WHAT IS TalkWorks? TalkWorks is an independent not-for-profit film project created in 2009 in order to promote greater public awareness of existing nuclear threats, and to highlight the significance of the new foreign policy of the United States, to lead the world in getting rid of nuclear weapons by a series of multilaterally agreed concrete steps, as set out in President Obama’s now famous Prague Speech of 5 April 2009. (Read more in BACKGROUND below) TalkWorks was conceived as a democratic Virtual Open Forum for the views and expert knowledge of prominent people - not all previously supporters of nuclear disarmament - who were beginning to put their weight behind the US-led initiative. The advent of exciting new developments in internet technologies coinciding with a growing willingness on the part of policy-makers, military chiefs and government advisers to express their views on nuclear weapons openly, made it possible for the first time to communicate their voices to a mass audience. TalkWorks’ short films are designed to convey complex information about nuclear weapons and disarmament in a personal and accessible manner, and to convey the human face of those - politicians, diplomats, soldiers, scientists, negotiators and others - who work ‘at the coal face’ of efforts to reduce nuclear and other global security threats, normally behind the scenes. We hope the viewer will be both better informed and inspired by watching these films to feel that by adding their own support, as responsible global citizens, they can contribute to efforts to free the world of nuclear weapons.http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Deliveredshapeimage_14_link_0
SPONSORS OF TalkWorks We are deeply grateful to those who supported the original concept of TalkWorks, and whose financial and moral support enabled us to make the first series of films, establish a dedicated YouTube channel, and create a website. These are: THE FAITH RAVEN CHARITABLE TRUST FUND; THE MARGARET HAYMAN CHARITABLE TRUST FUND; CHRISTOPHER HERDMAN-NEWTON; THE W F SOUTHALL TRUST; THE MARMOT TRUST; LADY EPSTEIN; THE AW.60 CHARITABLE TRUST; THE WESTCROFT TRUST; THE PETER HOULDSWORTH EDUCATIONAL FUND (from African sales of Longmans’ Pure Mathematics 1 & 2, Backhouse, Houldsworth & Cooper) We are also grateful to those who gave us the financial support we needed to take the project forward in September 2009, and to make our promotional film,  ‘Signs for Hope - Talking About Nuclear Disarmament’ (April 2010) These are: THE MARMOT TRUST; THE POLDEN-PUCKHAM CHARITABLE FOUNDATION; TERESA ELMALOGLOU; PROFESSOR ANDREW BROWN; THE ALLAN & NESTA FERGUSON CHARITABLE TRUST; THE ATOMIC MIRROR/JANET BLOOMFIELD MEMORIAL FUND; THE WESTCROFT TRUST; SAFFRON WALDEN QUAKER MEETING A grant towards the next stage of the project has recently been made by THE MULBERRY TRUST for which we are profoundly grateful. However, we operate on a absolutely minimal budget and urgently seek further sponsorship to be able to take hold of opportunities for the new stage of the project two new film series: TalkWorksEXTRA, TalkWorksSPECIALS & ‘WISDOMTALKS’ (launched in July/August 2010) Also for the updating in Autumn 2010 of:  ‘Signs for Hope - Talking About Nuclear Disarmament If you’d like to sponsorTalkWorks or can help in any way to promote and disseminate the films, please contact: Rosie Houldsworthhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KP6XTYzkuohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KP6XTYzkuomailto:rosie.houldsworth@talkworks.infoshapeimage_15_link_0shapeimage_15_link_1shapeimage_15_link_2

“The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear materials has brought us to a nuclear tipping-point….. we call  for a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons…and ultimately to end them as a threat to the world.”
George Shultz, Henry Kissinger,

William Perry, Sam Nunn

Wall Street Journal

January 15, 2008

'.....there is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by non-violent methods most easily succumbs: activism and overwork.
The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.  To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.

More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace.  It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.'

Thomas Merton  

Read “Winning For Peace”

