The Sophia Course

Sophia Hubs are proud to offer you the Sophia Course, if you want to be part of the economic and social regeneration of Seven Kings & Newbury Park.

This free, practical and transformative course will support and nurture new social enterprises and entrepreneurs from the local community using: Existing skills of participants; Local assets and expertise; Specialists; and Resources and wisdom of local faith traditions.

Venue: St John the Evangelist, St Johns Road, Seven Kings, Essex IG2 7BB

Dates: September 10th, 12th, 17th and 24th at 2.00pm

OR

September 12th, October 3rd, 10th and 17th at 7.30pm

For more information and to book your place, contact the Sophia Hubs team on 020 8598 1536 or sophiahubs@yahoo.com. We look forward to welcoming you!

Sophia Hubs are a network of local incubators for new businesses and social enterprises, using the wisdom and resources of the faith traditions, leading to sustainable social and economic development and change.

Sophia Hubs

Sophia Hubs are a network of local, wisdom-based incubators for new businesses and social enterprises, harnessing the wisdom and resources of the faith traditions, leading to sustainable social and economic development and change.

Sophia Hubs aim to enable people of all faiths and none to participate in economic and social regeneration, inspired by shared values of justice, collaboration and sustainability.

The Seven Kings & Newbury Park Sophia Hub pilot was launched yesterday at St John's Seven Kings.

Those attending the launch heard a range of perspectives on social enterprise, its community building capacities and its relevance to faith communities. Aidan Ward (Sophia Hubs) outlined the main facets of the services which the pilot will deliver in the local community (including incubation spaces, training, a timebank, and business connections) and its potential to enable new businesses with a community spirit which cover gaps in services and help people do more for each other.

Alvaro Abdala (Teen Challenge) gave an example of a successful social enterprise by speaking about the genesis and running of the faith-based car mechanics enterprise he manages, while Monica Abdala (Redbridge Street Pastors) explained the potential social enterprises have to assist women working the streets who wish to leave prostitution.

One strand of the pilot will involve exploring connections between wisdom and work through discussion and dialogue. A taster for this aspect of the pilot's work was included in the launch programme with input on faith and enterprise from Hindu (Jay Lakhani, Hindu Academy), Jewish (Steve Miller, Faith-based Regeneration Network) and Christian (Rev. Rosy Fairhurst, Sophia Hubs) perspectives.

Jay Lakhani suggested that projects like this pilot engage with participant's desires and dreams which are both deeply human and deeply spiritual. Steve Miller highlighted Jewish understandings of social enterprise as addressing issues of relationality and justice. While charity tends to be a one way relationship, supporting people into business involves a mutuality of investment and can deliver more sustainable outcomes. Rosy Fairhurst spoke about entrepreneurial activity as a reflection of a creative, risk-taking God and also explained that the name, Sophia Hubs, was deliberately taken from the Greek word for wisdom in order to highlight the intent to tap the wisdom of all communities, faith-based or otherwise.

Myra Whiskar, the newly appointed Project Coordinator and Developer for the Sophia Hub pilot, was introduced to those present. The Sophia Hub pilot will open for business in September, when Myra's work on the pilot will also commence.

A variety of forms of involvement with the pilot are possible including as: business mentors, incubation users, investors, management group members or timebank volunteers. An initial Sophia Course will aim to empower people in identifying and addressing issues of shared local concern with ideas for new social enterprises being generated as a result. Many of those present at the launch responded positively to the opportunity for involvement.      

Social enterprises are businesses with a social or environmental mission; businesses where society profits. Timebanking is a means of exchange used to organise people and organisations around a purpose, where time is the principal currency. For every hour participants ‘deposit’ in a timebank, perhaps by giving practical help and support to others, they are able to ‘withdraw’ equivalent support in time when they themselves are in need.

Social enterprises have the potential to connect the private and not-for-profit sectors in ways which challenge and change both sectors. This launch event shared that vision, outlined the model to be used by the Sophia Hub pilot, generated responses from those attending, and began an ongoing debate about the connections between wisdom and work.

