Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Living together. Breathing together.




.... Between two #breaths is a gap of #precious #time in fact 
between breathing in & breathing out 
there is a space we cannot fill with anything else - 
a #beautiful moment which gives emphasis to time & use of it. 

#Strategic time. 
#Recovery time. 
#Preparing time. 
Outside #comfortable times where growth resides - 
take in some Beautiful #oxygen 
FREE to all people without #prejudice - 
not only for the rich. 
Let's live together likewise. 

#YouAreBeautiful 



www.pipwilson.com  

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Expectant you. Becoming Questions



.... we can all be #EXPECTANT  - 
of change 
#development 
getting better without being #sick .... 
it's me #reflecting on #BECOMING again - my most recent #book is called 
'Becoming Questions' when I asked one question every week for 15 weeks & 60 people joined in - 
#powerful stuff from a wide range of people - 
find out details by searching my www.pipwilson.com 


BHP 

Why is it that we all have wounds but we all hide it? VULNERABILITY is a strength not a weakness.

Growth does not reside in a place called COMFORTABLE

Sunday, May 28, 2017

An experience of Youth Work in the city and how it changed with developmental group-work.








For much of my life I have worked as my mission in life with Young People on the edge or over the edge in terms of their offending behaviour. Beautiful humans.

Working with gangs has been a big stretch and also a massive learning.
I strive continually to understand violence and aggression to help me to be better able to be in a helping relationship with these BHP’s.

A Youth Club as often been the base of operations. Where contact is first made.
Where relationships commence and then ……..
Branches off that base have been events outside the club life. 
Such as residential experiences in the wilds of the country - or evening or day trips in the mini-bus AGAIN to build relationships as well as extend their life experiences.
Group work conducted strategically has been a major part of developmental work for me and the teams I have led.

I want to take you into an experience that still lives in my soul - 
join me ………

...

It had always been normal for many of our teenage boys to carry knives. 
One club evening we noticed other ‘tools‘ beginning to be smuggled into the club. 
Sticks, some with nails protruding, iron bars and hammers. 
At the same time sticks, stones and bottles were being hidden outside the building ready for the end of the club evening. 
The gang was preparing for battle.

One older age  gang, late teens, numbered only a few at this stage. 
Much work had been done with them over the years: their own Sunday club with their own bank account, holidays, weekends, many court appearances. 
Now they came to the club irregularly. 
The younger gang, up and coming powerhouse - aged around 15 - 18, were maturing and were now less disruptive, 
but well prepared to do battle with the hyperactive, disruptive, violent older gang. 
It was becoming a regular occurrence for them to attack and bait each other concluding in a street battle at club closing time with sticks, bricks and bottles being thrown.

It became so bad that we shut club completely for ten days to cool off. Never ever done before.

One evening, as the workers met to discuss the strategy for the future, the meeting was ‘steamed’. 
Forty or so kids came in and all of a sudden it became a gang meeting with two older boys taking the chair between them. 
I facilitated the meeting but in no way was I in control. 
First of all they berated me and the other workers for running a lousy club – “you can’t handle it” – and then they turned on the other gang and ran their own kangaroo court.

After the slagging off came the verdict. “Stay away,” said the older gang leader, 

“Stay away for a year from now. 
You’re barred and if you roll up you’re nicked!” 

That was authority speaking, and the workers’ meeting that eventually took place that evening affirmed that decision. 
The younger gang were barred from the club for a year, the first time that a long-term suspension had been imposed. 
It wasn’t left like that, but we decided to work with the gang outside the club. 
Not reject them but, with love and commitment, intensify our youth work with them.

Two of our team members were chosen to head up the group work with me in support. 
One of our volunteer youth workers was in his late twenties, a working-class Londoner who came to us from a drug rehabilitation centre and a natural for making warm contact with the kids. 
Another worker, a total contrast from a middle-class background and was studying to be a doctor. Both had a keen sense of humour, resilience under pressure and lots of enthusiasm. 

So we commenced a Group work programme for this gang and several others including girl gangs.
Each had a maximum of eight in their group and two volunteer group workers, the same workers only. 
The same youth members only..
They met only in the mini-bus and/or the group room separate from the Youth Club.