by Janet Bloomfield, January 2006

 Learn more about the issues at the following websites: International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) Global Zero Campaign (A World Without Nuclear Weapons) ICAN UK: Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (In Britain) The Foreign Office: Global Issues-Nuclear Weapons-Disarmament Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation The British-American Security Information Council (BASIC) “Getting to Zero” The David Davies Memorial Institute for International Studies (DDMI) “Trust Building in Nuclear Worlds” The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy Come Clean – The WMP Awareness Programme Pugwash UK Medact Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) Bradford University Disarmament Research Centre For informative reports and factsheets on question of civil nuclear power, visit the Secure Energy pages on the Oxford Research Group website: http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/global_security/energy.php For further information on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament issues, visit Oxford Research Group’s Nuclear Issues Programme webpages at: http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/global_security/deterrent.php http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/previous/index.php (In the USA) The Nuclear Threat Initiative The Nuclear Security Project The Global Security Institute The EastWest Institute International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) (In Europe) The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) http://www.icnnd.org/http://www.globalzero.org/http://www.icanw.org.uk/http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/global-issues/weapons/nuclear-weapons/disarmament/http://toplevelgroup.org/http://www.basicint.org/nuclear/index.htmhttp://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/DDMI/research_trust_building.htmlhttp://www.acronym.org.uk/http://www.comeclean.org.uk/http://www.pugwash.org/uk/http://www.medact.org/wmd_nuclear.phphttp://www.ippr.org.uk/http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/bdrc/nuclear/trident/trident.htmlhttp://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/global_security/energy.phphttp://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/global_security/deterrent.phphttp://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/work/previous/index.phphttp://www.nti.org/b_aboutnti/b_index.htmlhttp://www.nuclearsecurityproject.org/http://www.gsinstitute.org/http://www.ewi.info/who-we-arehttp://www.ippnw.org/http://www.transnational.org/shapeimage_16_link_0shapeimage_16_link_1shapeimage_16_link_2shapeimage_16_link_3shapeimage_16_link_4shapeimage_16_link_5shapeimage_16_link_6shapeimage_16_link_7shapeimage_16_link_8shapeimage_16_link_9shapeimage_16_link_10shapeimage_16_link_11shapeimage_16_link_12shapeimage_16_link_13shapeimage_16_link_14shapeimage_16_link_15shapeimage_16_link_16shapeimage_16_link_17shapeimage_16_link_18shapeimage_16_link_19shapeimage_16_link_20shapeimage_16_link_21

 Quoted in:

'Dialogue With Decision Makers: A Step-by-Step Approach to Achieving Change'

 (Oxford Research Group, 6th Edition, 2007)

