Jock Millenson

Fakistra Beach

In the summer of 2008 a Findhorn-inspired community-based summer holistic holiday Centre opened in the Pelion peninsula of Greece. The Pelion region remains one of the few still unspoilt areas of Greece and is memorable for its ancient healing tradition. It was here that the mythical Centaurs, half human, half horse roamed the forest, and where Cheiron created an early healing Centre, renown throughout the ancient world. A small group of us from Findhorn: Jock Millenson, James Lawson Kelly, Roger Doudna, Dorota Owen and Fabien Barouch plus Friederike Ernst from Austria are the trustees of a non-profit educational trust— The Holly Foundation* whose mission is to develop and support authentic community based  Holistic  Living Learning Yoga Centres worldwide.

For its first project, the Holly Foundation rented a small hotel three miles from the sea in the traditional village of Kissos which is notable for its fine tavernas and its ornate 17th century church. There, every summer for the past nine years, we have been offering a full programme of holistic workshops and retreats from June through September, with workcamps in May and October.

In the summer of 2009, the Holly Foundation got the chance to rent the large house on 2 ½ acres of land in Anilio village (2 miles north of Kissos village) where Jock had run a similar project for four years from 2001-2005. Because the rent was very reasonable and a long lease could be obtained, and because the additional accommodation and the possibility of doing permaculture and experimenting with alternative technology attracted us, we decided to add this second campus to the project.

In 2012 we added a third campus at the modern 3* Hotel Alexandros to provide more upmarket accommodation and to specialise in retreats. The Alexandros campus operates from mid May through September, currently focalised by Friederike Ernst and Brian Hammond.

Please see our websites at kalikalos.com , pilioncentre.com and alexandros-kalikalos.com for details of the current summer programmes. In August both Kissos and Anilio campuses offer family fortnights for single or couple parents with kids. Dorota Owen has been leading the very popular family experience fortnight at the Kissos campus for many years.

We welcome all Findhorn members, guests and friends to this special region of Greece which combines a lush forest ecosystem with spectacular Aegean beaches for “something deeper than a suntan”.

Staff Opportunities

Aside from workshop participants and living-in-community guests, each season we welcome people with focalisation experience to join our staff for periods of 3-12 weeks to help create and hold the community energy which makes our Centres unique amongst Mediterranean holiday venues. It is our volunteer staff of about half dozen at each of our three campuses that focalise the vegetarian kitchens, KP rotas, maintenance, homecare and building, as well as the shopping and the daily beach runs.

We staff also focalise the daily morning attunements and are responsible for complementing the holistic education that goes on in formal workshops by teaching holistic education through example in the work departments. Our rhythms are much like the Findhorn Community itself, so you will feel quite at home. We offer food and accommodation for about 35 hours of work per week, beach time nearly every afternoon and one full day off in the week. We will ask you for a small weekly financial contribution for your first four weeks with us in most instances.

We also have an exchange programme for Findhorn Foundation co-workers and Newbold House members. Please enquire from Christine Lines in the Foundation and Deborah Banham at Newbold.

Workshop/Retreat Leaders

Both campuses welcome new leaders who feel drawn to offer workshops or retreats with us and who feel confident that they could recruit at least half a dozen participants for their group. For information on leading a group at either campus, please visit the special pages which describe the financial plan we offer leaders, and explain how the workshops interface with the community that holds the centre.

Facilitators in Residence (FIRs)

In addition to our scheduled workshop leaders, we have a Facilitators in Residence (FIR) programme. That programme welcomes practitioners of any holistic discipline to join the Centres as half time staffers for two or more weeks and to offer their holistic arts to our guests and other staff on an ad hoc basis.

For a £250 reservation fee, we you offer food and accommodation (shared) for two weeks. Its a great opportunity to have a holiday near the sea and hopefully earn enough to pay your travel costs without having the task of organizing and promoting your own workshop. There is currently a special “Early Bird” offer: for anyone able to offer daily yoga, tai chi, or Qi gong sessions before breakfast, these “Early Bird” FIRs get a very cheap holiday with a minimal work commitment.

A Call for Kalikalos Resource People

In order to promote the Centre we are continuing to recruit a network of International Reps. If you have experienced Findhorn and felt at home here, and feel the unique qualities and universal potential of Findhorn, you will know what we are wanting to bring to Greece. We are planting a few seeds of Findhorn in the Mediterranean sun! So please consider visiting us as a staff volunteer or community guest and then helping us promote this initiative in your country. Every January we print 5,000+ colour brochures which we distribute as widely as possible—in health food shops, community centres, alternative bookshops, libraries, housing coops, natural medicine centres, and to our friends and colleagues. As a rep for Kalikalos we will send you a few dozen brochures to circulate in your home area.

To entice you to consider joining our network of Kalikalos reps, we offer Kalikalos reps 33% off the usual LCG rate (currently €300 a week) which includes food, accommodation (shared) and a daily trip to and from the beach. And in addition, for every participant that comes to us from your distribution or personal recommendation we offer you a credit of €€50 which you can use to defray weeks at the Centre in Greece.

Anilio Campus Attunement

I very much hope this initiative in the land of sun and sea will appeal to you and that you might feel drawn to contribute whatever energy you would enjoy to give to its sustainability. The amount of work involved is not onerous: we send you 20-30 brochures to distribute in your area, and we include your name and contact details on our spam-proof Contact Us page on our web site so that local people can contact you for more information about Kalikalos and its two campuses.

The full programme, the facilities and the vision are all to be found on the website at kalikalos.org. You can contact Jock Millenson at or +44 208 816 8533, or +30 24260 31346 if you’d like to chat more about what we are doing, or ask us any questions. And naturally we would love to have your input too for what you would like to see happen here. Although 2017 upcoming is Kalikalos’ 15th year, the project is still very much a work in progress. In the last 5 years we have grown from one Centre to a network of three neighboring campuses in Pelion, Greece. Right now our aim is to become sustainable, and for that we have to try to get the word out far and wide about what we are doing and invite others to join us in any of the many capacities that are available. In 2017 we’ll be looking for a garden focaliser at Kissos, admin support at Alexandros and Kissos, and a kitchen focaliser for Anilio. We’d ask for a 1 month minimum commitment for those posts, and ideally hope to have you for longer.

* Please note that although the Holly Foundation Inc is a registered NFA organisation, it is completely independent of the Findhorn Foundation, which neither authorises, endorses nor necessarily agrees with all the practices and policies of the Holly Foundation Inc.

The Holly Foundation
http://www.hollyfoundation.org
email: 
Tel +30 697 550 2736 (May-Sept), +44 208 816 8533 year round

Kalikalos Holistic Holidays
Website: http://www.kalikalos.com
email: 
Tel+ 44 208 816 8533
+30 697 550 2736
A taste of Findhorn in the sun!