Daily Bread For Scottish Charity, Three Streams

by THREE STREAMS in Lockerbie, Scotland, United Kingdom

Total raised £5,670

raised so far

+ est. £1042.50 Gift Aid

67

supporters

Help us to fund a part-time post, so that Three Streams can continue to support wellbeing & resilience in people from all walks of life.

by THREE STREAMS in Lockerbie, Scotland, United Kingdom

We're still collecting donations

On the 29th September 2021 we'd raised £5,430 with 66 supporters in 28 days. But as every pound matters, we're continuing to collect donations from supporters.

Regular Donations: After you have completed your donation you will be able to set-up a regular donation arrangement to continue supporting this great cause.

 New stretch target

£5,000 would support one person in a managerial capacity working 10 hours a week for a year at the Real Living Wage of £9.50/hour.

This would be enough to keep things ticking over and for the charity to not go under.

£10,000 would support one person to work 20 hours a week for a year (or 10 hours a week for 2 years); or two people to work 10 hours a week for a year.

This would be enough to enable the charity to expand and develop its work; to put time into fundraising, community building and workshop delivery. 

Anything over and above this would enable us to create posts that supported full-time wages or the charity could employ more people (yippee!).


WHAT IS THIS SCOTTISH CHARITY FOR?


Three Streams was set up in Dumfries & Galloway in 2019 to put into practice the conviction that wellbeing and resilience can be supported through creative and contemplative practice – slowing down enough to remember who we are and who we can become. 

Since the charity was founded, we have worked with prisoners, artists, social workers, doctors, lawyers, activists, students and retirees, to bring a sense of purpose and connection into our lives at this challenging time in human history. 

We have delivered workshops and retreats in Glasgow, Edinburgh, on the Isle of Lismore, in community settings in Dumfries, including HMP Dumfries and more recently online, due to covid-19.

WHAT DO WE DO?

Our work is delivered through in-person workshops and retreats, and one of the key concerns of the charity is making this work available to a broad cross-section of society, not just those who can afford it. Bursary places are funded by donations and by a sliding-scale payment system for participants. In this way, those who can afford to participate in workshops part-fund places for those who can't. Over time, this builds a wonderful community of wellbeing and is a simple and effective way for us to support one another at a practical level. 

The arrival of covid-19 meant that we had to cancel our in-person retreats and move some of our workshops online. 

"It's been 9 months since we moved online to continue the RESILIENT FUTURES programme and it's had a profound effect on me. I resigned from my job with no future mapped out and some financial pressure. I spent a week in a favourite forest on my own and when I got home I came across the perfect job, applied and got it! I want to thank you for helping me to reconnect with my life's meaning."

The prisons have been open for short windows of time between lockdowns, but our work there has been severely restricted. Pre-covid we offered weekly workshops in FREE THINKING, a forum for prisoners to discuss 'ways of thinking' and 'ways of being', which has been enormously successful (we are grateful to G&H Roberts Community Trust and Foundation Scotland/Baillie Gifford for their generous support in enabling our work in the prison sector): 

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Photo by Grant Durr on Unsplash

“Free Thinking helped me discover philosophy, to question everything, including my own ego and to open my mind to all ideas and opinions. I have been able to discover more about myself than I ever thought possible.”

“I learnt to listen and understand other views.”

“Free Thinking helped me understand that differences of opinion didn’t have to lead to argument or hostility.”

“The best thing about Free Thinking was that I could discuss things without the fear of being judged.”

“I have learnt not to hate society.”


WHAT ARE OUR PLANS FOR 2021 AND BEYOND?


This year we are continuing our work in Scottish prisons with FREE THINKING, but have had to postpone offering in-person retreats, RESILIENT FUTURES,or EMBODIED POETRY workshops until 2022, so that we can be a little more certain about larger group gatherings in the wake of covid-19.

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We are currently working to upgrade our website and to create an interactive forum for people to share ideas and practices to support resilience and wellbeing.

Our long-term aim is to establish a physical centre on the Isle of Mull, which people can visit for workshops as well as group & solo retreats. We plan to build at least one hermitage and a light-filled studio space for people to gather and participate in creative and contemplative practices. We are also focussed on supporting the resilience and wellbeing of the land and plan to plant new native woodland and increase biodiversity. Watch this space...

WHY £5000?

The management of Three Streams has been run on an entirely voluntary (unpaid) basis since its foundation. We are now seeking to raise a Real Living Wage (£9.50/hour) to fund at least one part-time post, so that the charity can broaden its social impact and support the operational management at a baseline level. 

As it's becoming increasingly difficult for social enterprises and small charities to stay afloat in the wake of covid-19, we're reaching out with this crowdfunder.

