Flying School

Be You : Inspire Others - https://mailchi.mp/flyingschool/be-you-inspire-others-march24-18050950

Here is our May update - have a lovely weekend everyone!

I am very excited about our Wisdom Lab that we are hosting in July!

Can you make it and do you know of others who would be interested?

We will be exploring a question that as you know is close to my heart and feels more important than ever:

How can we do more to help young people fly?

This lab is part of our offer towards supporting systems to access more wisdom and balance in decision making. We’re bringing together a diverse group of people who care deeply about young people’s development — educators, employers, youth workers, policymakers, researchers, community partners, parents, and young people themselves. Using the landscape of YSP and approaches from the Centre for Wisdom & Balance, we intend to learn form our collective wisdom and think creatively on our biggest challenges.
Throughout the day we’ll draw on:

•Thinking Environment methodology

•Six Core Practices (Ground–Pause–Connect–Play–Stretch–Hope)

•Art‑led exploration with an artist to spark imagination

•Research‑informed inquiry and collective sense‑making

•Courageous action planning

The Lab is designed to help us see the system afresh and move forward with courage and hope. Participants will leave with practical individual actions, collective commitments, and an insight into how to navigate complexity with wisdom and balance.

Cost:

£100 + VAT (organisational representatives)
£50 + VAT (individuals)
Complimentary for young people/students

Access to the park and all refreshments are included.

You can sign up at the following link:
https://www.centreforwisdomandbalance.org/wisdom-labs

The boys came home this weekend and look what also arrived!!

Bruce has come to Wakey as a life size cardboard cut out thank you so much to Sasha you made our weekend!

Watch this space as we take Bruce to visit some of the wonderful sights of Wakefield!

I have been so inspired by the Artemis II mission - it’s like a beacon of hope right now in the world. What inspires me most about these heroic astronauts is their humanity. Behind the suits and the science are ordinary people carrying the same hopes, fears and wonder as the rest of us.

🙏 for helping us all learn to fly with these words.

Thank you to my dear friend Sheree Axon for this moving story on Bruce. Thank you so much for being one of my biggest cheerleaders - calling me up with encouraging ideas and walking with me throughout this project! I hope we can make it happen for you! Bruce Springsteen

Hope in The Darkness – my Springsteen Soundtrack Africa 1982-1986

Blinded by the Light..

It’s 1982, and I had just left home and moved into the Bulawayo Holiday Inn – my first posting as an apprentice hotel manager for Holiday Inn Southern Africa. Greetings from Asbury Park was introduced to me by Mike – my first boyfriend, and the artwork was on my hotel room wall and the vinyl on the portable record player. On a trip to Malawi to meet his family, the light across the lake was literally blinding and I was full of hope for what my life would become.

Darkness on the Edge of Town

‘Block release’ at Hotel School in Johannesburg, meeting the other apprentices, and a ‘field trip’ to Hillbrow where I find Darkness on the Edge of Town for £7.99-priceless given sanctions still on in Rhodesia and American music impossible to find. Badlands quickly became my anthem about our lives in Bulawayo as the war continued to rage with queues for food or petrol rations, curfews and the sound of mortars in faraway skies. Prove it All night became the reality of my working life as my next posting was night manager – dealing with disarming guns as guests checked in, to escorting drunk soldiers off the premises as they partied hard whilst on RnR for the weekend. How I longed for dawn to break and those long dark nights to end, just as we all longed for the war to end and our families and friends to come home safe..

The River

So much hope when the call came from Head Office with news of my next posting to the Riverside Holiday Inn on The Vaal River near Vanderbijlpark in South Africa. No more night shifts and at last the chance to join a kitchen brigade. Little did I know what the reality would bring, as I packed my suitcase and vinyl and twenty four hours was on a plane to Johannesburg after a tearful fairwell to Mike. Arriving in the dead of night at staff quarters, securing my door with a chair from the inside and unpacking ready for the 7am kitchen shift, I felt nervous, and alone. The kitchen became the best and worst of times during that apprenticeship – and the river a place of solace whenever I managed to get assigned to the braai breakfast on the Vaal river. The River was the perfect soundtrack providing light and hope. Oh and Mike and I did not survive the long distance.