The objectives were designed to give each group a place and a sense of security including conditions to form closer and developmental relationships. A sense of belonging was developed in each group because there was a climate of trust and participation.

The story rolls on and has much more details in my books.
But the group work method was a major break through. Negative turned into positives. 
I became a group worker.
I belive in groups.
I belong to a group.
I yearn to belong.
I believe that for you too - and all humankind …………

*

Saturday, May 27, 2017

“The greatest achievement in this boy’s life is that he breathes.”






I always remember a quote from a social workers’ magazine 
about a detention centre discharge report on a young person: 

“The greatest achievement in this boy’s life is that he breathes.” 

Can anyone be that worthless? 


BHP

I wonder what the leaders of ISIS feel and think about the Manchester murders of children & their parents? - striving to understand #Manchester +




All my life I have been trying to understand behaviour.
“We can see a persons behaviour
but we can’t see their journey” I often say.

As a Youth Worker and spending many hours with Young Offenders
I have always been challenged to understand their behaviour.
At the same time I had to try to understand my own behaviour.
Still at it.

I wonder what the leaders of ISIS feel and think about the Manchester murders of children & their parents?
I am trying to understand their behaviour.

Do they feel happy? satisfied? success? when they hear/see the death & injury toll?
Or do they feel & think that their leadership is working?
Do they see that everyone, who is not like them, as infidels & therefore deserve to die?
Does age not matter in terms of their acts of murder against innocent children?
How do they read and interpret the Koran alongside their actions - behaviour?
Do they see their mission as taking over the world - controlling the world with their ideology?

I know of the extremes of people who read the Bible differently.
There is a spectrum of interpretation depending on their life circumstances & experiences.
I know that years ago I was challenged to read the Bible from underneath.
From a position of poverty & oppression - not from power & superior knowledge.
No matter what our financial circumstances we can choose to be ‘underside’ and identify with the poorest
and work/live to help make the world more equal & loving.

On my Facebook & Twitter feed, and in real life, I have a whole spectrum of people with a range of experience and beliefs.
Political, racial, oppressive, liberation, violent, passive positions on life.
It is good for me to read, hear, see a spectrum of views which cultivate forward thinking or nausea within me.
I say to all - 'you are beautiful’. 

In Youth work I have developed a practice of working with people with obnoxious language & behaviour.
That is to see beyond behaviour to their core.
See behaviour - feel it - but also see beyond.
I search for the positives in a person and encourage them in that.
It may be only 1% - but I will encourage that element in all persons.
NOT ignoring the violence or abuse but striving to see the heart of the person.
Building a relationship in which I trust will encourage disclosure & therefore feeding my understanding of the person.

I cannot do that with the ISIS leaders as I have little chance of building a relationship.
But I still want to understand them.
Why have they journeyed to this place?
What is their story - their journey. 
Who influences them? 
Is it other humans? 
Who has taught them?
Is it a purpose of their God to live as they do?

Will they be willing to enter into dialogue with other leaders in the world?
Or are they wall-builders around their culture beliefs and community?
If they won’t meet and dialogue with others - what can the rest of the world do?
Are there other options other than fight and destroy - which cultivates even more separations?

Often when it is not appropriate for me to be in a helping relationship with someone, 
I will ask is their another person who is closer than I am. 
Can this person be an intermediary?
Are we doing enough to find another way to start some sort of dialogue?

I am trying to understand behaviour.
To love not hate because LOVE does a better job.

ISIS you were individually created innocent beautiful humans 
but your behaviour now is not beautiful but UGLY extreme.

Try LOVE rather than destroying - it is a beautiful life - not easy but BEAUTIFUL.

BHP



Jonathan Freedland about #Manchester violence - though provoking article





F
or most people, in most places, something like normality resumes. This weekend Britons might be planning a barbecue, watching the FA Cup Final or just hoping to soak up some sun. In Manchester, in a show of almost comic defiance, the Great CityGames are going ahead, so that today, Deansgate will be converted into a sprint track and there’ll be pole vaulting in Albert Square – just days after it was packed for a hushed vigil.

