What we are finding at every stop is that people are saying that we have helped them change their thinking process in a short time. There are so many people that are extremely grateful for our visit to their country and they tell us they would not have missed our lecture for anything. They state that after watching Zeitgeist Addendum and learning more about The Venus Project that it has changed their entire outlook. So many people explain to us that it has given them hope that they did not have before being exposed to these ideas. This is all very overwhelming and rewarding to us. Of course this is possible because of the astonishing work of Peter Joseph and his continued non-wavering efforts to introduce this direction to others.

Myra’s husband was a diver for an oil company in Scotland, now a supervisor. I found it interesting when I was informed that about ten years ago he stopped diving in the waters around the US because they did not adhere to the safety regulations for oil exploration that the rest of the works complied with. The recent “accident” that BP had was something that others in the business felt was bound to happen. They told me that the US propaganda campaign is now pumping out the story that they are doing everything to make sure this does not happen again, but I was informed that they are now agreeing to about half the safety precautions that are typically practiced and mandatory by the rest of the world.

A question we often get in the Q&A at the end of the lectures is how do we get the industrialist to give up what they have. It is not a matter of giving up anything. They go broke just like every other industry. If they have something to sell and the public does not have purchasing power they cannot survive in the free enterprise system either. When things fail even the wealthy are effected. But this is not always the case for the upper one percent.

Even if The Venus Project does not become effective the shear advancement of automation will render this system obsolete. Industry and manufacturing have to compete with those factories that go abroad for cheaper labor. Automated systems give them the ability to do this. When automation displaces enough people they no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services turned out. This is the end of the free enterprise system, as we know it.

There are other scenarios as well. But we call this the march of events or bio-social pressures. No social system can remain the same, all things change. Even the wealthy industrialist’s well being depends on the success of The Venus Project.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

As in all the countries we visited, we made many close friends in Denmark.

We took the subway a few times and as you can see in one of the photos we were sitting in the front section to show that they have no human operators. These automated electric trains are relatively silent, clean and efficient.

There were three events in Denmark, one at Christiana where I delivered a presentation on human behavior and Jacque and I answered questions. There was a large gathering in a park with music and a good meal, and then there was the main lecture. Jacque also addressed a group of young people at a local community-gathering place. Several times in-between we met with the members of The Zeitgeist Movement where there is always a lot of filming going on.

One of the questions Jacque and I frequently hear is ‘Can we just start building something?’

What we are proposing is an entirely new social design that entails new values and a way of looking at how we relate to the world and one another. The biggest job we have right now is introducing this direction to others since it is so different than anything that people associate it with. This is the job that has to be taken on if we intend to arrive at a saner future. If people identify with this direction we ask that they learn as much as they can about it. There is plenty of free information on The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist Movement’s site. Study the FAQ in order to answer questions you will get from others. Join your local Zeitgeist Movement Chapter, if there isn’t one in your area, at your university or high school, start one.

Many chapters are collectively reading the books on the suggested reading list and discussing them. This could also be done with The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist materials. People are then going out and giving lectures about this direction and spreading the word any way that they can.

Many people want to build something immediately without an understanding of what is required to develop a sustainable global system. This approach will most likely fail.

If we did have funding our priority would not be the building of a city but a major motion picture to introduce this direction to the general public in a way that they can identify with, realizing that there is a possible alternative to work towards. It is not necessary to gain the approval of everyone but we need enough people to accept it and work toward its realization.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

We always try to spend as much time as possible to meet with the Zeitgeist members and others who help to make the lectures possible. Very often we all squeeze into the hotel rooms Jacque and I are staying at or move to a restaurant for meals.

The lecture in Sweden was a success and just a few seats from being sold out.

There was one member of the movement who worked as a chef hired out to private homes for larger parties. His boss, although we never met him, is a supporter of The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project, and twice hosted over 40 people for dinner in our time there. The food was amazing and the conversation was always significant.

Besides meeting fantastic people from Sweden, a friend from Uruguay was there who had been to Venus, Florida for one of our Tours and then went back home and started a Zeitgeist chapter in her hometown.

