The latest news, views and ideas from us, and our advisors and partners.  To find out about upcoming events take a look at What’s On. 

Our New Trustee: Sophie Howe

We're delighted to announce that Sophie Howe will be joining our fantastic board of trustees. Read about Sophie and her experience below:   Sophie Howe is an advisor to governments institutions and corporates on embedding wellbeing economics and future generations… Read more

Black Mountains College in the Media

Read all about our mission, in the words of well-known media channels!   Can a new university breathe life into Britain’s climate education?  Black Mountains College in Wales, and its co-founder Ben Rawlence, is advocating a wartime-style overhaul of the… Read more

A New Story – Black Mountains College

Claire Gardner, Network Coordinator at Be the Earth, shares her experience of, “A New Story – Imagine, Transform, Adapt” –  a 3-Day retreat at Black Mountains College. Keep scrolling to find out more. My experience at the retreat was wholesome to say the… Read more

Meet Shirish! Our Newest Trustee…

BMC are very proud to welcome Shirish Kulkarni to our Board of Trustees! Shirish is an award-winning investigative journalist, researcher and community organiser, with 25 years’ experience working in all the UK’s major broadcast newsrooms. More recently he’s worked on… Read more

The Treeline – Ben Rawlence

Ben Rawlence is an award winning writer, activist, former speech writer to Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy and co-founder. Ben wrote two books about the human consequences of environmental catastrophe in Africa: Radio Congo about the people living in… Read more

COP26 & Nature Friendly Farming Network

BMC, alongside many other organisations, are supporting the Nature Friendly Farming Network in the generation of the below letter, which will be sent to Wales First Minister, the Minister for Rural Affairs, the Minister for Climate Change, and the Deputy… Read more

The Repertoire of Thinking by Susan Milne

In response to the government announcement, July 2021, of 50% cuts to arts subjects at higher education level, Paula Orrell the Director of Contemporary Visual Arts Network commented "They (government) need to find an economic solution to empower the future… Read more

Through a Different Lense

This newsletter is dedicated to alternatives to focusing on GDP growth, such as measuring well-being through considering physical and mental health, pollution levels, non-recycled waste, the gender pay gap, volunteer numbers and over 40 other indicators.  It also addresses 'happiness'… Read more

Living in Circles

BMC’s vocational programme is now open for applications. We have developed our first offering in further education around three ‘future’ skills that we believe will be important and necessary as our economy transitions to a more sustainable footing.  We have… Read more

BMC’s campus

We are thrilled that we have secured a 50 year lease on Troed-yr-Harn Farm. Troed yr Harn farm is 1 mile south of Talgarth, and will be our launch campus.  We've been a bit quiet in the last year, but… Read more

October Newsletter – The lost open mind

Respect and open mindedness is essential for the planet-wide social transformation we need for our and millions of other species’ existence. Respecting opposing views enables debate, and develops understanding and empathy.  And empathy for future generations can help motivate the… Read more

The sound of a village, dreaming…

BMC itself is an invitation to dream. Can we dare to imagine a different higher education experience? One taught outdoors, based around re-connecting us to nature, bringing together all that we know about how humans learn to empower students to… Read more

Dreaming the Future

Building Back Better, The Great Reset, The Great Re-think, The Green Recovery, The New Normal, Not Back to Normal… the human race seems keen to use the global shutdown as a springboard for change. Everyone is talking about doing things… Read more

Thinking Like a Forest

We’re thrilled that Diana Beresford-Kroeger is speaking at the inaugural Black Mountains College Lecture at Hay (digital) Festival on May 31st.   Register and join us online. This got Ben thinking… we need to think like a forest.  My friend Keith can… Read more

Inspiration from Vitra Campus

Libby went on a trip to Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein last week to imagine what a BMC campus could look like. The Swiss furniture manufacturer's campus is an architectural inspiration. The buildings work with the surrounding residential areas… Read more

The Black Mountains College Campus

ARWAIN works with Powys County Council to get local people, businesses and communities involved in delivering sustainable, innovative solutions to address some of the economic, social and environmental challenges facing Powys. ARWAIN funded our options appraisal project, which we ran… Read more

Growing Team – Community Training Coordinator

Amanda Page joined the team at the start of the year as our new Community Training Coordinator.  Amanda manages our vocational training programmes.  Amanda founded a Community Interest Company called Gap Learning that delivered a programme of courses for all ages… Read more

And now we are three…

We have a new-ish member of the team.  Emma Bald is now running our communications and marketing.  Emma's worked in marketing and communications for a couple of decades, running the Department of Health's and Department for Educations' digital campaigns for… Read more

Discovery Day

Last week we held our first Discovery Day for our NVQ course in seasonal catering which will be on offer from September 2020. Five students from Gwernyfed High School came, along with their teacher.  They started with a tour of… Read more

The Story so Far

On a wintry night in 2016, with wind rattling the windows, Ben and his neighbour Owen talked about the frightening future that their young daughters would inherit. We all knew then and still know now that our society and our… Read more
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