School of the Wild: A year in review
Including the main themes of 2017, and our plan for 2018
When we launched School of the Wild in 2014, there was no big plan. I knew I wanted to do something meaningful and different, and to spend a lot more time sitting around fires, getting more connected to the land, to the trees, and to people, and learning some new stuff.
So we started running classes. And people came.
In 2017, organisations started to come too.
And because of that we’ve found a new direction and a plan is forming: to pull teams, and whole organisations, out of cities and away from desks, to reconnect with the wild, and each other.
2017 is also the year when I slept under a tarp for five days in a Welsh Valley, fasting for three of them, and had a freaky connection with spiders and dragonflies. (But that’s another story.)
It’s been an interesting year. Here are the main themes, and the plan for 2018.
2017’s Main Themes
1. Nature knows best
Like any good leader, at the start of the year I looked at what went well the year before and filled 2017’s programme with lots more foraging, wild swimming, medicine walks, and land art classes — all the sessions that had worked best in 2016.
Nature, and people, had other plans.
Our Jan and Feb classes went well, but the first foraging session in March had to be moved from Wild Park to a new location — plenty of wild plants were ready in March 2016, but it was still quite early to start foraging in 2017. Luckily there was enough in nearby Stanmer Park.
It turns out you can’t impose a fixed structure on nature. The weather, the temperature, the seasons, all change when they do, and plants definitely follow their own schedules.
2. This year wasn’t the same as last
We also had to cancel several sessions in 2017, when not enough people signed up to them.
Some of these included the second and third repeats of Land Art, Wild Swimming, Medicine Walks and one or two of Alistair Duncan’s sensory awareness sessions, which had gone well in 2016. All went by the wayside.
I learned you can’t take for granted that one year will work out the same as the next, or that what was popular last year, will be this year.
And actually, rather than plan a whole year in advance, and however seat-of-the-pants it feels sometimes, I prefer to be more spontaneous and roll with the seasons and the flow.
3. We did some great new sessions
In place of the cancelled sessions, we introduced new classes with great facilitators, to go alongside our ever popular foraging — for health and for wild food, Becoming Animal, and Making Fire classes, all of which went really well.
These new ones stand out:
- Night Walks with Caroline Whiteman — we ran our first one in April, and it’s become one of my favourite sessions. An all-round sensory experience, with stillness, and silence thrown in, it’s elemental.
- Bird Language with Feathers (!)— we got people squeaking and squawking to understand the different sounds birds make, and what they mean.
- Foraging and Wild Cocktail Masterclass with Jane and Lucy Hedgewitch — we took a group up onto the Downs to forage for wild plants, then all made delicious wild cocktails. Great fun.
- Natural Navigation with Jo Wren was plugged on Twitter by Tristan Gooley, the Natural Navigator. Jo led us across fields and through woods, showing us how to navigate using the sun, wind, trees, plants and animals.
- Whittling and Mindfulness with Rosie Linford — a calming session around the fire. The main take-away: something you made yourself.
And out of one cancelled Medicine Walk in June, I created a shorter version and started leading it myself. I was amazed at the insight and learning that I and others had, and these sessions went really really well — including one I ran at Happy Startup Summercamp in September.
4. That rabbit class and innovation
And then there was the How to Skin a Rabbit Class.
I’ve written quite a lot about it here, here, and here, but in short, after no takers for the first one in August, an online debate, and rescheduling the class to October, vegan protestors turned up and shut us down just as we were about to start.
I may have milked the publicity — but it’s a story that refuses to go away.
The latest is that Brighton’s Infinity Foods have banned our flyers from their noticeboard. They’re a vegetarian, vegan shop so I can understand it but given our aims, and that we’re not actually running that class anymore, I can’t help but ask if they’re right.
The rabbit session may not have gone well, but I’ve learned that out of adversity can come innovation.
Following a request from one (less threatening) vegan who wanted to come to a future rabbit class, in January we’re piloting a facilitated campfire conversation to dialogue with people of opposing views. It feels new and different, and the start of a new strand of fires and meaningful conversations for 2018.
5. The big shift of the year
And that leads me on to the biggest shift of the year: we started to work with organisations.
It seems that it’s not just me who wants to get outside more, word is getting out and organisations are seeing the benefit of getting their people to spend time in the wild: it’s different, it’s fun, it has positive psychological benefits on well-being, and it can bring people together, and facilitate connections in a way that perhaps doesn’t happen indoors.
With so much stress and unhappiness felt within organisations, the overwhelm of email, social media, always-on devices, coupled with the desire to improve productivity and make work better through happiness and a better culture… well, spending time in nature can help with all of that.
And it’s clear that this is where we can have a bigger impact.
In 2017, we took teams foraging, and sat them round campfires. We got entrepreneurs whittling, and took busines owners for a time travel walk on the Downs.
These are some of the great sessions for organisations we ran in 2017:
- Steve Stark at Then Somehow asked us to run various sessions; for Acumen Business Club in January and June, for Jon Markwell’s Makescale in September, and for King’s College in March. We used whittling, foraging, and campfires to facilitate conversations and connections between business owners, entrepreneurs, and teams.
- In June, Luxury holidays company Journeys by Design asked us to run a foraging day for their team. We took them around Firle in glorious sunshine, and showed them lots of wild plants to eat, ending with a quirky outdoor quiz.
- The big coup of our year was being asked to run activities at WeWork Summercamp in August. Over a busy couple of days we ran 30 sessions in three engaging strands for 600 summercampers. It was a blast and WeWorkers from all over the world came together to have fun and learn new skills at our sessions.
- At the Happy Startup Summercamp in September, we ran a night walk for creatives and entrepreneurs through dark woods and fields, and the next day a medicine walk to help people find new insights, both with great feedback.
- Also in September we created a wild wine and foraging day, as part of Brighton Wine Company’s event schedule.
- In November, we ran sessions at Meaning Conference using nature to help business leaders and future thinkers build resilience, with an icy embodied wild swimming session and a medicine walk.
- In December digital design studio, Ribot asked us to do a team day. We took them into the woods to sit around fires, build shelters and learn about plants and tracking, to help people who work in different teams get to know each other. A really lovely bunch, despite some cold wet weather, they had lots of fun, which spoke volumes about their company culture.
2018 New year, new school
I’m really pleased with what we did and what we learned in 2017.
We didn’t start the year intending to work with organisations, but I’ve always wanted to have more of an impact, so in 2018, we want to expand in this area — pulling teams and entire organisations out of their daily routine to learn new skills, reconnect with the wild, and each other.
That would be really great. So if you know any organisations who need this, please put them in touch.
For our classes for individuals: foraging and other sessions are going really well, but I’m looking for more tutors who can teach different wild things, to continue to offer an experimental and strong programme. Please also contact us if you can recommend anyone.
And lastly, a big thank you to everyone who ran a session in 2017, and to everyone who came along. You make us. Here’s to a wild 2018.