Born to Run

My apprenticeship ended in Zululand at the Hluhluwe Holiday Inn where I moved in 1984 and left in 1986. After living and working through Cyclone Demoina, and a brief but failed marriage to Greg, I’d revisited Born to Run which became the soundtrack to what felt like a broken heart. Too young to be running a 62 bedroom hotel, life felt overwhelming and dark – it was time to run, hopeful of a new start. So in 1986, I packed a tea-chest with my worldly goods and shipped it with Rennies to England, packed my suitcase and my vinyl, and late one night, I ‘ran’ through Zululand to Durban where I caught a plane to London escaping the darkness.

I’m on Fire
England was proving harder than I had expected and I didn’t really fit in anywhere, especially not Cromer where I had rented a holiday cottage, so I moved to Norwich, starting again, but thinking maybe I could plan a year travelling. In the meantime I spent all my money seeing as much live music as I could. Which is how I found myself in the front row at Wembley Stadium singing my heart out along with thousands of others to Bruce and the E Street Band. How thankful was I to be there, alive and still hopeful, despite all the darkness.

Thank you to my lovely friend David for his story..🎸



I was 21, newly graduated and about to start my first job at a packaging company called Metal Box. Probably for the first time in my life I had some spare money in my pocket - I’d just received a small inheritance from my grandmother and had just bought my first car - a bright green Citroen Diane! I had money leftover and was looking for some portable music - I would be travelling around the country, living out of a suitcase for the first few months of employment and there is no radio in a Citroen Diane.

On a hot summers day in Ormskirk I purchased what would be described today as a ghetto blaster for a whopping £120 and Bruce Springsteen’s double album - The River. It was a Sony radio cassette with 2 big speakers. I recorded the album onto cassette straightaway as I was leaving the next day - it just fitted onto a C90.

The next day I picked up a new colleague at the Parbold M6 motorway junction and we set off for Reading. The Sony wedged nicely on top of our gear on the back seat. The journey took 3 hours and choice of music was limited so we listened to The River on repeat the whole way. What a BLAST!

For the next couple of months we commuted weekly to Reading in my Green Citroen Diane, driven accompanied by the pulsating sounds of the Boss at high volume - Cadillac, Hungry Heart and of course The River were all favourites!

Cheers!

David

Hello everyone

I am in my final week of the.Creating the Impossible course and I wanted to thank everyone for their help so far! In particular I wanted to thank the people who have shared their stories and lifted me up over the last few months I am finding a way to share these with but in the meantime hope you enjoy this one from Dom in Wakefield…🎸

Today is the day everyone!!!

Thank you so much for all the love and support and encouragement around this challenge!

I am still dreaming and believing and I hope you are too!

Tonight at around 7pm GMT please go to Bruce’s latest post and comment with an invite to Wakefield and the hashtag -

Let’s do this!!!

Since the call with on Thursday morning my “creating the impossible” project has been moving a bit faster!

So I am trying one last push this week to try and get Bruce’s attention!

Can you help me?

Here is the plan:

I am learning that the only way something impossible happens is if enough other people believe in it and choose to show up.

So think of it as an insta flash mob

On Thursday 26th around 7pm GMT, we’re asking as many people as possible to go to Bruce’s latest Instagram post and leave the same message. Just a simple invitation from Wakefield. With the hashtag
.

Please also feel free to post on your own account using the same hashtag and ask all your friends wherever they are in the world to do the same…

Please can you share and repost this to increase its chances of being seen?

🙏 everyone- come on let’s try and make the impossible happen this week!

Two more book requests today - ordered as beautiful gifts for teachers as the term comes to an end and it’s time to slow down and hopefully be inspired.

🙏 everyone for your wonderful reviews and encouragement around , we are so grateful.

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