Something new and exciting for neighbourhoods

Fall 2012 is here and it’s time to learn something new, meet some new friends – and you will be able do it all either in your building, or in your neighbourhood, if you live within the area of the Yonge-Wellesley Neighbourhood Campus in downtown Toronto.

It's not a grade school or a university.  It’s more like a vocational school that includes an enterprise for the production of goods and services in a local economy. 

Together we will increase our imaginations, collaboration, self-awareness, and use of on-line tools.  And at our free public sessions we are looking to see what each of us wants to contribute.

We aim to make the neighbourhood more resilient during times of economic uncertainty.  We’re building the strength and resources needed so that it’s easier for participants to be fulfilled in whatever they choose to do. 

Each month we will be offering a range of practical and exciting paid courses designed to expand people's choices and horizons starting with arts-based career options.  We will award educational credits in return for work to bring about positive social change.

We’re also the go-to place to find suppliers or other entrepreneurs to collaborate with. We’ll save participants money on purchasing supplies and decrease their time on commuting and business travel.  

And there will be inspirational and engaging events that enrich life in the neighbourhood. 

Have you noticed that no-one in your neighbourhood seems to know what other entrepreneurs and organizations are doing?  Well, maybe a magazine could help address that.  

We’re already using the Social Creator blog to give updates and information on local organizing.  Our marketing department will use the magazine to promote the campus.  The magazine will also provide campus participants with a means of expression and connection.  

Our school enterprise organizes amongst neighbourhoods based on film and TV production departments - catering, acting, singing, script writing, props design, set design, cinematography, sound engineering, video editing, marketing, promotions, events logistics – you name it!  To keep up to date on developments the magazine will feature columns by each department head.  

We will be asking local retailers how they would like to see our neighbourhoods promoted – this will lead to growth of the client-base services that participants will offer citywide.

I am looking forward to collaborating, learning, and having fun in the neighbourhood, and wishing you were here too.

Vision and Mission for Today - West and East interpenetrate

The vision for society is no-longer a single statement or goal that hopefully everyone understands, and interprets the same way.  We no longer need to 'get with the program'.

We can now treat the economy less like an engine of growth along a track to some inevitable destination we're not sure about, and more like development of a society-wide ecology that brings balance, ease and sanity to our lives.

What I am sharing with you next, I feel is very important.  It`s something that our civilization has only begun to grasp at the beginning of 2012.  

Now the Internet is up and operational, the vision for society has become mutual fulfillment. 

We achieve this vision through coordination.  Therefore the mission for society is to become fully coordinated.  

The specifics of what mutual fulfillment looks like differs from individual to individual, and changes as each individual moves from situation to situation.  The Internet allows us to update and share in a timely way, what we feel will fulfill us and become our next contribution to society.

There is a word for something that each individual understands in a different way, at different times.  It`s called a symbol. Artists are experts in the use of symbols.  Therefore, what governments are calling arts-based professionals are here to help in our new social environment.

As individuals we create the space for a new culture and a way of educating ourselves in order to contribute within today`s economy.  Our society adopts the symbol of mutual fulfillment and the practical mission of fully coordinating our projects.   


We have been adapting to become the change we wished to see in the world.  We`re moving beyond occupation by an inner empire of linear timelines and singular exceptional progress.  The empire is quickly super-ceded through ecological thought and balanced outlooks. 

Thank you Gandhi.  Thank you India.  Thank you art.

Knowledge-based Economy?

Strategic notions of a knowledge-based economy in `developed countries` require all levels of government to put in place policies that ensure citizens get paid for their knowledge.  


Realize that when governments ask us to submit ideas free-of-charge we limit the quality of input as well as the possibilities of some kind of economic knowledge recovery.  Then we could spend in our neighbourhoods and strengthen local economies.

Knowledge is embodied in each individual.  Supposedly it's lodged inside each person's neurology and muscle fascia.  But who knows where knowledge extends?  


Officials at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, have been pumping out ideas of a knowledge economy for some time now.  It's an international institution run by unelected officials that use ideas about economics to help governments tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalized economy.  Ministers of industry and finance subscribe to these ideas and dutifully pay their membership dues each year.  The notions of the OECD result in national strategies that have very real consequences in all of our lives.  www.oecd.org.

I've never heard of economies other than those derived from creating less demand on limited resources, or less need for action.  Who knew we are strategically planning our competitive stance as societies based on economies derived within the accretion and rearrangement of bioplasma in brain cells and electronic impulses in body cells?



If we want to progress through economies of knowledge then would we be well advised to drop ideas of competition and work together internationally, much like how learning progresses through sharing of academic studies and research.


We need to change as individuals so we're able to produce the items and services that contribute to whatever kind of society we want to live in.  The specific nature of your ideal society differs from that of other individuals based on cultural outlooks, values, education, and experiences.


It would be tragic if government talk of competitiveness tended to distract us from making our unique contribution and fulfilling our unique needs and aspirations.  In economic crises are soothing words delaying the need for personal introspection and the prospect of shared  adaptations?