The Commons Matrix

The following comes from Peter Challen:

The Commons Matrix

Attend to
a common theory of value,

integrally rooted

in both spirit and matter,

found in

philosophy, anthropology,

linguistics, communication, organisational behaviour;

in technology, history, culture,

environmentalism, economics,

law and political theory:

to explore and expose

many of the leading myopic

extant presuppositions

in our present systems,

heading for decline.

Recovering our mutuality,

note ahead the...

QUILLIGAN SEMINARS

Away with straight-edged rulers

to save a fractal universe.

In nature's persistent emergence

treat money and land as social commons,

like air and oceans,

the bio-sphere and deep deposits

of past storing centuries,

to serve all generations ahead.

Join our proto-type of

systemic recovery and renewal

at the Quilligan Seminars

in twelve days of May,

2012.

The Quilligan Seminars are an intensive social innovation project of 12 interrelated seminars in 12 days involving leading NGOs and thinks tanks. This series will foster an educational and research collaboration for facilitating transition to a more equitable world. It will demonstrate how differing starting points can lead to a commons ground. You can participate in one or more of the seminars.

James Quilligan is a globally renowned commons theorist/activist, policy analyst, and founder of the Global Commons Trust. He writes: "Modern economics has turned labour into a utility of the market and government. But the principles of the commons (people's negotiation of their own norms and rules for the management of social and natural resources) show us how to transcend utilitarian economics by transforming the traditional division of labour. New forms of value are already being created by these commons, whether they are traditional (irrigation ditches, pastures, indigenous cultures) or emerging (intellectual property, social networks, collaborative innovation)." To learn more about Mr. Quilligan’s work, click here.

What is the role of the commons in the economy?

Rev. Canon Peter Challen of the Christian Council for Monetary Justice is one of the organisers for an intensive social innovation project of 12 interrelated seminars in 12 days involving leading NGOs and thinks tanks. What is the role of the commons in the economy? will foster an educational and research collaboration for facilitating transition to a more equitable world. It will demonstrate how differing starting points can lead to a commons ground. You can participate in one or more of the seminars.

James Quilligan is a globally renowned commons theorist/activist, policy analyst, and founder of the Global Commons Trust. He writes: "Modern economics has turned labour into a utility of the market and government. But the principles of the commons (people's negotiation of their own norms and rules for the management of social and natural resources) show us how to transcend utilitarian economics by transforming the traditional division of labour. New forms of value are already being created by these commons, whether they are traditional (irrigation ditches, pastures, indigenous cultures) or emerging (intellectual property, social networks, collaborative innovation)." To learn more about Mr. Quilligan’s work, click here.

James Quilligan's work on managing local and global commons is developing understanding of how in a commons-based economy:

• consumers become the producers of their own resources
• trusts set a cap on the extraction and use of a resource to preserve it for future generations
• businesses flourish by renting a proportion of the resources outside the cap for extraction and production
• governments tax a percentage of these rents, funding a basic income for citizens and the restoration of depleted resources
• the power of decision-making returns to the people, enabling them to participate in the decisions that affect them directly
• the traditional property ownership model is eclipsed by a trusteeship model of sustainability, quality of life and well-being
• the lessons of community based resource management have major implications for post-liberal forms of multilateralism and global governance.

He will present a series of 12 seminars, workshops and other educational events during his 12 day visit to London in the Spring. (Look up details here.) Those events will be convened by a variety of organisations. Confirmed conveners include:Finance Innovation Lab, School of Economic Science, St. James Piccadilly, IPPR, NEF, Civil Society Forum, and School of Commoning. The kick-off seminar will be hosted in the House of Commons.

Starting from many different points of engaged intellectual and scholarly concern, research and practice, the various seminars will explore the understanding of the Commons as perceived from each seminar’s perspective, guided by James Quilligan. Together, they represent an emergent curriculum of theoretically grounded and action-oriented studies in the key economic, political, and social issues of the Commons.

