About the talk:

The fact that public services are in crisis is now commonly acknowledged.  The long term impacts of austerity have combined with already growing demographic shifts and create unmanageable pressures around social care and housing which in term reduce capacity for the myriad of other services which the public sector contributes to place.  These are known problems – the real question is what has stopped public services reimagining themselves to serve a world which is very different to the one which they were born into.  Rather than looking at this as a challenge to preserve the services we needed in the past, reimagining public services needs us to think about what we need to sustain our communities and social fabric in the future – what would it mean to reimagine public services with forward looking and long term relevance rather than based on the skills and stories of the past?  And importantly, who is best placed to lead that work of imagination – how could we imagine our democracy and decision making systems in parallel to bring about a more hopeful future for public services?

About the speaker:

Dr Catherine Howe is Chief Executive of Adur and Worthing
Councils. She is an expert in digital innovation, focusing on the
area of digital democracy and systems practice and has a
background which connects together technology, community
and social change.

Catherine has worked across a number of different sectors
including education, not for profit and the technology industry.
Catherine was CEO of a successful SME, Public-i Group Ltd,
before moving to Capita to redevelop Capita’s digital
transformation approach and then to Cancer Research UK to
lead work on technology strategy and transformation. Before
becoming CEX she was Director for Communities which she
described as ‘helping communities direct themselves’.

She has worked with new collaborative technologies and social
networking tools for over 15 years. Her research interests
cover digital civic space, citizenship and systems thinking and
she is a Trustee of the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny.

The venue:
The Elephant And Castle
White Hill
Lewes
BN7 2DJ

Tickets:
They are £5 and you can purchase them on the door or about a week before at the venue. Please note that the capacity of the venue is limited, we recommend buying the ticket in advance to avoid disappointment.

About the talk:

Do Single People Get a Raw Deal?

Recent decades have seen huge changes in how we live our close relationships. As the extended family has receded from daily life, and the nuclear family has loosened its hold, people have been more free to make the sort of intimate choices that suit them. Women’s greater economic and social independence, and the reshaping of cultural expectations and personal desires by feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, have spread ideals of equality, freedom and self-actualisation throughout the population. Divorce has become easier, and equality legislation has enabled more women to live autonomously. Sex between men has been decriminalised and same-sex marriage legalised. This has contributed to the rising number of people who live and parent alone, and who never marry, divorce, or live apart from their partners and openly form same-sex partnerships. In 2020, it is no longer legally or culturally obligatory for women or men to marry or to stay married – to be or to act heterosexual. Yet against the backdrop of these radical upheavals in personal life, one unchanging aspect of the cultural ordering of intimacy becomes ever clearer: our lives remain profoundly shaped by the couple norm. This is the powerful and ubiquitous force – at once both social and psychological – which maintains that being in a couple is the natural and best way of living.

What does this mean for single people? Do they get a raw deal in a couple-centric society? Have things improved for single people in recent year?

About the speaker:

Professor Sasha Roseneil is Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Sussex. Sasha began her term as the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Sussex in August 2022. She is Sussex’s ninth Vice Chancellor and our first female VC. Previously, Sasha was UCL’s first Pro-Provost for Equity and Inclusion and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences. Before that, Professor Roseneil was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Essex, and held leadership positions at Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Leeds. Over more than 30 years as an academic, Professor Roseneil has developed an international reputation for her pioneering research on intimate relationships, citizenship, and social movements. Originally trained as a sociologist, and later as a group analyst and psychotherapist, she has played a leading role in establishing the interdisciplinary fields of Gender Studies and Psychosocial Studies. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is also a member of the Institute of Group Analysis and a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council.

The venue:
The Elephant And Castle
White Hill
Lewes
BN7 2DJ

Tickets:
They are £5 and you can purchase them on the door or about a week before at the venue. Please note that the capacity of the venue is limited, we recommend buying the ticket in advance to avoid disappointment.

About the talk:

Everyone has deeply-held “sacred values”: these may be religious, political or both. Extremism, including that of the violent sort, exists across religions and the political spectrum. Hear about the speaker’s personal journey into, and out of, islamist extremism in a UK and global context since the 1970s. Find out how religious conservatism, fundamentalism, the experience of racism, and the geopolitics between the West and the Muslim world led to the radicalisation of generations of British Muslims. Hear also about how cross-cultural dialogue, friendship, love and shared values can help us to increase resilience and cohesion within our communities.