But I can’t help thinking of what it’s like inside those homes where normality vanished on Monday night. I keep thinking of the parents who thought life was just ticking along, and who are suddenly having to contemplate a future without their son or daughter.
I picture the visitors popping in, the endless cups of tea, the red-rimmed eyes or the tears that won’t come because the shock is too great. I keep imagining the brother passing the door of his little sister’s bedroom, unable to comprehend the silence. I keep thinking of the father who wakes up from a few hours of restless sleep and remembers after a second’s delay that, yes, it’s true: she’s gone.
For the rest of us, the world is turning again. And it is following a familiar rhythm. Lucy Easthope, who helps cities prepare for terror attacks, wrote a fascinating piece on these pages this week, revealing that a lot of what looks spontaneous is in fact planned – that those I Heart Manchester or Nice or Paris signs don’t just appear by themselves, that the appearance of multifaith leaders side-by-side in prayer is no accident. There is a ritual sequence to these things now, right down to the speech from the city leader promising that tolerance and kindness will prevail and that we will not be defeated.
There’s one more element to the process that is probably not in Easthope’s blueprint, but which is observed as dutifully as all the others. It is the search, after a decent interval, for an explanation. It is the debate about the causes of terrorism.
One camp holds that the men who plant these bombs are driven by loathing for western values, for our freedom and permissive way of life, and especially for the liberty exercised by women. The other argues that the root cause is western foreign policy and our record of armed intervention in Muslim lands. Boiled down, it becomes a battle of who we are versus what we do.
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I understand the draw of the latter position, which was staked out in a sober and carefully caveated speech by Jeremy Corbyn today. For one thing, foreign policy clearly plays some role in these horrific events. Listen to the testimony of Jomana Abedi, sister of the Manchester murderer, who said of her brother: “He saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria, and he wanted revenge,” before adding, rather chillingly: “Whether he got that is between him and God.” Recall the posthumous video released by Mohammad Sidique Khan, ringleader of the 7/7 bombers, in which he cast himself as an avenger for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. And recall too the warnings of Britain’s security services, who feared the Iraq war could lead to increased radicalisation.
Besides, such a stance has an appeal beyond the facts. It grants us a degree of control over these acts of catastrophe. It lets us think that we can bring an end to this horror, if only we change tack internationally. We can ensure there are no Manchester tragedies: it’s up to us.
The trouble is, the link is not nearly so simple or direct. Talk to those who devote their lives to the study of violent jihadism, reading Isis’s propaganda and interviewing its devotees, and a different picture emerges.
For one thing, it’s not all about us. Most of jihadism’s victims are other Muslims, in the Arab world or in Africa. When they murder and maim Shia Muslims by the hundreds, they’re not doing that to punish western foreign policy. When Isis set about the massacre of Yazidi men and the enslavement and mass rape of Yazidi women and girls, it wasn’t revenge for western meddling in the Middle East. It takes an oddly Eurocentric view of the world to decide that this is a phenomenon entirely of the west’s creation.
Moreover, what might count as western provocation, fuelling jihadism, is not as clear as some might like to think. Many on the left assume it is military intervention that turns young men into jihadis ready to murder pre-teen girls. But I recall my own first encounter with that ideology, back in the 1990s.
I was speaking at a student meeting that was disrupted by loud activists from the extremist al-Muhajiroun group. What were they furious about? The west’s failure to take military action over Bosnia. These young men were livid that Britain and the US had not dropped bombs to prevent the massacre at Srebrenica. It proved, they said, that the west held Muslim lives to be cheap.
We know that Salman Abedi was a child of Libyan Islamists, vehemently opposed to Muammar Gaddafi. Imagine his rage if the west had heard the dictator’s threats to carry out a massacre in Bengazi in 2011 and done nothing. It would be similar to the jihadi venom that’s directed at the west for failing to stop Bashar al-Assad from slaughtering Muslims in Syria – a sentiment that helped win recruits to Islamic State.
The point is, this is an ideology that can rage against western inaction as much as action. When I spoke to Shiraz Maher, a senior research fellow at King’s CollegeLondon who studies radicalisation up close, he put the problem concisely: “You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
Maher suggests that western foreign policy often plays the role of a hook on which jihadis can hang a much larger set of ideological, and theological, motives. In his latest essay for the New Statesman, he quotes one British Isis recruit he interviewed, who told him: “We primarily fight wars due to people being disbelievers. Their drones against us are a secondary issue.”
So it’s not clear what a foreign policy designed to soothe rather than inflame jihadi opinion would look like – or that it would get you very far. Staying out of Muslim countries might seem like the obvious answer, but it offers no guarantees. Not against those who can regard an eight-year-old girl and her friends as “crusaders”, worthy of death for the sin of dancing in a “shameless concert arena”.
Maybe it would be easier to bear if our fate was entirely in our hands, if a life of peace and calm beckoned if only we chose the right path. It would be a comfort, but a false one – for it would misunderstand the enemy we face.




