The personal portfolio of Hugh Gibbons

	Home of some original ideas and happy happenings
	by Hugh Gibbons	CONDUCTOR E-mail hughgibbons@just1.org.uk 75 Qualitas, Roman Hill, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 7QG United Kingdom

	WELCOME! New readers start here. Not surprisingly, Just1 is just one person: me - though tens of thousands of people have joined in and enjoyed its activities. "Die of service, not of rust" was one of the things my old school's song urged on us. In recent years one way for me to achieve that has been by creating and developing some sideways-thinking ideas that people could enjoy and put to use. Just1 is a non-for-profit organisation funded out of a piggy bank, with no commercial or other outside involvement. So there are (hurrah!) no committees, minutes, mission statements, newsletters or meetings. The Just1 international corporate headquarters, media and IT centre and are in the small bedroom. Just1 uses a lot of skills and knowledge acquired in and beyond a business career that took the scenic route - through ad agency copywriting, creative team leading, market research, journalism, conferencing and training. All of them have been unusual, fun, surprising, low-cost to me. Later I created an unusual psychology association for non-psychologists, named PsyPhaa until I realised it was difficult to pronounce; and it became Ahaa! But this had dozens of meetings as a sort of chat over the garden fence. Later I became a schools and media volunteer with CAFOD, secretary of a local CIPD and a Churches Together. And I took part in many campaigns. This page gives a glimpse of current activities. If you want more information or have any helpful suggestions, do get in touch by hughgibbons@just1.org.uk Many thanks Hugh THANKSGIVING FIELD has been a major source of pleasure for me and many people since unearthing fragments of an historic B17 in 1943. Created out of a corner of a Berkshire field in a busy equine centre, it's the unique home of a wide range of tributes to the kindness and inspiration of all sorts of people - with outposts elsewhere in the UK, in Germany and across the USA. You can see a little more further down the page, or go to the heavy-duty site www.thanksgivingfield.org GALLERIES OF GOOD EXAMPLES are what I've been able to provide for local schools and churches, using their ideas for who should appear on them. Again, there's brief information below; or go to www.just1.org.uk/galleries PHUNNYBONES is a series of about twenty last-page articles that I wrote for a doctors' magazine - but are actually a pretty cheery read for anyone. If you'd like to browse, they're all here. MOSELEY & ME is a set of personal recollections from my time in Birmingham. The topics are the stories around The Reddings, long time home of Moseley Rugby; going to the cinema then and now; and the first-hand account of the 1940 night the bomb took the front off our house. Click here for details. OPEN BOOKS is a series of discussion papers about investigations into financial transparency and accountability in Catholic dioceses and parishes originally planned for 2020... STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY was a UK contribution to the global show of solidarity with the poor, arranged to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty in 2008-10. In all, about 60,000 pupils, staff and parents took part in a simple ceremony that renewed Promises to the Poor based on the then Millennium Development Goals. A development was Sing Out Against Poverty, using the Count On Us song that I wrote for them. Over 20,000 took part, including this time choirs, a Glee Club, and six bishops - one of whom said he scared the cat before breakfast. SCHOOLS SPEAK OUT FOR FAIRTRADE is a website with lots of suggestions for schools to play a leading role in their community - especially in encouraging churches and other groups to renew their commitment to Fairtrade through a brief ceremony in or around Fairtrade Fortnight. The entry is at www.just1.org.uk/fairtrade

	The Tiny Park with a Mighty Heart A unique home of cultural diversity
	BEHIND THE BARN AT TALLY HO FARM, WINKFIELD SL4 4RZ is this place full of surprises and history - inhabited by a spirit: of generosity. The field beyond is where in 2013 I discovered a handful of fragments from a USAAF B17 that ended up there after the greatest ever air battle in October 1943. The fenced-off area of the Park was first configured as a tribute to everyone who helps lives and hope recover after conflict of any sort. Since 2016, over three dozen plaques on the fence make this a place of tribute to all sorts of uplifters and inspirers, making this an unusual exhibition of cultural diversity. The Field has reached out far and wide. Mission 115Z saw the fragments made into little works of art sent off to the crew's families, museums, embassies, churches in the UK, Germany and USA. Go to www.thanksgivingfield.org where you can find PDF Guides for Visitors (which includes descriptions of all the small plaques), Mission 115Z, and the large plaques - and a mighty lot of background information.

	A Gatherings of Galleries Art with its sleeves rolled up
	These have been home-made for schools, churches and the passing public: in the grounds of St Francis of Assisi Primary School in Ascot, and the halls of St Margaret Clitherow Primary and St Joseph's church in Bracknell, and anywhere with a space 5 metres square for Adelante to visit. Available free for local schools and churches to borrow and put to use is the highly mobile Paternoster Plaques Gallery - versions of The Lord's Prayer in nearly two dozen different languages. They can be exhibited on staves simply leant against a wall, or as table top displays flat or on small display stands. All are easy to handle. On the back you'll find a commentary on the small pictures accompanying the language, and a commentary on why they make a good exhibition of cultural diversity. See more at www.just1.org.uk/galleries

	Flying-crooked Tales of the Unexpected Talks for schools and other groups up for surprises and smiles
	Over the years, I've been invited to give talks and workshops to all sorts of communities - large and small, of all ages. You can see that some have been enthralled. (Tip, thanks to Tommy Cooper: to get a laugh, wear a funny hat for starters.) Audiences have included; business conferences; historians at RMA Sandhurst; primary and secondary schools; the crew of a naval frigate that helped after the Tsunami; postgraduate courses; Rotary, Probus and similar clubs; U3As; medical societies; NADFAS on the Costa del Sol who, ahem, asked for a talk on Art in the Spanish Civil War; in-company teams; a big variety of church and community groups, including MUs and UCMs and CWLs and WIs; and congregations prepared to be woken up. The topics have ranged from Roman military medicine to the Flighty Women of White Waltham, the psychology of laughter, visual illusions at work, the work of aid and relief agencies, healthy writing; and how the Romans get their silk from China. Many have been delivered using lots of slides with pictures rather than words. And quite a bit of humour. All talks are free. If you want to give something, you decide what. A donation to a UK humanitarian charity is welcome; and if you're one already, then anything you give in my name will also go to a charity. Currently, the preferred topics are three. For many groups, variations on the stories behind Thanksgiving Field - the latest being called The Writing's On the Fence, about the many Uplifters depicted there. For schools studying WW1 or WW2 or modern social history, there are the bases of two unusual workshops - both of which get pupils seriously involved. The first explores the story of my father, who volunteered in Ireland the week he was 18, survived the Somme, was commissioned, and won the Military Cross. Returning to a republican-minded Ireland, at the point of a gun he became a political refugee. In Birmingham he met and married my mother, whose brothers had also served in France. So I'm able to tell the story of all of them using documents and other authentic family material. The second workshop explores my experiences as a primary school children in WW2. That included being bombed by the Luftwaffe one night in 1940 - and everyone gets to see the fragment of the bomb embedded in a book that was in the right hand room below... In addition, I have the war-time accounts by my father and sister. So it's all very much history in the first person. If you're interested in any of these, just get in touch by hughgibbons@just1.org.uk

	PPhunnybones are here

	The Integrity Project is the working title for Hugh's discussion papers intended for bishops, parish clergy and laity in the UK and elsewhere. These explore on-line financial transparency and the effect of integrating a variety of information sources in the public domain - drawing on a wide range of examples and questioning. If you would like to be kept in touch with the progress and outcomes of these, or have anything helpful to contribute, just contact hughgibbons@just1.org.uk
	TOP OF PAGE