I’ve been so busy recently that I’ve not had the opportunity to write a blog post. From last Wednesday to Friday, I spent time visiting various parts of North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) in Bangor, whilst staying with Wulf and Melanie Livingston in Tregarth. I have met some wonderful people. It’s now evening on Monday and I’m in the lounge of an accommodation centre in Bangor writing this blog post and staring out across the water.
In my last blog post, I described my visit to Eternal Media in Wrexham on Tuesday last week. On the following morning, Wulf and I visited Growing for Change, which is an Organic Market Garden based in Moelyci Farm, just outside Bangor. This important community initiative is one element of North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC). As described by Wulf, Growing for Change engages community members in beneficial activities and provides food for local restaurants, including the community cafe/restaurant Bwyd Da Bangor. I was shown around the gardens and allotments by Paul, who leads the initiative, and Sarah Flynn who is Chair of the Trustees at NWRC.
On Thursday, Wulf dropped me off at Penrhyn House, the residential part of NWRC, where I was due to give a workshop in the afternoon on trauma, healing, and the Carrolup Story to residents. I initially had an interesting discussion with Housing Manager Kevin Morris and Duty Officer Bradley Morgan which covered a range of interesting topics. Brad then showed me around Penryhn House.
I really enjoyed the afternoon workshop and received good feedback from a number of the participants. They found the talks on trauma and healing to be very informative and useful. A number said that the talks helped them understand their own traumatic experiences and their impact on their lives, as well as their personal recovery. I was really pleased that community members enjoyed hearing about the story of the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup.
Residents really enjoyed our Shaking and Dancing session (check Expressive Meditation section), from The Centre for Mind Body Medicine, which helps people shed stress and tension and bring up and release emotion.
James Deakin, Founder of NWRC, had organised an ‘Evening with David Clark’ on Friday at Bwyd Da Bangor, the ethically, environmentally sustainable cafe/restaurant on the high street of Bangor. I had previously visited the restaurant, which is part of NWRC, with Wulf in September 2022.
Tasty canapés were provided prior to my first talk, which was focused on addiction recovery and My Journey From Brain Chemicals to Human Connection, to an audience of around 30 people. We then had a gorgeous dinner cooked by chef and restaurant manager Jason Hughes, along with his staff. The meal was outstanding. During the dinner break, I spent time visiting the tables and meeting people.
I then talked about the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup, a trauma healing trauma from Western Australia which I had researched and written a book about. My colleague, social anthropologist John Stanton, and I have a website focused on this topic which you can find here.
My talks were filmed by Marcus Fair of Eternal Media, which was really great. I also wandered around with my phone during the break and filmed some of my audience.
I was really thrilled to see Simon Jenkins at the event, someone who provided a chapter for my Recovery Stories project some years ago. Simon has played a major role in Narcotics Anonymous, both nationally and internationally. I thought Simon still lived in London, but he had moved to Wales. I had not seem him since 2008 or 2009.
I felt really emotional giving the talks and was really pleased about the feedback I had about my talks. And I had an awful lot of hugs… that’s very special!
Tomorrow, I will write about my activities with NWRC over the past two days.