BHP

Friday, May 26, 2017

Job Vacancies - Nation wide - to spread like the good news it is for many.





Vacancies

Y Active Coordinator, YMCA West London
Nursery Room Lead, YMCA Somerset Coast
Early Years Practitioner, YMCA Somerset Coast
Finance Manager, YMCA Derbyshire
Current vacancies, YMCA Reading
Chief Executive Officer, YMCA Reading
Reception Co-ordinator, YMCA London South West
Receptionist, YMCA London South West
Gym Manager (Maternity cover), YMCA Manchester
Operations Manager (Housing and Support), Nottinghamshire YMCA
Current vacancies, YMCA Mendip
Chair, YMCA England & Wales
Executive PA & Administrator, YMCA Exeter
Grants Manager, YMCA Doncaster
Finance and Operations Manager, YMCA Doncaster
Director of Finance & Resources, YMCA DownsLink Group
Current vacancies, YMCA Suffolk
Early Years Educator, YMCA Suffolk

U2 on Tour connecting to Manchester





HOUSTON – Rock legends U2 rocked NRG Stadium as the band rolled into Houston for the 30th Anniversary 'Joshua Tree' Tour! Despite the tragic ...
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There was considerably more security at Wednesday night's U2 concert than normal according to fans. KHOU 11 News cameras also noticed more ...
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HOUSTON -- In honor of U2's concert Wednesday night at NRG Stadium, let's take a look back at one of the few music videos the band filmed in the ...
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Mark Percival’s late try welcomes Justin Holbrook to St Helens with A BIG BIG derby win - #RugbyLeague




It's been so difficult for us.
(Manchester on my mind all the time so #RugbyLeague 
does not compare to this)
We have had a bad run as a #RugbyLeague team
(I still weep when I see images of Manchester)
Our team is well down the league.
MrsBeautiful & me on the sofa suffering
from low 'self esteem #RugbyLeague' - wise
(and below this post on my www.pipwilson.com 
a Youth Club ex - writes so beautifully - heart rendering about Manchester)
YET something beautiful for us - we beat our rivals THE PIES The Pie Eaters from Wigan - we won dramatically with a new manager justin- Justin
(AND before the game a minute of utter silence for Manchester - heartbreaking)

From The Guardian today::
Justin Holbrook could be forgiven for thinking life as a Super League coach is always this easy. There will be tougher times ahead for the new man in charge at St Helens, but this has been quite the seamless transition for the Australian as he begins the sizeable task of reviving the Saints’ fortunes.
Holbrook watched on last week as his new side produced the standout performance of Magic Weekend, beating Hull FC 45-0. His first official match could not have been much tougher – the rip-roarer that is rugby league’s greatest derby, St Helens against Wigan.
While, understandably, a lot of the traits which see Holbrook’s side languishing in mid-table halfway through the season remain, this was a game which, claimed right at the death courtesy of Mark Percival’s try, St Helens may not have won earlier this year.
“It was a tough old game,” Holbrook said. “I’m only new but I knew how big a game this was and I tried not to shy away from it. I knew how much it means to both clubs and for us to find a way to win, it was great.”
There have already been some marvellous games in Super League this year, but this surely ranks as one of the best to date. It was nerve-jangling and not settled until the full-time hooter. Wigan led 14-12 at half-time but ultimately their young side’s defensive efforts would prove in vain.
It is now four games without victory for the reigning Super League champions yet their coach, Shaun Wane, remains unperturbed about risking losing touch with the top four. “I’m chuffed with their efforts,” he said. “I’ve got half of my salary cap sat in the gym: we’ll be all right. But that’s one we could have, and should have, won.”
Wigan actually extended their lead to six points thanks to Joe Burgess’s second-half try and looked set to claim a priceless derby victory.
However, Percival’s first try, a wonderful piece of individual play, levelled the score at 18-18. Thomas Leuluai then gave Wigan a one-point lead with a drop goal before Percival kickstarted the Holbrook era with a bang.
St Helens Makinson; Swift, Percival, Morgan, Grace; Fages, Smith; Walmsley, Roby, Amor, Taia, Wilkin, Knowles. Interchange McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Douglas, Thompson, Lee. Tries Morgan, Taia, Percival 2. Goals Percival 3.
Wigan Tierney; Davies, Forsyth, Burgess, Marshall; Williams, Leuluai; Nuuausala, McIlorum, Sutton, Isa, Farrell, O’Loughlin. Interchange Field, Powell, Tautai, Wells. Tries Davies, Tierney, Burgess. Goals Williams 3. Drop goal Leuluai.


