Some of you will remember Proost.

Perhaps you used some Proost resources, or have some Proost books on your bookshelf. Perhaps you used their labyrinth kit back in the day, or used Si Smith’s lent images to help with your journey towards easter. Perhaps you were a Greenbelt festival attendee, and participated in events that used resources only available from Proost- video, music, liturgy, poetry.

Proost was very important in my own creative journey. It was through the recognition and encouragement of Proost that I felt for the first time that what I wrote may have some value beyond my own need for self expression. In the end they published four (I think!) of my books, and also two poetry anthologies I curated. It felt as though we were gathering a community of poets, but the organisational requirements to formally network this community always remained just out of reach.

Then Proost withered and died. The reasons for this are not really mine to tell, but I think it had to do with the original innovators moving on to other things, and later attempts to continue coming up hard against the reality of just how much work is involved.

Then, a year or so ago, a bloke called Rob got in touch with lots of former Proost contributors/artists, asking questions about how many of us might be interested in a Proost #2.0. I have had a few previous contacts with Rob, who has been a faithful reader/encourager of many of us. He had greatly valued what Proost was and was wondering whether there was still a need for something like it. This began a series of conversations, not just between the two of us, but with a number of others. Eventually, it came down to this – yes, we think there is still a need for Proost 2.0, but we have no real idea how we might go about this… well that is not quite true. We have some clues, but lots more questions.

We decided that we needed to do this in a collaborative way, sharing the process with others. The hope is to build Proost as a community, with a series of ‘hubs’ relating to different disciplines, moving forward at the pace of the community we create, and with the resources that this community can provide to each other.

So, how do you create community and connection? For this, we need YOUR help in getting the word out through all those many social media and other sources that connect with people who might benefit from or have interest in a Proost 2.0.

We have started a Facebook page.

We also decided to do a lot of the discussion out in the open, via a podcast. The first one of these is below- we would love to know your thoughts…

In the meantime, welcome to that best part of any project- when it is full of wide open potential!