CreativeCoffee Club: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

First meeting of CreativeCoffee Club for 2010, at Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre. I thought that this morning's snow might put off potential attendees: it almost did me! But there are at least as many people here as there had been at the previous meeting, late December last year. I'm glad I've come.

I have an interesting conversation with Marie Allen, a writer and artist whom I met briefly last summer. Marie offers coaching in personal creativity. She and her husband, Doug, are active members of Transition Leicester, part of the Transition Network, which is working to prepare for a society after peak oil. She and I spoke about the relation between religious or spiritual principles and this kind of work. She's very knowledgeable about Buddhism; I spoke with her about Jainism and its relevance to our current environmental dilemma. We find we have one particular thing in common: we'd both been to audiences with the Dalai Lama - she at Nottingham Arena last year, I at Glasgow City Halls back in 1983 (an occasion so dim and distant that I can't even find any reference to it when I google it!). We both remembered one specific thing that he'd said at each of these meetings, which had stayed strongly with us both, respectively, ever since.

Also a useful chat with Ben Ravilious of Ultimate Web Design and Campaign Director of Leicester Civic Society. Ben's part of the Amplified Leicester project (which, every time I hear about it, I more thoroughly regret not having been able to enrol on it). He was musing on possible outcomes from Amplified Leicester, one being the establishment of an informal group of "ambassadors" for the city. He's just tossing this idea around just now, finding out who else might be interested. I like this and hope to talk with him more about it before long.