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Some Notes on DTE and Confest

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Some Notes on DTE and Confest ConFest and the Next 250 Years Past and Future Possibilities Dr Les Spencer, 1992. Revised 2014. Use within grassroots mutual-help processes for non-profit purposes 1 Contents Contents .................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. Pre-Confest Speech By Dr Jim Cairns ...................................................................... 4 Manifesto From The First Confest – Cotter River 1976 ............................................. 5 The Evolving Of The First Confest ............................................................................ 7 Founding History Of Social Transforming Action ....................................................... 6 T2 Mobilising Transnationals – Visits To Confest & Follow-On ................................. 6 Dte Visits: .............................................................................................................. 6 International Natural Nurturer Networking ................................................................ 6 The Evolving Of The First Confest ............................................................................ 7 Wellbeing Action Using Festivals, Gatherings And Other Happenings ..................... 9 The Watsons Bay Festival ......................................................................................... 9 Working With Free Energy ...................................................................................... 10 The Second Festival – The Paddington Festival ..................................................... 12 Festival Three - Centennial Park Festival ................................................................ 12 Festival Three - Centennial Park Festival ................................................................ 14 Festival Four - Campbelltown Festival .................................................................... 14 Festival Five – The Aquarius Festival...................................................................... 16 Festival Six – Confest .............................................................................................. 16 Surviving Well In A Dominant World Gatherings In Ne Nsw 1971-1973 – The Start Of International Outreach ........................................................................ 19 The Self Organising Rollout For Bourke .................................................................. 20 Further Rollout For Armidale ................................................................................... 21 Emergence Of Wider Networks ............................................................................... 21 Fraser House As Precursor To Confest, ................................................................. 23 A Forgotten Pioneer ............................................................................................. 23 Evolving Non-Drug Based Community Psychiatry At Fraser House .................... 24 Sourcing Patients And The Fraser House Milieu ................................................. 25 Big And Small Group Process ............................................................................. 25 Governance Therapy – The Fraser House Committee Process .......................... 26 Work As Therapy ................................................................................................. 27 The Take-Off Point For The Next Cultural Synthesis .............................................. 30 A New Cultural Synthesis ........................................................................................ 32 Webs And Lacewebs ............................................................................................... 32 Evolving Transforming Networks ............................................................................. 34 Linking The Network Into The Wider Local Community........................................... 45 The Enabling Network ............................................................................................. 46 The Sharing Of Micro-Experiences Among Locals - A Reviewing ........................... 50 On Global Reform ................................................................................................... 52 Three Transition Phases ......................................................................................... 55 Evolving Confest Sites ............................................................................................ 61 Workshops At Confest ............................................................................................. 64 Conferencing ........................................................................................................... 66 Some Reflecting On The Experience Of Appraising Sites For Dte Confest In The 1990s And The Processes Used In Confest Site Layout .............................. 67 Confest Mutual-Help Processes .............................................................................. 71 Self-Organising Systems ......................................................................................... 74 Confest Energisers .................................................................................................. 80 Energising Conferencing At Confest ....................................................................... 81 Dr Les Spencer, 1992. Revised 2014. Use within grassroots mutual-help processes for non-profit purposes 2 On Being Safe At Confest ....................................................................................... 82 Community Mutual-Help Processes ........................................................................ 83 Community Mutual-Help Processes In The Context Of Alleged Breaches Of Confest Ethics And Wellness Principles ............................................................. 83 The Total Care Foundation’s Role In The Early Festivals ....................................... 86 Group Processes .................................................................................................... 87 A Fifty Year Longitudinal ....................................................................................... 114 Community Wellbeing Action Research Project .................................................... 114 DTE Rules ............................................................................................................. 125 Confest And Global Futures .................................................................................. 127 Multilectic Processes Use In Setting Up A Gathering Site ..................................... 128 Dr Les Spencer, 1992. Revised 2014. Use within grassroots mutual-help processes for non-profit purposes 3 Pre-ConFest Speech by Dr Jim Cairns The purpose of the festival is to show the urgent need to shape alternatives now. Ways must be found because of the violent, acquisitive, alienated, industrial society which now poses a threat to survival. People have for centuries searched for equality and the right to and ability to determine their own development. Individuals must accept responsibility for themselves. Personal happiness and equality, as much as a good society depend on self-realisation. The most vital factor is the sense of true identity. This is lost because our identities are created by others – not by ourselves. The all-powerful externally created hegemony in this assumed-to-be free society, and its eternalised personal alienation, must be understood if self-realisation is to be achieved. The starting point must be ‘will to be that self which one truly is’. There must be equality and effective individual participation in government and in every other group activity if self-realisation is to be achieved. ConFest will be concerned with the search for the true nature of man and woman. For many centuries, belief that man is inherently bad has exercised tremendous influence. Because of this belief, individual needs are suppressed and the result is that personal helplessness, lack of independence, and the desire to be led are created. From infancy on, people are re-trained to be self-denying, falsely modest, self-effacing, and mechanically obedient. They are taught to suppress or hide their natural feelings or energy. Social ideology is governed by contradictory altruism, by guilt, and the inability to experience work and action as a pleasure. This results in tendencies towards violence. But is not the basic natural needs of people that have a destructive and hedonistic outcome – it is the result of the repression of basic natural need that is violent and destructive. The internal social crisis of today that result from these contradictions means that we must shape the alternatives now. There is not just one alternative. The new society will be made up of the choices of multitudes of people – individuals and groups – who are determined to find a way out. No one can be excluded. Sincerely Jim Cairns Dr Les Spencer, 1992. Revised 2014. Use within grassroots mutual-help processes for non-profit purposes 4 Manifesto from the First ConFest – Cotter River 1976 The following manifesto was written by attendees at the first ConFest at Cotter River Canberra, December 1976. What we have begun here, and what we will begin from what has begun here, has drawn out of dreams a reality for which humankind has, in the past, shown itself prepared to kill; it is a reality we have achieved because we have been prepared to love. Our wholeness has come from the experiences of our common origin and drawn us through the difficulties of
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