Community-Led Day
in Association with
HoTWater
The River Summit and Festival continues on 5th September with a free, community-led day by the river at Mill Meadows in Henley-on-Thames, in association with HoTWater, the citizen science group that has been monitoring this stretch of the Thames for three years. The day runs from 10am - 5pm.
This is a day for everyone. Come and connect with the river, share stories and get involved in workshops and talks, explore your own relationship with water and find out how you can become part of the growing community of people looking after it. More details coming very soon.
HoTWater
HoT Water is a volunteer citizen science group based in Henley-on-Thames. For the last 3 years, they have been monitoring the river quality on the Henley stretch and beyond. Its mission is to use scientific methods and data collection to understand what is impacting river quality. They have used increasingly sophisticated techniques to measure and monitor levels of pollutants including Phosphates, Nitrates, E. coli, Enterococci, and ammonia. They report results through an app used by 100s of local residents. They test every week in rain or shine. A stated aim was to have one of the most monitored stretches of river in the UK, and they are well on track to achieve this. Over the last 3 years, they have partnered with, amongst others, River Action, Earthwatch, Fluidion, Seneye, Trace Bio, QCL with Coliminder, Batiquik, and undertaken dual testing with the EA and Thames Water.
The Warrior’s Way: Activism and Wellbeing
Becky Bön is a neuro-somatic psychotherapist, yoga therapist and Advanced EMDR practitioner whose work explores the connection between activism, wellbeing and nervous system health
Drawing from her own experience of burnout and recovery, she supports activists, carers, changemakers and those who give so much to the world around them that they are losing connection to themselves - helping them find ways to contribute without sacrificing their own wellbeing in the process.
Working with clients and groups across the UK and internationally, her work is grounded in the belief that we are not broken and do not need fixing. Instead, therapy becomes a process of self-awareness and gentle acceptance - learning to be deeply present with the body, acknowledge our patterns, recognising our needs to support creative lives that are more balanced, sustainable and connected.
Combining both top-down approaches through talking and reflection, and bottom-up approaches through working with the body and nervous system, Becky helps people move beyond survival and towards a more embodied way of living - where caring for themselves becomes just as important as caring for the world around them.
This session is free although please register claire@zambuni.com
The Water Café with Geoffrey Thomas
The first river Summit in Claire's garden in the south of France was a delightful gathering that concluded with a convivial dinner. Everyone enjoyed the event entirely, but as almost always happens, other human beings are so interesting and it's easy to ignore the rivers themselves. In thinking about that event, I wanted to create an occasion that invited a more distinct connection with our rivers. The Water Café was the eventual brainchild.
The Water Café combines sharing personal experiences with a river, and then going down to the river itself. The stories might reflect history, family memories, or historical anecdotes. A group comes together to speak, recount, and retell stories of experiences and the history of a local river. Such stories can connect each member of the group to the river in particular ways. Perhaps the river was important for industry or for angling or for shipping. What emerges is a groups description of the river.
The Water Café then moves from talk into more direct contact with the river. Perhaps you can even wade into the river or at the very least gaze at the river. It can be helpful to move into a more sensory or meditative or even spiritual space by paying close attention to the sounds of the river, its smells, bird song, the surface of the river. The goal is to bring together the verbal and the sensory. To engage as much of the self or even some kind of merging with the river. For some, it can be difficult to move from the pollution levels or pH or water flow into an engagement with the river that is more emotional and somatic. Participants may vary greatly in this kind of engagement but meeting the complexity of a river with the multitude of one's own being can create a move vivid connection.
As a possible conclusion, the group can address questions related to the river. What should the river be like in ten years? What could be in the river and around the river? How can the river play a more central role in the life of the area? How can we bring children to the river?
The Water Café is a template, not a fixed structure. Groups can create new rules and vary the structure. The most critical element is people and rivers in the new connection between the two.
Ruth Broadbent
Ruth Broadbent is an artist and educator, based in the UK. Her creative practice is inspired by nature and ecology, lines of landscape, and line in drawing and sculpture.The process of walking and movement is central to the way that she creatively responds to place. Recent works explore ground and water, from a material engagement with the surface of the ground and its multi-layered stories, to responses to seas, rivers, rainwater puddles, hail and snow. She exhibits her work internationally, is a member of drawing, walking and ecology artist networks, the founder of walk.draw, and a Co-Director of Walking the Land CIC.
