The Community Health Foundation is registered as Charitable Trust (no. 271847) with William Tara as Founding Director. A lease taken for 20 years on St. Luke’s School, 188 Old Street, London EC1. Bill Tara had by now enrolled a body of Trustees and in 1976 the Community Health Foundation (CHF) was registered as a charitable trust. Its mandate was to provide education that enabled people to become more self-reliant and take more control of their health.

In the words of the Mission Statement: “Health is seen here not merely as the absence of symptoms of sickness but as a creative and dynamic relationship between the individual, the family, the community and the greater natural environment.”

The former St Luke’s School building, an imposing disused five storey red brick building on Old Street, EC1, came up for rent. The founding group jumped at the opportunity and a focussed fundraising followed rapidly. The lease was signed for 20 years – a bold step, not taken without some trepidation.

Amazingly, people showed up from all over to participate, sleeves already rolled up. Chris Dawson from New Zealand (now the owner of Clearspring) partnered Donal Cox in opening the food shop, East West Natural Foods, and Peter Bradford built the shop interior. One day a Frenchman arrived and announced “I am Jean Torné, this is my wife Linda, I am ‘ere.” Jon Sandifer parked his camper in the yard and took on the role of maintenance manager.

Kushi Institute of Great Britain (in-depth studies and teacher-training) established as core educational programme. Michio Kushi came to teach high profile seminars and classes and to give consultations.

Registration in CHF classes increased and plans were drawn up to hold the first European Congress of Macrobiotic Centres at Old Street. A series of conferences on preventative medicine were launched with speakers from the medical and health professions.

The intent to influence the perception of health was beginning to take shape. A training course for teachers known as “The Kushi Institute”, a collaboration between Michio Kushi and Bill Tara, was created. The students would study, in depth, the order of the universe, cooking, Oriental diagnosis, shiatsu, Dö-In, and macrobiotic medicine.

The teachers scheduled on that first course included Michio Kushi, Bill Tara, Marc von Cawenbergh, Rik Vermeuten (formerly a doctor of nuclear medicine from Belgium) and the legendary shiatsu teacher, Shizuko Yamamoto.

Jon Sandifer strengthens participation in the Kushi Institute programmes but their focus moves to Kiental. Following Denny Waxman’s departure in 1983, Jon Sandifer took over the directorship. Donal Cox, working with Jon, continued to develop and deliver the work of the Kushi Institute, which attracted students from around the world. One summer Intensive drew 93 students from 17 different countries.

Other countries began to vie with the CHF to have their own Kushi Institute. This eventually culminated in the opening of a major new Kushi Institute facility in Kiental, Switzerland, which effectively transferred a great deal of interest in Kushi studies from London to Kiental. Mario Binetti, the Kushi Institute director in Kiental, had a dream location and a dream team of teachers. Jean Torné took up a position as head chef and cooking teacher.

With the loss of European students, the Kushi Institute in London could only draw locally for new students and over time income from the educational work began to dry up. In addition, the thriving shiatsu training business was sold to one of the students, Ray Ridolphi (giving birth to The British School of Shiatsu).

Simon Brown leaves the CHF at the beginning of 1993 to pursue a career in feng shui. He was replaced by a previous director, Archie Affleck-Graves, then Giles Musson. There followed a challenging time where a lack of students resulted in financial stress, and full disclosure to the charities commission was required. In 1994, Bill Spear suggested that Greg Johnson, a student of Michio Kushi from the early Boston years, contact the Trustees. Greg was invited to London to meet the Trustees and teachers. Greg joins and radically reforms CHF’s educational programmes, introducing ontological inquiry.

Greg had considerable experience and training not only in macrobiotics and wholefoods, but also in the field of transformation and the human potential movement. During early meetings, Greg proposed utilising a very powerful transformational tool to address and deal with the current situation. Donal Cox took a stand to partner Greg to restore the integrity of the CHF, educationally and financially. The first key project that they undertook together was the creation of a 3-day weekend workshop called Being-in-Action, an interactive dialogue format whose design was to expose certain fallacies and myths that underpin our understanding of self and world, setting the stage for a radical transformation and breakthrough into a new state of being. As a gateway programme, it was intended to provide a context for all future work and empower participants in various aspects of health and well-being. Greg went to work designing a manual for the programme and Donal Cox took on enrolment, a hat he would wear for the next five years.

Within a short time, Greg had assembled a team to co-create a ten-week follow-on programme called the Foundation Course. In addition to deepening the conversation started in Being-in-Action, the course included bodywork sessions, hands-on cooking classes and a coaching structure, all intended to sustain the work begun in Being-in-Action. A quantum shift to the level of our newly emerging body of work occurred when Dr David Norris accepted Greg’s invitation to bring his 20 years of experience in leading transformational programmes all over the world to design and lead a new programme. Listening to Life was a total roller-coaster of transformational conversation, which continued under its own evolutionary impetus to form the final three days of JumpStart, our first week-long residential programme.

