Excerpts from our updated CIC business plan & general plots (unedited original is public on Company House).
Our vision is to use profit from activities and products to attract funding, promote ourselves and gain community momentum in a bid to purchase our own land. Our ultimate dream is to design an inspirational community green space within Ulverston.
This would have a ‘mush-room’ eco building to host nature & environmental workshops and talks, many wildlife zones including woodland, natural swimming pond, an outdoor banquet space, and a grassy amphitheatre for performances & festivals. We dream of a biodiverse home for a variety of flora, fauna and, hopefully, funga.
Although this is not our specialism, we’d love there to be an element of sustainable agricultural and permaculture practices. A parcel of the land for groups such as Redistro Bistro and members of the community to grow their own plants, herbs, and of course, with our keen support, mushrooms.
This biodiverse haven will be beneficial to the wider planet. It will also give ourselves, and many others, a tangible opportunity to do things that are joyful, and good for our home too. In a period which will challenge local and global resilience, this space will be an inspirational and joyful haven for planetary//mental well-being.
It will also be a welcoming space for all. We’ve found that many woodlands in our area are not accessible, which has sadly restricted some people from attending our outdoor events. We want our land to be chosen and grown so that the space is ideal for wildlife and also accessibility friendly, providing a safe space for other groups such as our local Mind, Age UK, Carers Society etc. to be able to use.
Creative Nature Connection
Our primary service is creative ‘nature connection’ themed workshops, events, and retreats. These will be in different natural settings, mostly local woodlands, but also indoor locations in the winter.
Our area has many diverse and rare wildlife habitats: extremely rare temperate rainforest, ancient grasslands, a wildlife rich coastal stretch, countless nature reserves, tarns, hills, and it even stretches up to the bottom of two hugely famous lakes. Yet, there is plenty of opportunity for these habitats to be used more widely and creatively.
Our community sessions will lead to increased knowledge of local flora, fauna and funga. But, primarily, they will encourage personal reflection in relation to nature, place and environment through a variety of creative activities, particularly reflective and creative writing.
Why ‘creative’ action?
As founders we are hugely inspired by our mycelial friends, we have our toes in the ‘green’ sciences and you can often find us creeping around in the woods…but we are firmly in the creative industry.
Why? It’s our passion. Creative writing, singing, creating, reading, music, dancing…are all joyful experiences which often encourage play, divergent thinking, and imagination. We think beyond art-making, for us creativity is simply the ability to effectively connect and combine separate things into something ‘new’. Taken in this way creativity is a powerful tool accessible to everyone, irrelevant of artistic talent. It’s a tool for positive future-building, it can help us to see beyond our current internal and external barriers.
We believe if mycelium could think it would be a interdisciplinary creature of interconnections, networks and deviance. ‘Mycelium Thinking’ is really a metaphor for nature-inspired creative, interdisciplinary and divergent thinking. A type of permaculture of the mind. We believe we can more effectively build a better future if we can imagine and ‘see’ it first.
Nature Connectedness
The emotive power of the arts and humanities are crucial tools for effective communication. We believe they are key to self-understanding, encouraging positive action, and deepening nature connection. Improved ‘nature connectedness‘ has been associated with heightened wellbeing, whilst also encouraging pro-environment and pro-conservation action.
However, this area of research is fairly new and full of opportunities. The best methods to effectively increase ‘nature connectedness’ are still being researched.
What is clear is that some traditional methods, such as increasing scientific knowledge alone, heavily focusing on identification, statistical information and data…are hugely unaffective as communication methods to increase connection and care for nature.
Emotive, awe-inducing and reflection based interventions are far more effective. It seems clear, to encourage care and connection with the natural world, we need to excite, empower, and, most importantly, move people.
We see this as a beautiful opportunity for mycelial interconnections between the traditional ‘green’ sciences and the emotionally affective & communicatory power of media and the arts.
Therefore our company research interest is to test and evaluate different ways to increase nature connectedness through creative & exciting community interventions.
Our Service Area
Our services will focus on the Ulverston South Lakes catchment area, stretching over to Barrow-in-Furness (rather than towards the central lakes). Our activities will support local venues and, as much as possible, provide work for local workshop leaders. We also hope to provide some workshops in conjunction with other local charitable groups. As well as providing educational lectures and discussion groups which would normally be found in cities or at universities.
Micro-publishing
We will be an eco-friendly micro-publisher (our first publication is about to be printed & open for pre-orders! Will update soon). Initially we will publish our own nature inspired creative works, but we also aim to get funding for a Mycelium Thinking manifesto and anthology, which will particularly favour, and pay, Cumbrian writers, authors and artists.
This small run of eco-friendly publications will use Northern printers and support our catchment area. Due to being on the outer fringe of the Lake District, there is a lack of creative writing in response to our area. We will diversify this through our solo and collaborative publications.
All our textual works will focus on nature connection and environmental//mental health. They will also function as promotional and fundraising tools to further share the overall vision and aims of Mycelium Thinking.
We will connect our performance, workshop and event management skills to support our micro-publishing. Such as a run of writing skills workshops in preparation for submission to the anthology, organising opening events for our publications, arranging community open mic nights for authors to share and celebrate their submissions, and promoting our publications alongside our bespoke festival performances.
Festival performances
We have designed our own original ‘mycelium thinking’ performance especially suitable for local festivals and events. As Ulverston is a festival town, with many solidified town wide events across the year, this will be another useful tool to promote our cause. It will also be another opportunity to share our publications and services at other events.
What next?
Our next event is in a few weeks (info below). But our next big community project will be incubated across the winter ready to be released in spring. A longer community support project in spring 2022 called ‘Green Ideas’ which will run for several weeks, each session focusing on a different aspect of creative nature connection, environmental//mental wellbeing & positive future building.
The project would end with an eco-friendly collaborative gallery & open mic night, possibly as part of/supporting Another Fine Fest.
We’re hopeful to support/collaborate with two other lovely local groups (we won’t say much more until its been confirmed).
We hope these plots & plans look exciting! If you haven’t already, connect with us on Facebook/Insta @myceliumthinking to keep updated.
We’re looking forward to sharing more, running workshops & performing at our November event.
Next Event
Finally, our 5/6th November Mycelium Thinking fundraiser weekender in collab with Redistro Bistro is online and open for booking.
There will be a Fantastic Fungi screening, presentations from ourselves & Redistro, bonfire night, yoga & meditation, nature connection, creative workshops, live Music & DJs…
Tasty meals made from saved foodstuffs provided by Redistro Bistro.
Rookhow, South Lakes. Huge bunk barn, Quaker Meeting Hall, 12 acres of woodland with two campfires & plenty of fungal activity.
Get in touch if you’re interested, there’s a discount code for anyone in financial difficulty.
Mush-love
Rema & Dave x
Mycelium Thinking CIC