About the speaker:

Usama is a trained imam and scientist. He has served as a part-time, UK-based imam for over 40 years since the age of 11, is a certified transmitter of the Qur’an and has translated several Islamic texts into English. He is co-author, along with a Jewish professor-rabbi and a Christian theologian, of an Abrahamic dialogue book, “People of the Book: How Jews, Christians & Muslims Understand Their Sacred Scriptures” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, now part of the Hachette Group, 2019). Since 2012, when he changed career, he has worked full-time in counter-extremism and counter-terrorism, as well as in research and analysis of the geopolitics of the Muslim world and Muslim communities in Western societies. Prior to that, Usama was Senior Lecturer in Engineering at Middlesex University (2003-2012), Planetarium Lecturer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich (2006-8), Associate Professor at the National University of Sciences & Technology, Pakistan (2002-3), and an artificial intelligence consultant in UK industry (1997-2003). He holds a PhD, MSc & MA in Physics and Artificial Intelligence from the Universities of Cambridge & London and is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, the International Society for Science & Religion, the London Society for the Study of Religion, and of the Muslim Institute.

The venue:
The Elephant And Castle
White Hill
Lewes
BN7 2DJ

Tickets:
They are £5 and you can purchase them on the door or about a week before at the venue. Please note that the capacity of the venue is limited, we recommend buying the ticket in advance to avoid disappointment.

Blurb: Volunteering abroad has become hugely popular over the last 30 years. Whether as a rite of passage for young people on a gap year, a learning experience for a family while travelling, a career break, or a retirement focus, lending a hand in a low-income communities
overseas has become a popular and much-lauded activity for those who can afford to do so.
However, much of this $3-billion a year industry is geared around the experience for the
buyer, not the impact on the communities involved. At its worst, voluntourism can be hugely
exploitative; worsening inequalities, and creating new social issues. This talk, grounded in
real-life experience and extensive global research, seeks to challenge conceptions of “giving
back” and “doing good” in other countries and argues that good intentions are not enough.
Speaker: Anna McKeon was old enough to know better when she volunteered abroad for
the first time at an orphanage in Kenya. Changed by her experience, she then spent 6 years
living in South East Asia, and worked with organisations such as Save the Children and
UNICEF to lead a global campaign against voluntourism practices. Anna also led
experiential leadership courses in the region, facilitating learning for adults and young people
on international development. Anna is currently the Director of Capability Building at the
International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, the global alliance for eye health
organisations, supporting sustainable social change through leadership initiatives.

The venue:
The Elephant And Castle
White Hill
Lewes
BN7 2DJ

Tickets:
They are £5 and you can purchase them on the door or about a week before at the venue. Please note that the capacity of the venue is limited, we recommend buying the ticket in advance to avoid disappointment.

About the talk:

The latest census revealed that England is no longer a majority-Christian country. Meanwhile, our head of state retains the title of Defender of the Faith; laws requiring Christian worship in schools remain in place; and Church of England bishops retain seats as of right in the legislature. Stephen Evans explores the relationship between religion and state and asks whether time has come to disestablish the Church of England.

About the speaker:

Stephen Evans is the chief executive of the National Secular Society – a campaigning organisation that advocates for a secular democracy where everyone is treated equally, regardless of religion or belief. Stephen is a regular media commentator on religion’s role in public life.

About the talk:

The Israel/Palestinian conflict is complex with much emotion and spilling of blood over the years. In this talk Harvey Gordon will outline the issues of the conflict based on 4000 years of history through the lens of forensic psychiatry, covering the role of the three major monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam through six historical phases: 1) Old Testament 2) New Testament 3) post-Biblical 4) Enlightenment 5) Mandate Palestine 6) State of Israel.

About the speaker:

Harvey Gordon is a retired Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist who worked at Broadmoor, the Maudsley and Bethlem hospitals, and in Oxford. He has managed the care of patients who have committed serious criminal offences. He is a frequent visitor to Israel and has also visited several Arab countries, He has been a visiting lecturer in forensic psychiatry in Israel and is an honorary member of the Israel Forensic Psychiatric Association. He has also lectured to Arab hospitals on the West Bank and Gaza. He has co-authored a number of published articles with both Israeli and Palestinian colleagues.

The venue:
The Elephant And Castle
White Hill
Lewes
BN7 2DJ

Tickets:
They are £3 and you can purchase them on the door or about a week before at the venue. Please note that the capacity of the venue is limited, we recommend buying the ticket in advance to avoid disappointment.

About the talk: 

Many people think the Church is out of touch and out of date. Why might an established Church matter?  What does it bring to people and to the national debate?  Reverend Ben Brown will give some personal answers to some of these questions.