£5,000 would support one person in an administrative and fundraising capacity working 10 hours a week for a year at the Real Living Wage of £9.50/hour.

This would be enough to keep things ticking over and for the charity to not go under.

£10,000 would support one person to work 20 hours a week for a year (or 10 hours a week for 2 years); or two people to work 10 hours a week for a year.

This would be enough to enable the charity to expand and develop its work; to put time into fundraising, community building and workshop delivery. 

Anything over and above this would enable us to create posts that supported full-time wages or the charity could employ more people (yippee!).

Might you consider donating something to support a part-time income in 2021 and going forwards?  Of course, we'd be grateful for any contribution, but if you were able to make a larger sum available, we'd like to be able to offer a reward in return. 

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MAKE A PLEDGE & RECEIVE A REWARD


With this in mind, charity founder, Em Strang, is offering her original acrylic artworks (A3), giclée prints (A3) and poetry books as a thank you for larger donations. She's also offering a beautiful, hand-crafted frame of reclaimed pine, made for an A3 mounted picture.

All Em's artwork can be viewed here: Visual Art

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There is also an opportunity for a 3-month creative mentorship with Em at the top end of the donation scale. More information on this is available here: Mentorship with Em. Here's what a 2020 mentee said about their experience of working with Em:

"Genuinely revelatory. You are an exceptional mentor." 

There's a whole range of additional rewards available from the charity's board of trustees and supporters, including Wayfinder coaching sessions with Rachel Connor; a 10-day audio course on forgiveness from Peacebeam; an ELI coaching session with Daniel Mandel; a day's walk in the wilds of Scotland with storyteller and wilderness guide, Dougie Strang, and much much more. Please browse the rewards section on the right hand side of the screen.

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A BIT MORE ABOUT EM STRANG


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Em has spent the last three decades immersed in creative practice, focussed predominantly on poetry and other forms of writing. She has a PhD in ecological poetry from the University of Glasgow and has been shortlisted and won awards for both her poetry and fiction.  

Three Streams came about as a way of bringing together the central passions in Em's life: ecology, creativity & spirituality. All these things have been key in creating a life of sanity and purpose, and her hope is that Three Streams will be equipped to share the tools and practices she has learnt (and continues to learn) on the way. Her dream is to establish a small, rural (eco)centre, so that people from all walks of life can come on solo and group retreats and workshops – to replenish the soul and find new energy for moving forwards. 

Em lives in SW Scotland and has spent the last decade working in Scottish prisons, teaching, amongst other things, creative writing. This work has been a major inspiration in setting up Three Streams (see video). 

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Reward: Ox-Man, Original Shamanic Sculpture, fully framed, £350. If you're interested, please feel free to request further images.

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Reward: Treehouse Glamping in Fife. 

THANK YOU


Thank you so much to everyone who has read this far, and to everyone who is considering giving financial support to Three Streams. Many blessings to all.

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Rewards

This project offered rewards

£400 or more

Copy-Edit for a Work of Fiction with Alison Gray

Have you finished a novel and are looking for a professional copy-editor? Is your book a maximum of 85,000 words? Alison is an industry certified copy-editor and her website is alisongrayeditorialservices.com. Do you need help checking over grammar, spelling, style and punctuation? Alison will help you to revise your work and fix any problems with transitions, wordiness or jargon. This reward is for works of fiction only. Dates to be negotiated.

£5 or more

Stone

A beautifully compiled poetry pamphlet, written by Em Strang, illustrated by Mat Osmond and published by Atlantic Press. "Her house is shivering and cracking, halfway between human and shack. She beckons me in out of the blaring wind: firelight polishing the hearth; dogs with thicker coats than mine, shaggy black wire for hair, faces like hers. 'The horses will be there in the morning,' she says, but I've already turned to go."

£5 or more

Hunger Like Starlings

A 2020 Tapsalteerie publication of poetry in translation, created by a collaboration of Hungarian and Scottish poets as part of the 2019 Edwin Morgan Translation Workshop. Poems & translations by Mónika Ferencz, Iain Galbraith, Em Strang, Balázs Szöllössy, Krisztina Tóth & Kate Tough. "What is made from dust / will eventually once again become dust. / I kept hitting the concrete wall, / and realised my fist was made of porcelain."

£25 or more

Bird-Woman

Em Strang's prize-winning first collection of poetry. Shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Best First Collection prize and winner of the Saltire Poetry Book 2017. "Em Strang's poems are shamanic in that they restore to us abandoned mythologies" – Jen Hadfield

£25 or more

Horse-Man

Em Strang's second poetry collection has recently been shortlisted for a 2021 prize, but it's still under wraps! 'Part keening, part celebration, Horse-Man immerses the reader in a powerful advocacy of sacred meaning and – fiercely, bravely – asks what it might mean to be whole, a fully embodied human being in today's world. Best read by candlelight.'

