It needs no patent, but SoF is a new "social invention", according to MARGARET CHISMAN, a director of the Institute for Social Inventions, retired civil servant and member of Berkhamstead SoF local group. Here she explains the work of the Institute.
Put simply, the aims of the Institute for Social Inventions are to encourage and promote social inventions. Whereas technical inventions tend to be new patentable products, those falling within the scope of the Institute are new and imaginative solutions to social problems.
A few examples of social inventions are the Open University, Which magazine and Amnesty International. The last century produced some great and influential social inventions: trade unions, Friendly Societies like the Oddfellows and Foresters who anticipated social welfare by helping their members in sickness and unemployment, and Co-operative Societies.
There are roughly two kinds of social invention: those in response to a need already fairly well defined, and - far more difficult - those that fill a need we didn't know was there.
Many social inventions depend upon technology. A good example is that the introduction of the penny post produced the idea of Christmas cards. While most of us abhor the overwhelming commercialisation of Christmas, it is pleasant to have a stimulus to keep in touch with old or distant friends once a year.
Similarly, the Open University depends upon television and the Post Office.
The Institute runs an annual competition with £1000 in prizes for novel ideas and projects that will improve the quality of life or help restore a human scale to our society. The competition has prizes for both adults and children, with a deadline for entries of June 1 each year.
The winners last year, for instance, included an Electronic Suggestions Box by Gregory Wright of California, which would be accessible by computer and modem from around the world. It will act as a repository for any ideas and projects people send in, and as a conferencing system for debating them.
Users will be able to mark schemes on a scale of 100, and thus a top twenty will develop. It will link with other Ideas Gathering Organisations around the world, including social inventions centres in Stockholm, Moscow, Giessen (Germany) and here in London.
Another prizewinner was Ernest Hall for his work in taking over a derelict 5000 sq ft carpet mill in Halifax and spurring on its transformation into a hive of craft workshops and small businesses, laced with a number of artistic enterprises. It is a model for visionary inner-city regeneration.
Generally the Institute, whilst encouraging inventors in various ways, does not itself engage in developmenmt. It has, however, taken the initiative in several instances.
These include the Natural Death Centre, launched in 1991, with the aims of helping to break the taboo about freely discussing death and dying, encouraging people to prepare for dying well in advance, and helping the average family to take back control of the process of dying from the big institutions. The Natural Death Handbook is available from the Institute, price £10.95 including postage and packing.
Another venture of the Institute is "The Adventure and Romance Agency - the Walking, Talking, Never-Ending Perpetual Poetry Encounter Group and Gourmet Walkers". On many Saturdays a walk is arranged and led by the Institute's chairman, Nicholas Albery, to some interesting venue in the home counties, culminating in a stop for refreshments. Walkers are encouraged to learn specific poems off by heart and recite them as they walk - and there's a disco in the evening. A number of romances have been generated in this rather unorthodox atmosphere!
Other activities include running social invention workshops in primary and secondary schools, running similar workshops for adults, building up a network of social inventors via a regional "Who's Who", publishing a Journal on a regular basis and the occasional Book of Visions - an Encyclopedia of Social Inventions (current edition £18.60 inc p & p).
We have probably all felt dissatisfaction with aspects of life and wished something could be done about it. You feel you could perhaps try to formulate what is wrong. For example, in the late Sixties I started to feel that no grouping, secular or religious, gave me what I was seeking. I filled whole notebooks full of my yearnings. Then I saw Don Cupitt's Sea of Faith on TV and felt less lost and lonely. With the setting up of the SoF Network after that first exciting conference in 1988 I knew that this was what I had been seeking for many years.
It is a magnificent social invention and is enriching the lives of many. I feel my own life full of new zest and enthusiasm - even more so now that we have local groups.
Why not organise a meeting in any organisation to which you belong and try to locate areas of life needing social inventions.
You could try a bit of brainstorming to start with, perhaps on open-ended questions such as "I wish someone would...", "I wish I could...", and "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we...?" Other ideas to get imaginations working include trying to answer such questions as "I am proud of my country (my town, my family, myself) but I wish that...", "I find it shocking that...", and "What others have done to me that they would like done to them.
I wish they had done differently and consulted me first..." The responses could be listed and put into categories - and perhaps some new social inventions will emerge.
Here are two items on my own list: 1. Public houses should open in the afternoons with a different function - to be available to the older generation with tea, coffee and cakes. The atmosphere and layout of inns is more cosy and informal than in teashops. The older generation needs more social life than is available and would prefer not to go out much in the evening. 2. The home help service is being dismantled in many localities due to cuts in funding. Some sort of informal replacement service is needed.
The current Social Inventions Journal may be obtained for £3 from ISI, 20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA (tel. 081 208 2853).