BHP

Just one reflection on Manchester




This written by a back-in-the-day member of my Youth Club some 35 years ago ......... from the heart ...........



It is frightening to see troops on our streets. When I saw it I felt like I was watching news from a foreign country.  When I look at my 17 month old grandson playing with his toys and chatting away I wonder what kind of world he will know.  I have loved him since the day he was born; that innocent little face, that grin, the massive smile that reaches his eyes. The way he spontaneously runs over and hugs me just because he wants to or laughs hysterically at a funny face. The way he lights up a room and my life just by being in it. He has been in my life a short while and yet I can't remember him not being here. 

I have cried buckets for those families in Manchester for those beautiful lost children and cannot bear to think of their pain. It is every parents worst nightmare to outlive their child.  People say don't let terrorists win, but as someone said today they have. They want to inflict grief and heartbreak and they have succeeded in doing so. I don't want my daughter and son in law to be brave and go to a west end theatre or museum because what I do know is that none of us would want to be in the shoes of those parents. I will never forget the total shock of that news and I pray for those poor grief stricken families x

 
🅱🅴🅰🆄🆃🅸🅵🆄🅻 🅷🆄🅼🅰🅽
#YouAreBeautiful 
TWITTER @RealPipWilson

My friend






"Your beloved and your friends were once strangers. 
Somehow at a particular time, 
they came from the distance toward your life. Their arrival seemed so accidental and contingent. 
Now your life is unimaginable without them." 

John ODonohue 


BHP 

Thursday, May 25, 2017

The Blob Tree has gone magnetic - a game/play/engaging/fun yet getting into learning emotional language.






MAGNETIC
The Blob Tree has gone all 'magnetic'
an interactive 'move the Blobs yourself' experience
have a peep 
See the details above

MORE details about Blob Tree Materials below::




BHP

These two #books cover most of my life I have yet to live the rest of it of course ….. Pip Wilson







These two #books cover most of my life
I have yet to live the rest of it of course …..
I am not proud of everything I have done.
Lots of stuff in here is not me NOW!
Yet it is reality - me as I was - doing my best ......
but 
if this #journey is of interest to you::
* #Urban* #Youth-Work* #Stumbling #Faith* #Failure* #Hurts* #Becoming*
#Young-Offenders* #Gangs #Training / #Facilitation * #Group-Work *
* #Blob-Tree * #Communication-Tools * #Awareness * #Skills * Emotions*
* #Feelings * Seeing beyond behaviour * #SeeBeautiful

GUTTER FEELINGS
DETAILS HERE
If I could get you to read ONE book of mine
it would be the one with
60 years of my journey in it.
called Gutter Feelings 
- the 2012 edition.
In the foreword  -  these words ring true 
"This is not a success story"
The Back Streets of Heaven.
ABOUT what I am doing now with my Training / Facilitation + Group Work + supporting people as a helping friend.
#Social, #Emotional, #Spiritual #reflections and #stories from a #Human #Becoming.
#Journeying with me through working with #groups
Young Humans/Urban workers/ #Hostels/ # #YMCA’s / #Developmental #Methodology / #Loveology

SEE HERE for more details