£25 or more

10-day Audio Course on Forgiveness

Do you meet troubling aspects of your past over and over again in recurrent patterns? Would you like to develop kindness and compassion for yourself and others? Over 10 days we will look at what forgiveness means to you and how unconscious beliefs about ourselves form our attitudes to forgiveness. We will work through different levels of forgiveness and learn the basis of a daily practice for ongoing support.

£100 or more

A3 Original Acrylic Artwork

Please visit Em Strang's website to choose an original artwork and indicate your choice (by title, which appears when you hover over an image) in a crowdfunder message: https://em-strang.co.uk/visual-art/ They are all A3 acrylic paint on acrylic paper and we'll post them worldwide. If you're donating to this crowdfunder from abroad (outside the UK), there will be additional postage costs.

£180 or more

ELI Coaching Session with Daniel Mandel

The Energy Leadership Index is an assessment of your energies and attitudes. The ELI is offered as an online test and "activated" by the debrief I provide as an ELI-MP certified coach. With the awareness and insights gained through the Energy Leadership Index debrief, clients have the opportunity to reshape their attitudes and worldview and transform who they are. Go here to find out more: http://www.danielrmandel.com/ELI/ELI.html

£250 or more

A3 Original Artwork, Framed

Choose an artwork of your choice from this site: https://em-strang.co.uk/visual-art/, and indicate your choice (by title) in a crowdfunder message. The artwork will be mounted and framed in a hand-crafted, reclaimed, solid pine frame. We will post worldwide, but if you're donating from abroad (outside UK) there will be additional postage costs.

£250 or more

The 'Find Your North Star' Package

Have your dreams and desires become obscured by everyday life? This package includes three 1-hour life coaching sessions (online), with email support in between, some pre-work exercises and a resource pack to take away at the end. The package is designed to give you a sense of your alignment and connect you more closely with what your heart yearns for. With Rachel Connor, writer, creativity mentor and accredited Martha Beck Wayfinder life coach.

£250 or more

Song Production & Mastering with John Sparks

Are you a songwriter who would like to create a full production of one of your songs? Would you like to hear your masterpiece fully mastered? John is a world class producer and has decades of experience recording with musicians and bands, writing, producing and mastering. This reward is for the production and mastering of one song, dates to be arranged, from mid-October 2021 onwards. See Sparkle Productions on Facebook for more information.

£300 or more

A Day's Adventure in the Wilds of Scotland

A unique adventure for up to 6 people, exploring the natural and cultural ecology of one of Scotland's wild places. This is an opportunity to invite friends, family, or colleagues, on a full day's walk led by Dougie Strang, a storyteller and wild-land guide. The walk will be tailored to suit the experience, fitness, and geographical location of the group; with options ranging from a river walk in the Lowlands, to a mountain ridge in Torridon.

£500 or more

3-Month Creative Writing Mentorship with Em Strang

A 3-month mentorship with award-winning writer, editor and workshop facilitator, Em Strang. The mentorship will comprise a combination of creative writing and creative practice, delivered over a 3-month period, tailored to the mentee's unique needs and intentions. For more information: https://em-strang.co.uk/mentoring/ "My time with Em was the most transformative, perspective-shifting, creativity-tapping experience of my life."

£10 or more

Antlers of Water (paperback edition)

The first modern anthology of Scottish nature writing which acknowledges the realities of our times, edited, curated and introduced by award-winning poet, essayist and Scottish makar, Kathleen Jamie. Retails at £10.99, so grab yourself a bargain and support charity at the same time! Price includes postage (within UK).

£60 or more

Sample the Wayfinder Life Coaching Experience

A one-hour online session in which we will identify areas of your life, work or relationships where you’d like to see change or transformation. By the end of the session, you will have more insight and clarity about what might be holding you back and a sense of how to move forward with creativity and integrity. With Rachel Connor, writer, creativity mentor and accredited Martha Beck Wayfinder life coach.

£120 or more

Treehouse Glamping Experience for Two in Fife

Come and spend a night in a cosy treehouse in Fife. Close to woodland walks, organic café, local food offers, bike trails. Fuel for wood stove and a simple breakfast are included. Unfortunately this offer is not suitable for small children. Access to the treehouse and to the loft bed inside is via steep stairs, so please take this into consideration when selecting this reward.

£350 or more

Ox Man, Original Shamanic Sculpture, fully framed

Ox-Man is a piece of co-created sculpture, begun by a Buddhist artist in 2006 and completed by Em Strang in 2021. It measures 58cm by 83cm unframed and is heavy and fragile. Pick up or contact to discuss delivery options.

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