to co-creatively shape a future story and strategy based on living systems – together with all your stakeholders
- How to design future strategy from bio-cultural uniqueness of your place – economically, culturally and ecologically.
- How to design a culture and environment in which difference is celebrated instead of division created
- How to use framework thinking to support your work
- How to identify the paradigm of thought you (and others) are working from and consistently disrupt your thinking so that your work, your colleagues and your work in the system in which you sit, is regenerative
- How to integrate regenerative design, culture and leadership into your work
- How to become imaginal cells and agents of transformative change
YOU WILL ALSO …
- Meet and work co-creatively and collaboratively with other agents of change from around the world
- Find and share new inspiration and wisdom from a trans-disciplinary group of people from diverse backgrounds who share a belief that the intersection of human and natural systems is best worked on in place
- Develop a grounded practice and system by which to consistently work regeneratively
- Join an on-going community of practice who are committed to developing their skills and knowledge
YOUR INVESTMENT
- 9 months collaborative learning journey for professional placemakers
- 64 hours live learning and a further 20 hours pre-recorded material
- An opportunity to meet and work with experienced, globally renowned regenerative practitioners
- Annual membership of our Community of Practice
- Bi-weekly peer-practice and fishbowls with our global community
- Monthly guest session with experienced regenerative placemakers and designers
We welcome both individuals and teams who want to develop their regenerative placemaking practice. If you join as an individual we will connect you to like-minded others working in a similar field.
The additional income from corporate individuals and teams contributes to our ability to offer funded places to those on limited income or in small regenerative startups in countries all around the world.
We are also delighted to announced we have 50% bursaries for individuals from place-based social enterprises or not-for-profits. We encourage particularly individuals who are working to re-localise or strengthen local food systems, create community projects that are within housing, regenerative village design, or revitalise local manufacturing, on regenerating land, rivers or coast, or strengthening citizen democracy to APPLY. Please complete this application form and we will get back to you to schedule an interview.
POWER OF PLACE 2023 | POWER OF PLACE 2023 + Falkland | |
INDIVIDUALS | CLOSED | CLOSED |
TEAMS (up to 6 people) | CLOSED | CLOSED |
TEAMS (up to 8 people) | CLOSED | CLOSED |
INDIVIDUAL BURSARIES @50% funded. | CLOSED | N/A |
Refund Policy: Full refunds will be given up until registration closing date February 13th 2023. Thereafter no further refunds are possible.
TO ENROL: simply click on the chosen investment level which will take you straight to the payment process.
We don’t want anyone to be excluded from this opportunity on grounds of affordability. We are especially committed to using bursary funds to create equity of access to this work. For this reason, we place special priority on requests from practitioners in the following categories: 1) Practitioners who work as place-based community activists and/or organisers serving marginalised populations and/or underfunded communities. 2) Practitioners from underrepresented backgrounds, including indigenous practitioners and practitioners of colour. Please apply here.
LEARN MORE ABOUT POWER OF PLACE FROM THESE TALKS AND WEBINARS
IN MORE DETAIL
Pillars of Regenerative Design | How to Design Regenerative Places & Cultures
THE REGENERATIVE POWER OF PLACE
Why Place? Why do we begin with Place? The challenge of changing global economic systems can sometimes seem overwhelming. But we can change our places. One by one. We are coming home and coming back to life when we reconnect to the places we inhabit. Reconnecting to the Power of Place can help us transform our extractive global economies, to regenerative thriving places where all life flourishes. The global pandemic has seen the green shoots of a new glo-cal economy emerging; a return to local where we can whilst still operating in a global economy. We study the different ways in which a regenerative economy diverges and creates the conditions conducive to life, and the tools that we have available to start that transition.
REGENERATIVE DESIGN & THINKING – A New Perspective
We need a new narrative on which to build a regenerative economy in each and every place we inhabit and work. We live amongst complex living systems that have adapted and evolved for 3.8 billion years. We will explore the key principles of living systems, and help you adopt them in your projects and programmes as the foundation of regenerative design to create living, thriving places. How does the intelligence of nature deal with waste? How does nature share resources equally, and where needed, among a community? What lessons can we learn or designing our own local strategies?
A NESTED VIEW OF SYSTEMIC PURPOSE IN PLACE
Regenerative practitioners work at three levels simultaneously. We work on our own development, the development of our teams, project and place, and on the role of that place in changing the systems that surround it. To be successful we need to learn to see and map the nested systems that surround us, so that we can become effective ecosystemic acupuncturists. We learn to identify the interconnected and inter-dependent systems that affect our place and find the nodes where change will be most effective. We help to surface the our own role and the role of our projects to lift up the purpose of the systems in which we work.