This unique programme was researched and designed over a two-year period by a team consisting of bodywork teacher Portia Castor, shiatsu teacher and programme leader Andy Jukes and cooking teacher Bob Lloyd together with Greg Johnson and Donal Cox. A number of new key players began to appear on the scene. Sheila Parmar walked calmly into the office one day and asked to be registered in the second ever Being-in-Action. Damien Gallagher arrived from Ireland with an identical request, as did Gregor Singleton, both of whom later went on staff, together with Francoise Auvray who later became the cooking teacher. Greg Johnson and Donal Cox met with one of the first Kushi students, Evan Root, while attending the Kushi Summer Conference in Rhode Island in 1996, and before long Evan was contributing his unique style of dialogue and transformational work to the curriculum.

New premises taken on at Blackstock Mews, Finsbury Park, London The Concord School of Culinary Arts is established and the Curriculum further enhanced with new programmes. At the end of the year 14 Blackstock Mews in Finsbury Park was discovered by Nicholas Allan and a new home for Concord was established. By the time the Mews had been settled a unique body of programmes had evolved, capable of having a profound impact on health and well-being.

To Michio Kushi we owe a debt we cannot repay and so Concord Institute honoured its roots by inviting Michio to give a lecture and group health consultation in central London and also to lead a residential course. David Norris continued to be closely involved with the community and now brought the mature fruits of his 25 years’ experience to two new programmes. The first was Creating the Future, a programme not about the lives of its participants, but the life of the organisation.

This programme eventually became Strategic Planning, an annual event at which the charity generates its intention for the coming year. At the first Creating the Future, two participants, Gail Wylie and Joe Clare took a bold stand to create a newsletter so that Concord Institute could keep in touch with the many graduates of its programmes. This started as a simple black and white paper document, but over the years that small seed flourished into a beautiful pdf full of articles about cooking, taking part in and assisting in the production of our programmes, illustrated with wonderful photography and artwork, all contributed by members of the Concord community.

The second new programme, called Being in Business, advanced the transformational work of the Institute into the workplace and has continued to this day as an opportunity for participants to look into their relationship with work, whatever it may be, along with the “promise” that they are, which represents more closely their authentic commitment. Tom Monte, distinguished author of many books on health and workshop leader in the domain of healing the heart, added his vibrancy and authentic wisdom to the community through his varied annual workshops on topics such as “Sex as a Path to Fulfillment”, “Real Change, Real Healing” and “Healing the Heart as a Path to Love”.

New facility at Thane Works opens, with state-of art Culinary School and a Bodywork Studio. A new home for Concord Institute is discovered at 2-4 Thane Works in Finsbury Park. The opening is marked by an inaugural party and arts event that included comedy sketches, jazz improvisation and poetry. Delicious tapas cooking was prepared by master chef Jean Torné. Sheila Parmar became the managing director and enrolment was taken on by Simona Flore and Stella Kjoder. The larger premises comprised a 1st floor bodywork studio and office, and the ground floor was fitted out with a state-of-the-art culinary school.

At the time, programmes such as Being-in-Action were still being conducted in hired premises such as hotels and cultural centres. However, once settled into the new premises, it became feasible to do programmes at the new Thane Works facility, excepting of course our residential programmes. A wonderful fundraising event with food and entertainment was organised, including an auction of “promises”. Graduates of Concord programmes generously contributed towards the fitting out of both the culinary school and the 1st floor conference room, enabling it to be used to host workshops, and removing the need to hire outside venues.

Bodywork classes were offered in yoga, tai-chi and pilates. In addition, a series of classes was provided in Bristol by Portia Castor. Our relationship with Cleargreen entered a new phase in 2005 when the Institute started sponsoring major Tensegrity workshops. The first one was held in the city of Bath and was entitled The First Gate of Dreaming. It was attended by 280 participants who came from all over Europe and the United States and was followed several years later by a second workshop at the University of Bath for 220 people.

That year also saw the start of a new programme led by David Norris, On Leadership, designed to inquire into the nature of leadership. Cooking programmes took the form of week-long intensives related to the seasons and led by a variety of expert teachers including Melanie Waxman and Mutsuko Johnson. A series of daytime and evening cooking classes was offered that was open to the public, and these were publicised by a dedicated team of graduates from Concord cooking programmes who created a soup stall each Saturday at local farmer’s markets.

Together with Cleargreen Inc, Concord hosts a weekend Tensegrity workshop in November led by Jim Morris: Theatre of Infinity – The Continuing Evolution of the Social Being. Thus begins a long association with Jim Morris for his teaching of Toltec movements and later the ancient wisdom of the cards and astrology.

Concord hosts Sandor Katz for his one day workshop, The Art of Fermentation. A major accomplishment is the holding of an iEvolve weekend programme in Bogota, Colombia, generated by two participants of an iEvolve programme in London who were inspired to take this transformational programme to their home country.

The founder of The Community Health Foundation, Bill Tara, returns to lead a weekend workshop titled Turning the World Inside Out, looking into macrobiotics and ecology. Concord arranges a Pilgimage to Japan to pay tribute to the cultural, spiritual and energetic lineages of Japan and the contribution it has made to the educational curriculum of Concord Institute. Participants hike along the UNESCO World Heritage Kumano Kodo trails witnessing the extraordinary natural beauty of the Japanese countryside and mountains. Through immersing themselves in the rich culture and spirit of Japan participants connect to this powerful lineage and acknowledge the gifts it has given.

iEvolve moves abroad again, this time to Antwerp in Belgium.
The Concord School of Culinary Arts launches Cascades Culinary, a shop at Concord Institute for students to purchase wholefoods and culinary equipment, subsequently launched as an online shop.