Community Learning Circle are evening sharings on every second Wednesday, a themed circle that welcomes long term residents and guests organised by myself, inspired by Chris Hart and Christine Lines.

This is a summary of the sharing on 2 July 2025 – Conferences with Roger Doudna, Graham Meltzer, John Willoner at Cullerne House.

This week’s sharing from Roger, Graham and John on their experience of running many of the 120 Conferences held in the Community over the past 50 years was exceptional! Each covered their favourite conferences and conference presenters, of whom there were many well-known names. Some mentioned were Carolyn Myss, Jonathon Porritt, James Hubbell, Sim van der Ryn, Andre Gregory,

Titles for the Conferences were proposed and championed, and two years later took place. Each one held a particular challenge for the community, so by the time the conference came around, we had all been immersed in those topics and learning how to embody them! The themes were always ahead of where we were at as a community, and took us over the edge.

Titles of some of the Conferences mentioned were as follows – for some we have already links to reports, others still are waiting for a summary to be written for our collective autobiography:

April 1976 – the first conference at Cluny: Groups and the Transpersonal Growth. The presidents of the Transpersonal Psychology Associations of USA and Europe attended. For many of us it was a group initiation.

October 1976 – World Crisis and the Wholeness of Life: E F Schumacher, Lady Eve Balfour (Head of the Soil Association ), David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson. Findhorn as the spearhead of a new planetary culture and consciousness.

October 1982 – Building a Planetary Village set the scene for buying the caravan park the following year.

Oct 1988 – From the Individual to the Collective: Politics as if the Whole Earth Mattered: Barbara Marx Hubbard, Shin-ichiro Tereyama, Jonathon Porritt, John Marks, Petra Kelly, Danaan Parry, Elisabet Sahtouris. Preceded in May by the first citizen diplomacy visit to Russia so included several Russians including the Russian pop star Sasha Malinin.

October 1995 – Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities: Models for 21st Century Living: John Talbott and Diane Gilman focalised. Jonathan Porritt launched the Living Machine at the end. GEN was created.

October 2014 – The New Story Summit: inspiring Pathways for our Planetary Future: Co-creation of Findhorn Fellows, focalised by Richard Olivier, Yvonne Cuneo and Elisabeth Sahtouris. Organised by Graham Meltzer. The first gift economy conference which broke even thanks to major donations from two people!

For a more comprehensive, alas not complete, list of conferences please click here Living Record – Conferences at Findhorn.

Then followed an energetic, stimulating discussion on themes for the future – topics that are current in the world and in our community – from conflict to connection; leadership for a fragmented world; compassionate mental health. The idea that first comes the topics, then how to resolve it within our community to be ready to present it as a conference to the world sparked a lot of energy! John Willoner’s very long list of what needs to be done in preparation left us all gasping!