Can we improve our health with a dose of nature? Can the workplace enable us to connect with our wild side? What’s so good about growing?

Join Ethical Reading and The Royal Society of Arts for the launch of RSA Reading. Our three local speakers will share their perspectives on the value of nature, followed by plenty of opportunities for discussion and networking.

Agenda

• 17:45 - 18:15 Arrive and network
• 18:15 - 18:30 Welcome and Introductions by Ethical Reading and RSA
• 18:30 - 19:00 Speakers and panel discussion
• 19:00 - 19:45 Discussion in breakout groups with feedback
• 19:45 - 20:00 Wrap up further networking

Event hosts

Natalie Ganpatsingh , Director Nature Nurture is chairing this event which is being kindly hosted by Curious Lounge.

About the panellists

Erica Purvis - Exploring Nature's influence on Design

Erica will be exploring nature’s influence on various forms of design and engineering, from biomimicry to ecodesign, camouflage to the circular economy. She’ll be sharing how it’s shaped her own design and career decisions, continually inspired and caused her to slow down and question her work and lifestyle to reconnect deeper with her roots, values and motivation for nature.

Erica is a designer, engineer and business strategy maker, inspired by nature and focused on sustainability, the circular economy and system change for flourishing people and planet. Her passion and interests have led her to work in Philips in Ecodesign and Cradle to Cradle product development, Keep Britain Tidy as impact and evidence manager and coaching, developing programmes, behaviour change campaigns and policy research and responses. With her product design engineering and life cycle analysis background, for the last 5 years as TechnicalNature, she has blended these experiences to support businesses to review, design and create sustainable, products, programmes and enterprises. Erica helped draft the BSI guidance on the Circular Economy, co-founded Open Source Circular Economy days and is a coach with EIT Climate KIC programme. She works with numerous startups, accelerators, university students and businesses looking to build or shift to put sustainability at the heart of their businesses. Since moving to Reading she’s been involved with a number of community projects including Reading Hydro Community Benefit Society and the recently launched Circular Economy Club Reading. Website: https://technicalnature.org.uk/ Twitter @technicalnature Instagram @technicalnature

Christina Hughes Nind - Growing our way to health - together

Gardening together can improve our health and wellbeing, and it can work for so many different health issues. Why does it work? Christina will look at some of the theory and research, and introduce us to some of the horticultural therapy and nature groups in and around Reading

Christina left the world of law six years ago and retrained as a gardener and horticultural therapist.She is currently the project leader of The Friendly Gardeners Group (a group for older people run with Age UK Berkshire) and the co-ordinator of an allotment project for autistic adults with Autangel. In 2019 she got a new network started: the Reading Gardening for Health and Wellbeing Network. It is a collaborative network of horticultural therapy and community gardening groups around Reading

Alice McGuigan - Our Elemental Bodies

Alice explores the wilderness of human beings through the lens of Yoga’s 5 elements; Earth, Sky, Fire, Water and Ether. How does this embodiment grow our connection to nature? Can this awareness inspire us to live mindfully and making conscious choices?

Alice was first introduced to Yoga as a way to unwind and de-stress from the fast-paced nature of studying in London. She soon discovered that Yoga was an opportunity to re-connect entirely, counter daily habit patterns and open up to new perspectives. Alice is trained in various forms of Yoga, most recently in Primal Vinyasa, and weaves these layers of evolutionary & functional movement development into her classes. She loves the self-inquiry that Yoga can teach us and shares the practice as a foundation for life, having experienced first-hand how it can help us to reconnect, find steadiness and thrive. In 2019, Alice founded the Earth Living Festival, which bought together holistic practices, creativity and sustainability. Websites: www.alicemayyoga.co.uk www.earthlivingfestival.co.uk @alicemayyoga @earthlivingfestival

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