Happy new year! We hope 2015 is off to a good start for you all. For those of you that made it to the walk in the woods over Christmas, photos are on Flickr. Enjoy! We had a great crowd tromping through the woods and enjoying mince pies and vin chaud afterwards!
The start of the year has been unexpectedly busy for us because we launched a book Common Sense- a book about people, planet and profit by a venture capitalist just before Christmas. It turns out that media says it’s topical, being about balancing economics, ethics and the environment which we’ve been working towards for over a decade and a half. It took ages to write the book – I never imagined it could be so hard! And thank goodness for Pam who is an amazing editor able to make it pleasant to read. Thanks to all of you who’ve bought a copy and for all your positive feedback.
We’ve been on a steep learning curve since launching it, including changing printers to a local Kilkenny family team, Digital Outputs, for the second, third and fourth small print runs. We were interviewed on KCLR which was fun and friendly and then in mid January a film crew came from RTE’s Nationwide to find out more. That was fascinating. We learned that it takes 6 hours of filming to produce a minute of television! Nationwide’s team arrived on a blustery January morning and almost without a break filmed until the evening. It was a busy day here, with horse training, logging, building, tilling and harvesting going on in the background. Most of the family was here so we’ll all be cringing equally as we watch! Check it out tomorrow night, Friday 6th February at 7pm RTE 1.
While the film crew was here we got a call from an friend we haven’t seen in over a decade who received the book as a gift from his brother. He wanted five copies to give to friends and wanted to know when I was going to London. So I went and spent a week reconnecting with friends and meeting new ones to talk about how to embed sustainability in organisations and find the elusive work-life balance. London is full of things to do, new ideas and fancy offerings, which was fun, and meeting so many people eager to make a positive difference from cancer research to solar energy to organisation enlightenment was exciting. It seems that the momentum to breakthrough to a world of common sense is building. Whew!
We’re holding our first gathering of the year of the Ballin Temple Nature Club on Saturday February 14th at 2:30pm. It will be an open-hearted chat/walk/tea to talk about the Club activities from walking to fishing to logging to nature preservation to personal transformation. Please let us know if you’d like to join in. Everyone is welcome.
Pam’s yoga classes continue in Tullow on Tuesday evenings and in Carlow on Wednesday mornings. Her workshop “Establishing Your Home Practice”, run for the second time in January, went really well and is becoming more popular as people find out about it. Another one will be held close to summer. Keep up with Pam’s classes and workshops via pambutleryoga.com and the Pam Butler Yoga facebook page.
February is a chilly month but already we see signs of spring – snowdrops out, daffodils on the way, lambs bouncing in the meadow. Nature is wonderful isn’t it. But it’s still a time of year that demands wood for the stove and food to stay warm. If anyone needs hay for their beasties we have top quality small square bales for sale and some round bales too. Give Tom a call on 086 8179238 to get some.
We’re nearly out of the winter season of festivities, which culminates in Chinese New Year in a couple of weeks. So, Kung Hei Fat Choi! We could all do with a bit of that 🙂
Tom, Pam and the gang.
PS: Common Sense is available at Antonia and Gerry’s Alive & Well Health Shop in Carlow Shopping Centre, The Book Centre in Kilkenny High Street as well as here or online.
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