A local science museum had an exhibit about the history of aircraft and space travel. This being of interest to Jacque and myself a group of us went to the exhibit. Like many museums we see the displays did not explain much to the general public.

What we found significant were a few very small monitors showing the first attempts to fly. I have seen several of these before but here they showed about twenty variations of early flight attempts.

Several people viewing these flight experiments were laughing probably thinking they should know better but this is not the case; this is how all invention is arrived at through people contributing little by little in order to make progress. It started with what looks like very crude attempts in the beginning because people did not know anything about it. These were people who were curious and put their own lives on the line to find out. There were thousands of attempts at flight before the Wright Brothers got off the ground. People don’t really acknowledge the work of those who went before the Wright Brothers as being just as important. The Wright Brothers learned what didn’t work from all those who went before and took it from there.

Instead of showing these first attempts of early flight on small monitors lost in the middle of the room, this would be a wonderful teaching exhibit if it showed progressively many aircraft designs and what the influences were to arrive at each successive phase. This would show children especially that there are no great men or women. All developments were serially evolved, and many people scarified their lives at an attempt to achieve flight. Children would have a better understanding of what it takes to advance ideas and the effort that is exerted to arrive at new inventions.

Off to Denmark next.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

Leo is working on an interesting idea to help support the direction of The Venus Project. Graz has a university that he is attending and he is planning on opening a Venus Project co-op coffee shop. Here is the concept as he has described it to us:

“The main idea of this café is to present TVP to more people and grow the number of supporters and build a network in the city, and world wide. The café will hold lectures for new people, do discussion evenings, holding conferences / meetings with other TVP-Cafés around the world via internet, video and Beamer organizing events and music sessions with stars and musicians who are criticizing the monetary system, but who may have no solution to offer. Doing interviews / lectures / meetings with Roxanne and Jacque via Internet / Video and Beamer present and sell books, t-shirts, posters, cups and DVDs of Jacque and TVP, inviting politicians from all parties to present the TVP to them.

Financing and membership:

For example if we open a café with € 1200,- fixed cost per month for rental, electricity etc.: we would need 60 persons who agree to pay the membership fee of € 20,- per month and each member would work 1 hour per week in the café; help with cleaning, serving the guests, ordering and buying the products etc..

The members of the café would not pay more for the products they consume than in the supermarkets in the city (in other words wholesale).
Guests who are not interested in a membership would pay the same price for the products they consume as any other normal café in the city.

Design and look of the Café

The theme of the café would include only The Venus Project designs, and pictures from Jacque’s and Roxanne’s lectures from the world lecture tour 2010, as well as other cafés that we would open around the world in the future.

Imagine if we do this in Graz and other cities too, how much recognition and publicity we would get and how many people we could reach who would like to join us, just because of the new concept of the café.  We can build a real network world wide with this and I think this would help to get money to realize new ideas and events to promote The Venus Project!”

It sounds like a great idea to Jacque and me. If you would like to discuss this further with Leo you can reach him at Leonardo Da Silva <999.lds@gmail.com>

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

There is always a diverse group of people within each chapter who have many different skills, so a lot gets done. This was particularly useful in Spain. Many of the members stayed up for three nights in a row before the lecture putting together our Spanish translation of Jacque’s book “The Best That Money Can’t Buy”, which they printed, then spiral bound themselves. They also took our video that we show at each lecture and did a voice over in Spanish, then added music of their own creation. After so many nights up they had to redo an audio section because they picked up someone who had fallen asleep and was snoring in the background! Their hard work paid off as they produced a wonderful piece.

The lecture was sold out ahead of time with standing room only. It felt like a success, and like each lecture people stayed engaged throughout, and afterwards.

One dedicated member of The Zeitgeist Movement who helped with the lecture was the head of the police department in an area of Spain. His stories were very interesting, and his approaches were compassionate.

We took some time to do a little sightseeing of a complex designed by two of Jacque’s and my favorite architects, Santiago Calatrava and the late Felix Candela. The City of Arts and Sciences is a large-scale urban recreation center for culture and science, which also incorporates L’Oceanogràfic, an underwater city designed by Candela. Their work was very extravagant, and finished at a tremendously overrun cost, but the large complex was a refreshing divergence from all the other cities we have been visiting. They explored new methods in design with their inspirational architecture.