ROOTS RUNNING DEEP – the patterns and story of Place
To allow our Places and the people who live and work within them to achieve their highest potential, we need to deeply understand the story that our places want to tell. We learn how to see the patterns and flows of energy and movement, to map the unique biology and culture that give rise to a new expression of the essence of our place and its role in the world. What is the gift to the world of each of our own places? What do the patterns of generations mean for how we should design? What is the unique bio-cultural essence of our story?
CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR VITALISED COMMUNITY
No place can thrive, evolve or activate systemic change unless its community comes together behind a co-created vision for the future. Creating and sustaining the energy needed for transformation comes from the heart and soul of the people within. We learn how to design and sustain collaborative community, and the deep engagement practices that support them. How do we make a shift to stewards and hosts of the future? What qualities and practices do we need to develop?
ADAPTIVE, EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN, CULTURE & BEING
Regenerative development is adaptive and ever-changing. To design strategies for our places and the communities within them, demands new and different qualities and practices. It asks us to step up and grow up as humans.
Whilst we need to learn to design adaptively, how to build in feedback loops that allow for agility, creativity and change, we also need to work on the qualities we need: courage, compassionate communications, patience and coherence, working within the rhythms of nature.
WE WILL LEARN HOW TO BECOME SYSTEMIC ACTIVISTS WORKING ACROSS THREE KEY LEVELS
Humans have a unique role to play in the development of the systems in which we work and live. That is why we are here. We are here to constantly catalyse evolution. Our organisations, projects and communities can contribute to that role. We always work on three levels simultaneously.
SELF DEVELOPMENT: we always work on our own personal development, seeking continually to raise our own potential through constant reflection and learning. Throughout the Journey we integrate reflective thinking to allow you to cultivate your inner leadership.
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT: as we work in the outer work – on our projects, with our teams and in our organisations and communities, we continuously seek to uplift the highest potential of individuals, and the projects they create.
SYSTEMIC DEVELOPMENT: most importantly we seek to advance the evolutionary purpose of the system in which we work. We are ecosystemic acupuncturists, always looking for nodal points that activate evolutionary energy.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is The Power of Place for me?
If your work involves creating thriving conditions for people and planet – from the perspective of place – and you crave a fair, just, equitable economy that is able to respect the potential of its people, today and for future generations to come. This Journey is for you.
The Power of Place is designed to bridge the knowledge and experience gap for professionals who want to find ways to transform the economy we live and work in, place by place by place.
Whether you are a tourism professional responsible for a destination, visitor attraction or venue. Whether you are a sustainability professional involved in estate management, construction or architecture. Whether you are a city urban planner, economic strategist or developer. If you aspire to create a truly sustainable way for humans to inhabit planet earth in community with other like-minded travellers, we designed The Power of Place for you.
- Destination managers in tourism
- Economic strategists in regions and cities
- Strategic development professionals
- Urban planners
- Architects
- Sustainability professionals in construction, real estate, home-building
- Estate owners and managers, private & charitable
- Farm owners, growers, agriculturalists
HOW DOES THE JOURNEY WORK IN PRACTICE?
To activate the regenerative potential of our places we need Knowledge, Wisdom and Practice. The design of the Journey incorporates all three:-
KNOWLEDGE: we provide knowledge sessions covering the key pillars of regenerative design every other week. Some are delivered live, others as pre-recorded videos or texts to study.
PRACTICE: we recommend you practice what you learn in one of two ways on the Journey. Either retrospectively on a project you have already completed to see how you would apply the knowledge, or on a current project. The Journey is designed so that you can immediately apply and experiment with what you learn.
WISDOM: every other session is a deep dive both reflective, and practical to help you discuss and develop coherence around your behaviour and being in the world. We use many forms of dialogue including circle practice, Bohmian and Socratic dialogue.
SPECIAL SESSIONS: a series of regenerative practitioners support us with their specialist subjects. They provide both presentations and open q&a sessions in which the whole cohort can participate if they choose.
How do we work together with other members of the cohort?
We form small groups from the cohort who travel together for the whole for the whole Journey. You will meet in your cohort groups in Practice and Wisdom sessions. In Knowledge sessions you will have an opportunity to meet other members of the cohort during breakout sessions and in plenary when we randomly assign pairs and small groups to work together. In this way you are able to build up a high level of confidence sharing with your group and still have the benefit of meeting a very wide range of different people.
For those of you who choose to join the course as a Team working on a specific project, you will stay together as a cohort but will also still have the opportunity to meet others in open Knowledge Sessions.
How much time should I allocate to the Journey?
In addition to the live 2 hour sessions, we recommend you plan to meet with your cohort on a weekly basis and put a further 1-2 hours aside for developing your assignment work.
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