We had a quick meal of freshly picked salad from the farm with bread and goats cheese. Got to know eachother a bit - people are from many varied cities such as Glasgow, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, Dorking and Croyden.

We did a bit of getting to know each other's strenghts and skills and thought about the skils we want to develop.

Some of the skills we have are: telling stories, being organised and noticing details, learning new things, getting people excited about things, video editing, organising events, contextualising and seeing links between varied areas such as neuroscience and environmentalism, knowledge on the history of cities, making people laugh, being sensitive to social situations and diffusing or changing the dynamics, being very enthusiastic, being good with children, improvising, making a good synopsis of a book on the spot, singing. I'm sure there are many many more waiting to be uncovered and apoligies if I forgot any (please reply to this mail with more)]
People who came were Phillida, Marine, Lauren, Sally, Phil, Pat, Christina, Ian, Rebbecca and Alex. We glimpsed a little of the deep engaged works that everyone is involved in in their own ways.
Then in the classroom
We looked briefly at how a variety of disciplines and subjects have shaped the Street Training framework for engagement with our surroundings.
from capoeira, ethnography, debates about the relation between art and activism,public art, walking, self organised education, radical geography, permaculture, sociological studies of public space, psychogeography and more.
References came up
Walking and Ethnography by Tim Ingold University of Aberdeen
Weapons of the Weak James C Scott
Film - One day - about street crime

Then we walked - we made a circuit around the block from farm to brick lane, under scary bridge and back along valance road.
techniques people used of innovated were (please add the ones I've missed off)
railing balancing - eliciting applause from passers by
railing gymnastics in many ways
dancing and jumping on the pavement
singing through traffic cones and engaging local teenagers and dog walker
interaction with boy who had been told off by hos girlfriend for being drunk
graffitti inspection and admiration
noticing details we've never seen before
the god of the trailing greenery/bush spoke to us
the swinging gate of fear and not so scary attempts at meeting in the middle
Knocking on a huge shiny door knocker and running away
discovering sun dogs
human naughts and crosses
the view from the bridge
using the acoustics of the scary bridge to make it sound like a cathedral
double abandoned mattress trampoline
making arches for other pavement users to go under as we went along (interesting discussion on how that shifted relations especially between white women and bengali men)
running really fast in a group

and loads of other things that i didn't see or forgot
To all of you who missed it Ahh, what a shame you missed a good session.

next week we'll be sitting around a campfire chatting about community in the city meeing some of the people who make the farm such a magical and important place. 6-8 with salad and bread.http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=129254510447967 details here. You are especialy welcome to talk from your own experience and share the ways you see these topics.