Jacque’s approach is different and is what we call social architecture. Architecture today is mostly monuments to the architect’s ego. Within a Resource Based Economy design criteria would support the direction and aims of this new system, which is to produce abundance as quickly as possible, and achieve as high a standard of living as possible, for everyone. With this in mind, ostentatious waste just to impress, and therefore the waste of resources, would be offensive, and impossible. Instead, one would consider expending a minimum of materials for maximum convenience, serving the needs of people by using the efficient and economic use of resources. Cities would require a minimum of maintenance, with energy efficient planning that is capable of undergoing constant modification with new advances. It would not be a static environment but instead stimulating and ever evolving. The main concern is for the well being of people, and making the surroundings pleasant and convenient to meet the need of the occupants. The cities would be immersed in as natural environments as possible where one would feel like the city is an extension of the natural surrounding.

People have been asking if this traveling on the World Lecture Tour is difficult, but the most difficult part about it is saying good-bye to so many extraordinary people we establish a close relationship with at each stop. This was certainly the case in Spain as well.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

We also attended a wonderful dinner at the home of one of the members and on the way back to the car they pointed out a storefront location where they will be operating from to help promote the direction of The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist Movement. They are planning to obtain a not-for-profit organization license in order to acquire funding to operate. There are several chapters in other countries whose members we have met during our travels that are also planning to do this.

It was a very pleasant stop, and then we were off to Spain.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

The Exhibit opened first with a few words from one of the founders of the ICSE, Peter Gloudi, then some words from Jacque. The show was very well received. Peter mentioned it was what was missing in their center in regards to a direction to really achieve sustainability. The Venus Project Design Team is redesigning the original posters to improve them with freestanding 6-foot high displays. We are considering the possibilities of using this presentation elsewhere.

Tom Williams, Julita Wielgat and Jason Gleeson arrived for the opening of the exhibit. Tom and Andrew spoke on Sunday about The Zeitgeist Movement and Andrew Buxton about The Venus Project Design Team, and Jason was there to film the events. It was also good to see Lena and Steve attend, who have been extremely supportive to The Venus Project World Lecture Tour. We thank them and all the others including The Zeitgeist members who helped to make our stop in The Netherland so memorable.

Next was the lecture, which was held outside. It was a huge success and even through the audience needed umbrellas to give them some relief from the hot sun they stayed engaged and had more questions than we had time to answer. This usually happens at all events though.

A couple of days later Jacque addressed another audience at Eindhoven for Inspiration Day, an event put on in conjunction with the festivities around the 10^th anniversary of the Earth Charter which was originated with the help of Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles considered useful by its supporters for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century. It is endorsed by organizations representing millions of people, the Charter “seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family, the greater community of life, and future generations.” It calls upon humanity to help create a global partnership at this critical juncture in history. The Earth Charter’s ethical vision proposes that environmental protection, human rights, and equitable human development are interdependent and indivisible. The Charter attempts to provide a new framework for thinking about and addressing these issues.

Because Jacque spoke in Eindhoven for one of their events we were invited to the all- day celebration of The Earth Charter held at the Peace Palace at the Hague, where the Queen made an appearance, and then we attended the dinner they had at the end of the long day.

Well, the emphasis was celebrating The Earth Charter and we were not able to get much information out in regards to what we feel is the way to achieve the results they are so passionately concerned about. They want to make things just and ethical without touching the system that is causing the problems in the first place and they didn’t seem to be aware of the conditions responsible for the problems.

They use the word sustainable while not touching the banking system that keeps countries and people in perpetual debt and think they can solve poverty. They can’t achieve their ends keeping things as they are. One woman even mentioned they wanted to make everything in this system “sustainable” – everything. They are trying to do patchwork on a cancerous system but they know nothing about how this system works so our very short pleas to promote a resource-based economy fell on deaf ears.

We really had just a few minutes to say something. I think if we did have more time in front of the entire gathering we could have made some headway. Only two people came up to me after I was able to get the mic during the main event. One said she loved what I said and that it was much more advanced than what the Earth Charter is doing. The other said they were surprised to see the lack of response my short statements got.