During his visit, these seminars will examine together such questions as:

• Economically, what steps are needed to adjust the rules of the present interest-driven, debt-based economy to the sustainable targets of our natural, social and cultural commons?
• Politically, how can the philosophy of individual wealth (ownership, division of labor, reciprocity) be reconciled with the interests of collective wealth (trusteeship, the unity of producers and consumers, complementarity)?
• Socially, would it be possible for people's trusts to create sustainable limits to protect our commons for future generations, then rent the remaining resources to business for production and distribution, and provide these revenues to government for the funding of social dividends and the restoration of the depleted commons?

The vital and complex questions introduced in these seminars do not have easy answers. The investigation into how the “commons” may connect and synergise the economic, social, philosophical, spiritual, and political spheres, and facilitate the great transition to an equitable and sustainable world, is an ongoing challenge.

"All I have is yours, and all you have is mine ..."

"All I have is yours, and all you have is mine ..." Within the Godhead, Jesus says, all things are held in common. There is no ownership as everything is shared or continually and mutually exchanged. This is, at least, part of what it means for the Father and the Son to be one."

That is how the latest Gospel Reflection by Jonathan Evens for the Mission in London's Economy website begins. To read the remainder, which suggests some contemporary economic applications that derive from this understanding of the Trinity, click here.

FiLE update

Emerging from FiLE's autumn seminars were two proposals for further action.

 

The first involved participation in the Finance Innovation Lab, an open environment in which people can come together to explore, innovate and evolve the financial system so that it sustains people and planet (http://thefinancelab.ning.com/). Jonathan Evens has recently joined the Finance Innovation Lab (and, in particular, Peter Challen's 'Faith & Philosophy influencing Finance' group) and will aim to input from a FiLE perspective.

The second was for a centre blending social enterpreneurship, spirituality and work as part of the Olympics legacy, an idea that is being taking forward by a Development Group. As a FiLE representative, Jonathan Evens is now part of the core reference group for this new initiative which has been named Sophia Hubs. Sophia Hubs are intended to be incubators and catalysts for new social and economic enterprises harnessing the wisdom and energy of spiritual traditions. If you would be interested in exploring further the idea of Sophia Hubs please contact the Development Group at tel: 0207-766-1129 or email: sophiahubs@yahoo.com.

 

Jonathan Evens, as FiLE Chair, has also agreed to be a signatory of a letter to the Independent Commission on Banking, initiated by Peter Challen. The letter argues that "without radical reform our banking system is likely to fail again and again with various dangerous social, environmental and political consequences including, not least, ceaseless magnification of the gap between the rich and all others." A basic sense of self-preservation requires that we tackle the root of this problem, that is, the processes of money creation and the letter urges the Commission to take another hard look at proposals that address the fundamental question of how and by whom and for what purposes money is created.

 

Finally, Jonathan Evens has been asked to speak at a Taste of Religion event organised by the Employers Forum of Belief and KPMG which will cover religious festivals. Other speakers include Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer, Khola Hasan, Shaunaka Rishi Das, Dr Satinder Singh and Simon Webley. More details can be found at: http://www.efbelief.org.uk/events.php/31/taste-of-religion.

Faith in Business features seminars

The Renegotiating 'value' seminar series is being featured in the Faith in Business quarterly. The current issue includes a summary of the Profit v Prophet seminar, while the next issue may summarise the Bonus v Pro Bono seminar. A previous issue of Faith in Business included a copy of the shared faiths response to the credit crunch facilitated by Faiths in London's Economy.

The Faith in Business Journal aims to:

• help readers discover a fuller sense of God's purpose and hope in their working lives, integrating their faith, their work and their worship
• highlight the necessity and value of wealth creation within God's creative and redemptive purposes, while bringing the processes of wealth creation under careful scrutiny
• encourage individuals to apply Christian values in their work, and help them to resolve the moral dilemmas they often face
• persuade the leaders of industry, commerce, finance and public services to operate within the framework of Christian principles and values.
• assist church leaders in understanding key issues in the changing economic environment, so that where challenge is called for it is based on an informed and up-to-date appraisal
• urge the churches to support people in their daily work and to declare the value of all honest work in generating wealth for the common good.