In the summer of 2008 a new Findhorn-inspired community-based summer holistic holiday Centre opened at a small rented hotel in the Pelion peninsula of Greece. This region is one of the few still unspoilt-by-foreign tourism areas of Greece with a very ancient healing tradition. It was here that the mythical Centaurs, half human, half horse roamed the forest, and where Cheiron created an early healing Centre, renown throughout the ancient world. A small group of us from Findhorn: Jock Millenson, James Lawson Kelly, Roger Doudna, Judith Bone, Johanna Aro Louis from Inverness and Maria Arpa from London are the trustees of a non-profit educational trust called THE HOLLY FOUNDATION* http://www.hollyfoundation.org whose mission is to develop and support Authentic community based Holistic Living-Learning Yoga Centres worldwide. For it's first project, Holly rented a small hotel 3 miles from the sea at the edge of the traditional village of Kissos notable for its fine tavernas and its ornate 17th century church, and are staging a full programme of holistic workshops and retreats from June through September, with workcamps in May and October.
In the summer of 2009, the Holly Foundation got the chance to rent a large house on 2 ½ acres of land in Anilio village 2 miles north of Kissos village. Because the rent was very very reasonable and a long lease could be obtained, and because the additional accomodation and the possiblity of doing permaculture and experimenting with alternative technology attracted us, we decided to add this second campus to the project. The opportunity came too late in the season to create a workshop/retreat programme at the Anilio campus, but we were able to defray some of the rent with living-in-community guests throughout the summer. In 2010 both the Anilio and Kissos campuses will have full programmes. Please see our websites at http://www.kalikalos.com and http://www.pilioncentre.com for details of the programmes. In August both campuses will have family fortnights, which Dorota Owen has been leading with great success the past couple of years at Kissos.
We welcome all Findhorn-phils to this special region of Greece which combines a lush forest ecosystem with spectacular Aegean beaches for "something deeper than a suntan".
Aside from workshop participants and living-in-community guests, each season we welcome people with focalisation experience to come out for periods of 2–6 weeks to join our staff of volunteers who create and hold the community energy and make the Centre unique amongst Mediterranean holiday venues. It is our volunteer staff of about half dozen at each of our two campuses that focalise the meals, KP rotas, maintenence, homecare, as well as the shopping and the daily beach runs. We staff also focalise the daily morning attunements and are responsible for complementing the holistic education that goes on in formal workshops by teaching holistic education through example in the work departments. As at Findhorn all guests and workshop participants are on the cooking and KP rotas, as well as working in the gardens, so you will feel quite at home. We offer food and accomodation for about 30 hours of work per week, beach time nearly every afternoon and one full day off in the week.
In 2010 we inaugurate our new Facilitators in Residence (FIR) programme. We welcome practitioners of any holistic discipline to join the Centre as part time (15 hr/week) staffers for 2–6 weeks and to offer their holistic arts to our guests and other staff on an ad hoc basis. For a £150 reservation fee, we offer food and accomodation, and share 40/60 with you (60 to you) any income from the sessions that you give to the guests. Its a great opportunity to have a holiday near the sea and hopefully earn more than enough to pay your travel costs without having the task of organizing and promoting your own workshop. And here is a special "Early Bird" offer: for anyone able to offer daily yoga, tai chi, or Qi gong sessions before breakfast, these "Early Bird" FIRs need not pay any reservation fee at all.
A Call for Kalikalos Resource People
In order to promote the Centre we are continuing to recruit a network of European Reps. Because the Kalikalos project is relatively new, many of our reps will not have had the opportunity yet to visit us and experience first hand the project here in Greece. Nonetheless, if you have experienced Findhorn and felt at home here, and feel the unique qualities and universal potential of Findhorn, you will know what we are wanting to bring to Greece. We are planting a few seeds of Findhorn in the Mediterranean sun! So please consider helping us promote this initiative. Every January we print 7000+ colour brochures which we distribute as widely as possible—in health food shops, community centres, alternative bookshops, libraries, housing coops, natural medicine centres, and elsewhere. And of course we encourage you to get them to your friends and colleagues.
To entice you to consider joining our network of Kalikalos reps, we are offering you half the usual LCG rate (currently working out to £97.50/€125 a week) which includes food, accomodation and a daily trip to and from the beach. And in addition, for every participant that comes to us from your distribution or personal recommendation we offer you a credit of £50/€75 which you can use to defray weeks at the Centre in Greece. Alternatively, you can accumulate your credits to earn cash. The only condition on the credits that you earn is that you must come to the Centre in Greece to claim them, either in cash or for weeks here.
I very much hope this initiative will appeal to you and that you might feel drawn to contribute whatever energy you would enjoy to give to its sustainability. The amount of work involved is not onerous: in the first instance we send you 30–40 brochures to distribute in your area. And if you feel more enterprising, we include your name and contact details on our spam-proof CONTACT US page on our web site so that local people can contact you for more information about Kalikalos and its two campuses.
More than anything else we hope you will take the opportunity as a Kalikalos rep to visit us in the summer and experience what we are doing, so that you can bring it back home and help us spread the word!
The full programme, the facilities and the vision are all to be found on the website at http://www.kalikalos.com . You can contact Jock Millenson at or +44 208 816 8533, or +30 697 550 2736 if you'd like to chat more about what we are doing, or ask us any questions. And naturally we would love to have your input too for what you would like to see happen here. The project in 2010 is very much a work in progress. Right now our aim is to become sustainable, and for that we have to try to get the word out far and wide about what we are doing and invite others to join us in any of many capacities that are available.
JockM
* Please note that the Holly Foundation Inc is completely independent of the Findhorn Foundation, which neither authorises, endorses nor necessarily agrees with all the practices and policies of the Holly Foundation Inc.
The Holly Foundation
http://www.hollyfoundation.org
info{AT}hollyfoundation{dot}net
Tel +30 697 550 2736 (May-Sept), +44 208 816 8533 year round
Kalikalos Holistic Holidays
Website: http://www.kalikalos.com
email:
Tel+ 44 208 816 8533
+30 697 550 2736
A taste of Findhorn in the sun!
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