In the summer of 2008 a Findhorn-inspired community-based summer holistic holiday Centre opened in the Pelion peninsula of Greece. The Pelion region remains one of the few still unspoilt areas of Greece and is memorable for its 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, Catherine Brislee, Judith Bone plus Johanna Aro Louis from Inverness, and Emile von Dantzig from Holland are the trustees of a non-profit educational trust—THE HOLLY FOUNDATION* http://www.hollyfoundation.org whose mission is to develop and support authentic community-based Holistic Living-Learning Yoga Centres worldwide. For its first project, the Holly Foundation rented a small hotel 3 miles from the sea in the traditional village of Kissos which is notable for its fine tavernas and its ornate 17th century church. There, every summer, we offer 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 the large house on 2 ½ acres of land in Anilio village (2 miles north of Kissos village) where Jock had run a similar project for four years from 2001-2005. Because the rent was very reasonable and a long lease could be obtained, and because the additional accommodation and the possibility of doing permaculture and experimenting with alternative technology attracted us, we decided to add this second campus to the project. Please see our websites at http://www.kalikalos.com and http://www.spititonkentavron.org for details of the current summer programmes. In August both campuses offer family fortnights for single or couple parents with kids. Dorota Owen leads the family experience fortnight at the Kissos campus.

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".

Staff Opportunities

Aside from workshop participants and living-in-community guests, each season we welcome people with focalisation experience to join our staff for periods of 2-8 weeks to help create and hold the community energy which makes these two Centres 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, maintenance, 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 accommodation for about 30 hours of work per week, beach time nearly every afternoon and one full day off in the week.

Workshop/Retreat Leaders

Both campuses welcome new leaders who feel drawn to offer week-long workshops or retreats and who feel confident that they could recruit at least half a dozen participants for their group. For information on leading a group at either campus, please see http://www.kalikalos.com/leaders.php. Email to request the password to this private page.

Facilitators in Residence

In addition to our scheduled workshop leaders, we have a Facilitators in Residence (FIR) programme. That programme welcomes practitioners of any holistic discipline to join the Centres as half time staffers for two or more 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 accommodation, and share 50/50 with you any income earned from the sessions that you give to the guests. Its a great opportunity to have a holiday near the sea and hopefully earn enough to pay your travel costs without having the task of organizing and promoting your own workshop. There is currently a special "Early Bird" offer: for anyone able to offer daily yoga, tai chi, or Qi gong sessions before breakfast, these "Early Bird" FIRs get a very cheap holiday with a minimal work commitment.

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 10,000 colour brochures and color postcards 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 40% off the usual LCG rate (currently working out to £135/€150 a week) which includes food, accommodation 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 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: we send you 30-40 brochures to distribute in your area, and 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.

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 24260 31346 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. Although 2012 is Kalikalos' eighth year, the project is still 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.

* 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.

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The Holly Foundation
http://www.hollyfoundation.org
email:
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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