I did mention The Venus Project and a resource-based economy therefore it did go down on record. When they took a group photo on the front steps of the Peace Palace at the end of the evening Jacque and I were right up front in the middle so The Venus Project was represented even if just a little.

It made me understand more of what Jacque means when he says “we talk at people not to them” when coming from a different background, and different experiences (or lack of them, in vital areas).

All in all it was an interesting and a bit of a frighteningly sad experience that these are the people who are suppose to be at the forefront for fighting for justice, ethics and sustainability with such little understanding of where the problems lie. This event just reinforced in me the urgency and need to further introduce the direction of The Venus Project.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

The Zeitgeist Movement in Greece has been extremely active. They have continuously scheduled events, reached out to people in all walks of life, showed The Zeitgeist’s films often, and the social conditions enabled them to get a lot of interest. Business people, scientists and others support them. Our lecture was sold out in advance so they scheduled a second one before we left.

We traveled to Heraklea a small island of about one hundred people to the south east of Greece and even they knew about The Venus Project presenting us with a plaque to acknowledge our work.

We traveled to this island to view a prototype desalinization project with professors who developed the project from the University of Aegean on the island of Syros. They are doing some wonderful work there and are very sympathetic with the direction of The Venus Project. They stated that The Venus Project gave them incentive to do the work they have been doing. But being able to create their own free water, even to this isolated location that has none, cuts into the profit of those who take large freighters of water to the island so there is much opposition to the notion of free water. The scientists from The University of Aegean are proposing a larger project on another Greek island to develop a showplace demonstrating several clean sources of energy, and a larger desalinization plant, but are running into obstacles along the way in regards to funding.

The Greek Chapter of Zeitgeist Movement is coordinating with other European chapters to see how they can work together to move forward.

For those who read Greek here are a couple of links to newspaper articles from Syros where Jacque did a lecture and I took questions with him. Antonia did a wonderful job with the translation.

http://www.syrostoday.gr/Events/453-Aeiforia-kai-Avaptujn-sto-Aigaio-The-Venus-Project.aspx

http://www.syrostoday.gr/News/1941-Stn-Suro-to-Venus-Project-me-8ema-tnv-aeiforia-kai-tnv-avaptujn-sto-Aigaio.aspx

http://www.syrostoday.gr/News/1965-The-Venus-Project–Aeiforia-kai-avaptujn-sto-Aigaio.aspx

Other media coverage

http://www.zougla.gr/page.ashx?pid=2&aid=152297&cid=40

Like everywhere we visited we feel we have extended our “family.” We feel The Zeitgeist members are wonderful and extraordinary people.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

We were lucky enough to be visiting during the warmer time of year, so the land looked very beautiful. The soil must be extremely rich, as the landscape is very lush and, in some locations, we could see the snow capped Alps in the distance, which was an impressive site.

The lecture went very well and people came from surrounding countries; Italy, Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Austria. This was very beneficial for all of The Zeitgeist Chapters, as it allowed them to communicate and collaborate with one another more intimately.

The Slovenian Zeitgeist Movement Chapter worked very hard trying to get publicity (as they do in all locations), but, once we arrived and did a couple of interviews, many others in the media showed interest and we were doing interviews non-stop. Every interview we participated in was very well received. We also had a lot of spare time to spend with the chapter members themselves. It was quite a memorable visit, as they have all been. Meeting all of the dedicated and interested people – who are actively supporting the direction of The Venus Project – has been, and continues to be, extremely inspiring.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com

This is a place that could really see tremendous benefits from the implementation of The Venus Project.

On the other hand, the dedicated people we met – had a good understanding of the direction of The Venus Project, were truly amazing. There was little exposure of The Zeitgeist Movement or The Venus Project in India and the few members were scattered throughout the large country, but this did not stop them. They did so many innovative things to make this lecture a success. Many people traveled under unpleasant conditions for over 24 hours to get to the lecture and had to go right back the next day. The Zeitgeist Movement’s India Chapter membership and Facebook rose by the hundreds due to the lecture and all their hard work. We deeply appreciate all their dedication and hard work.

Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com