IFLAS Open Lectures for Autumn 2018 - we're three quarters of the way there!

Three out of four Open Lectures for the coming season have now been finalised, with just one more to be set in stone. So, we have...


Tuesday September 11th, James Rebanks - How to be a sustainable farmer.


In the last five years, James Rebanks went from unknown rural shepherd to international phenomenon.   Initially with his popular Twitter account - @herdyshepherd1 - and then with his critically acclaimed, and bestselling, memoir The Shepherd’s Life, he documented the unique pastoral farming system of the Lake District that has now contributed to the Lake District 2017 World Heritage Site status.  James lives and works around Penrith in the Lake District, in the valleys and fells his family has farmed for more than 600 years.  He was one of just thirty people nominated in The Sunday Times 2018 Alternative Rich List: “In the frantic modern world, he is not only doing a deeply satisfying and meaningful job, which has been needed for generations, he is also campaigning to protect the land he loves and works on.”

James will be talking from a farmer's perspective on the ethics, responsibility and sustainability challenges that we all now face.


Then in early October, we are delighted to welcome back (to IFLAS and to the UK!) Kate Rawles, fresh from a tip to top cycle ride in South America for a recollection of that epic journey - 'The Life Cycle - a biodiversity bike ride'


In 2017/18 Kate Rawles aka @CarbonCycleKate rode the length of South America on ‘Woody’ a bicycle made of bamboo that she built herself at the London-based Bamboo Bicycle Club from bamboo grown at Cornwall’s Eden Project. From Colombia to Cape Horn, (or as close as you can get to it on a bike), Kate and Woody – the UK’s first ‘home-grown bicycle’ - travelled for 8288 miles following the spine of the Andes through an astonishing variety of landscapes and ecosystems, from Pacific ocean to high Andes paramo; from cloud and rainforests to Bolivian salt flats and the Atacama desert. The aim was to explore biodiversity: what it is, what’s happening to it, why that matters and, above all, what can and is being done to protect it – and then to use the adventure story to help raise awareness and inspire action on this hugely important but relatively neglected environmental challenge.

En route, Kate, who rode most of the journey solo, visited a wide range of projects and met some truly inspiring people. From a school whose entire curriculum was based on turtles to a group of young people standing up against one of the largest gold corporations in the world; from a woman who bought millions of acres of Chile to turn then into nature conservation reserves to an organisation protecting endangered monkeys by showing local people how to earn money by turning waste plastic into high fashion handbags rather than by catching monkeys for the illegal (but lucrative) wildlife pet trade. Having arrived back in the UK by cargo ship, Kate will share pictures and stories of her adventure, the highs and lows, the challenges, the ethical dilemmas and sustainability learning, the people and places and of course, the bamboo bike.

Kate’s previous ‘adventure plus’ journey, The Carbon Cycle, a ride from Texas to Alaska exploring climate change, lead to a slide show and a book that was shortlisted for the Banff (Canada) Mountain Festival Adventure Travel Book Award. Writing The Life Cycle book is underway!

Kate will be here in Ambleside on Tuesday the 2nd October, 17.30 to 19.00


Our third free Open Lecture, on Tuesday the 16th October, will be a welcome return for regular IFLAS contributor Julie Hutchison.


Transforming Not-for-profit Governance: Fresh and more diverse leadership for a digital age

The composition of boards is increasingly under the spotlight, both in the corporate and also the not-for-profit sector.  With word-of-mouth recruitment methods and many roles going unadvertised, questions are being asked about whether not-for-profit boards are representative of the communities they serve. 

 

In an intervention intended to support change, IFLAS alumna Julie Hutchison has set up a consultancy Trusteeship Matters, which uses a range of digital methods to better publicise vacancies, offer education on trusteeship, and support charity trustees by means of an online community of practice called #trusteehour.  This Open Lecture looks at fresh leadership for a digital age and how this can help a not-for-profit board evolve to meet emerging challenges."


Again this talk, along with the others, will be here in Ambleside, 17.30 to 19.00 in the Percival Lecture theatre.


To register, please email us at iflas@cumbria.ac.uk . (The James Rebanks talk is likely to be over-subscribed, and once capacity is reached, those wishing to attend will be added to a waiting list. Transfer from the waiting list to the attendance list may be at very short notice as people drop out).