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February 2011
Dear Friends,
Publicity, Communications and the Beshara School
I am writing with some very good news about the Beshara School communications and publicity initiative, about the Self Knowledge and Global Responsibility project, and also to ask for your help and support with both. There are a number of new developments and points of clarification here and I would be grateful if you would read this through carefully.
The Background
After the first Self Knowledge and Global Responsibility symposium at Chisholme in September 2009 its director, Aaron Cass, was contracted on a full-time basis to develop communications and to raise the profile of the Beshara School, not just in its presence at Chisholme House, but also worldwide. The fruits of this creative developmental work have been many and various. These include the re-ordering of the Beshara website and a second symposium at Chisholme in September 2010. Monthly podcasts are available from iTunes and the Beshara School YouTube channel now has over 30 videos. There is new publicity material for the School, including a worldwide Beshara School brochure, the design of which can also be used as a template for adaptation to School programmes in other countries and different languages.
There has also been another major development, and that is the emergence of the Self Knowledge and Global Responsibility project in its own right. This is showing itself to be an extremely useful vehicle of communication as it combines in its name and conception a contemplative perspective together with the practical, and the personal dimension with the global. As such it can host and foster a genuinely global dialogue in unity, through bringing together people from their various fields of interest and expertise under a single canopy, be that a symposium, a journal or some other forum.
Self Knowledge and Global Responsibility Project
We should note that SKGR is not just another name or face of the Beshara School. This project has grown from the same essential root as the Beshara School, and in some ways it is identical to it, but in other ways it differs. For example the promotion of the Beshara School is not part of SKGR's agenda. Nonetheless it is already having a significant impact in raising the profile of the Beshara School simply by association with it.
Following the second symposium at Chisholme in 2010, SKGR events have taken place in Australia and Indonesia and yet others are in the planning stage. The first SKGR Journal has been published, edited jointly by Aaron Cass and Alison Yiangou. An SKGR desk has been opened at the Hub in Islington, among other initiatives. It became clear to those directly involved, particularly John Hill, Peter and Alison Yiangou and Aaron Cass, that the SKGR project would be best served if it were established as a non-profit social business. As such, there would also be financial and funding possibilities not available within the charitable framework that governs the Chisholme Institute and the Beshara Trust. They were optimistic that after an initial start-up period, and with the goodwill of a wide-based membership, it would be able to generate its own income and thus finance its own administration.
We are delighted now to inform you that SKGR was launched as a Community Interest Company (CIC) at the Hub in Islington, London, on 11th January, simultaneously with the launching of the first issue of the SKGR journal. On the following day, a series of talks was initiated at SOAS at the invitation of its student union, also under the SKGR banner. A podcast of this and of further talks in the series will be available from iTunes shortly.
If you would like to be kept informed of SKGR events, or to subscribe to the journal, or to find out how you can become involved please click on the link below. The SKGR project needs your interest and support. Please take note that SKGR is now building its own database, independent of that held at Chisholme, so that if you wish your name to be included on it please register your interest by clicking here:
http://interest.skgr.net
Publicity for the Beshara School
It is many years since a concerted effort has been put into publicity and communications for the Beshara School. This present initiative is, I believe, the first in the history of the School that has had the benefit of a team of people with the necessary skills and for which a realistic budget has been sought.
We are extremely fortunate to have had a talented team of people working on publicity and communications for much of the past year, headed by Aaron Cass. Aaron will continue to provide this service, which will now occupy half his time, and consequently administration costs will be reduced to around £10,000 per year. However to this sum we need to add an additional £10,000 per year to budget for design services, the printing of publicity material, placing announcements and advertising in relevant publications and other related expenditure.
Thanks to generous donations in the form of one-off gifts and covenants channelled through the Beshara Trust it has been possible to sponsor this work over the last year to date. After consultation between the Trust and the Chisholme Institute it has now been agreed, for the sake of administrative simplicity and because of the requirements of their different charity regulators, that all such funding now be channelled through the Chisholme Institute.
Any covenants and other financial arrangements with the Trust which were made specifically to sponsor the new communications initiative should now, and with the Trust's agreement, be directed to the Chisholme Institute.
Our request to you
Are you willing and able to help the work of publicity and communications by contributing a monthly or yearly sum in the form of a covenant? Could you make a one-off contribution towards it?
If previously you covenanted with the Trust to support the School's publicity and communications initiative we would be most grateful if you would now redirect your covenant to the Institute, or ask the Trust to do so for you.
Any gifts specified for this will be placed directly in an account, ring-fenced specifically for publicity and communications. If you would like to make a standing order directly to this account, the details are as follows:
Lloyds TSB Bank, Leadenhall St. Branch Sort code: 30 94 92
Chisholme Institute Project Fund No. 2 Account No. 15503360
It seems to me, and to the Directors of the Chisholme Institute, vital that this impetus, which has led to such inspirational developments, be maintained. If you have any questions or points for clarification, please call Lesley Abadi, on 01451 860663 or email: emine@beshara.org
If you would like to contribute to the general funding requirements of Chisholme or participate in the Chisholme covenant scheme, please get in touch with Azima Cullum at Chisholme or on azima@beshara.org.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Aaron Cass for his wonderful work so far, and also Hannah Peacock, Maria Young, Jason Titley, Narda Dalgleish, and Aliya and Frances Ryan in particular out of a very long list of willing helpers.
Yours, with great gratitude,
Peter Young
Principal of the Beshara School
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