CONTACT: Rosie Houldsworth  PEOPLE: PROJECT CO-FOUNDERS & COORDINATORS ANNE PIPER & ROSIE HOULDSWORTH PROJECT ASSOCIATE ANDY RUSSELL of DIFFERENT FILMS THANKS To the original project advisers: Lorna Arnold, Frank Barnaby, Wendy Barnaby, Frank Boulton, Chris Herdman-Newton, Mary Midgley, Oliver Ramsbotham, Peter Houldsworth To those who helped me set up TalkWorks in 2009 by assisting voluntarily in the various tasks that needed doing: Sebastian Elmaloglou, for camera and online film editing of the entire first series David Abramsky & Harriet Macdonald, for online film editing assistance Robin Bloomfield www.rjbloomfield.com and Dan Goren, for website support Christopher Jarman, for the anchor Logo design www.quilljar.btinternet.co.uk Tom Midgley, for IT support http://www.computerheroes.co.uk/ Neil Darby & Chris Abbott, for help with the transcription of interviews. mailto:rosie.houldsworth@talkworks.infohttp://www.different-films.comhttp://www.pool.org.au/users/harriet_macdonaldhttp://www.rjbloomfield.comhttp://webdesign.dangoren.comhttp://www.quilljar.btinternet.co.ukhttp://www.computerheroes.co.ukshapeimage_17_link_0shapeimage_17_link_1shapeimage_17_link_2shapeimage_17_link_3shapeimage_17_link_4shapeimage_17_link_5shapeimage_17_link_6
SPECIAL THANKS for project development consultancy from September 2009 are owed to ANDY RUSSELL of DIFFERENT FILMS Co-producer of all films in Series Two. & director and co-producer of TalkWorks’ promotional film  ‘Signs for Hope - Talking About Nuclear Disarmament’ (April 2010) LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST We are grateful to our EXPERT CONTRIBUTORS They are all extremely committed and busy people who have given freely of their time and expertise to this project. They offer a wealth of good sense, insights, facts and positive proposals, from a cross-section of different disciplines and political and national backgrounds. Their audience is potentially a very large number of concerned and responsible citizens from all over the English-speaking world who want to gain a better understanding of the realities of nuclear weapons and global security issues, but do not have easy access to people with expert knowledge nor the time or inclination, perhaps, to read dense written reports.http://www.different-films.comhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KP6XTYzkuoshapeimage_18_link_0shapeimage_18_link_1
BACKGROUND TO TalkWorks TalkWorks is a small independent film project which grew out of the Niwano Peace Prize-winning work of the Oxford Research Group (ORG) which set out to “put a human face on the arms race” in the early 1980s. At the height of the Cold War and during the 1990s ORG looked for alternative and more effective ways for civil society to respond to the dangers of the nuclear arms race than simply protesting in anger or signing petitions. Under its founder-director Scilla Elworthy, and supported mainly by Quaker charitable trusts, ORG researched and published on the people, structures and processes of nuclear weapons decision-making in all the nuclear countries, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and developed an innovative method of non-confrontational informed dialogue between senior decision-makers and their critics, which was promoted and shared with citizen groups all over the country and in parallel projects in the United States and Sweden. In the late 1980s ORG began to invite nuclear adversaries at senior official levels to meet each other face-to-face in off-the-record, informal environments on neutral ground. In the presence of independent experts and skilled mediators, ORG facilitated consultations under the rules of what came to be called The Oxford Process where attentive listening and dialogue (rather than debate) were encouraged, in a way that allowed new insights and, importantly, trust to develop. This in turn led to cooperation in working out ways to reduce nuclear threats and overcome the obstacles to nuclear disarmament. These dialogues included the organisation and facilitation of a series of groundbreaking meetings with Chinese nuclear weapons experts and decision-makers and their counterparts from other nuclear nations, in Beijing and Oxford. Later ORG’s research expanded to looking at broader issues of global security through an holistic lens, in an attempt to understand and deal with the root causes of international terrorism, violent armed conflict and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In 2003 Scilla Elworthy was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize for this work, and went on to found PeaceDirect and advise Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel in setting up the Elders Initiative  In December 2007 ORG stopped working on nuclear issues in order to concentrate on promoting the sustainable security approach to global threats, and to continue to practise and promote methods of transforming conflict by non-violent means, with a special focus on Israel-Palestine. A high-level international symposium on ‘Nuclear Futures: Realities and Choices’ was held at the Royal Society of London to mark the ending of ORG’s 25-year nuclear programme and to honour its eminent scientific consultant on nuclear issues, Dr Frank Barnaby. ROYAL SOCIETY SYMPOSIUM, December 2007 ‘Nuclear Futures: Realities and Choices’ The symposium was co-hosted by the The David Davies Memorial Institute for International Studies (DDMI) and its new programme, Trust Building in Nuclear Worlds. Twenty-five of the most knowledgeable and experienced nuclear and global security experts were invited, together with leading diplomats and politicians, to assess the current critical situation with regard to nuclear proliferation and the increased risks of nuclear terrorism, and to discuss what could be done about it. The discussion was stimulated by Frank Barnaby’s keynote paper: Consequences of a Nuclear Renaissance & graph showing: ‘World Nuclear Power Reactors & Uranium Requirements’   TalkWorks was conceived in 2008 by two founder members of ORG’s nuclear dialogue work, Rosie Houldsworth and Anne Piper, as a means for those voices to be heard of senior politicians, military officers and scientific experts who had begun to rally behind the public statements by senior US statesmen (George Shultz, William Perry, Sam Nunn and Henry Kissinger) calling for global nuclear disarmament in two articles in the Wall Street Journal, in January 2007 and January 2008. We set out to interview and film as many of these people as would be prepared to speak openly, and to gather the films on one site where they could be heard by the widest possible audience. We hoped that by creating a ‘virtual open forum’ for the revived movement for nuclear disarmament, we could add weight to the growing momentum to back President Obama’s historic commitment to lead the world, in a series of concrete steps, towards the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. TalkWorks’ Forum for Dialogue on Nuclear Futures, June 2008 TalkWorks’ initial purpose was to support the continuation of dialogue among NGO and other specialists in the field of nuclear weapons and international security, and to promote the wider dissemination of their insights into the public domain. In this we were continuing the work of the late Janet Bloomfield who before she died in April 2007 had been writing and speaking widely on how NGOs can make their work more effective in the fields of peace and security. In June 2008 TalkWorks convened a 24-hour ‘Forum for Dialogue on Nuclear Futures’ at Charney Manor in Oxfordshire to enable thirty leaders of UK-based non-government organisations (NGOs), academics and other nuclear specialists to come together with those who fund their work to assess the implications of the fact that nuclear strategists and political leaders worldwide were beginning to take nuclear disarmament seriously, and to discuss how they may best support the US-led initiative during the critical period leading up to the May 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, and beyond. The forum was funded by Quaker charitable trusts and individual donors. Read the aide-mémoire of the discussion that took place at the Forum for Dialogue on Nuclear Futures: Nuclear Futures Forum Final Report &
the paper presented to the forum by former Swedish Disarmament Ambassador, Dr Maj Britt Theorin, 
 'Four Sworn Men' http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/http://www.scillaelworthy.co.uk/http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/books/everyones_guide_achieving_change_a_step_by_step_approach_dialogue_with_decision_mabout_TalkWorks_files/Oxford%20Process%20doc%20Dec2003.pdfabout_TalkWorks_files/Oxford%20Process%20doc%20Dec2003.pdfabout_TalkWorks_files/David%20Bohm%20distinctions%20for%20TW.pdfhttp://www.npf.or.jp/english/Peace_Prize_Detail/20.htmlhttp://www.peacedirect.org/http://www.theelders.org/eldershttp://sustainablesecurity.org/http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/nuclearfutures.phphttp://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/DDMI/research_trust_building.htmlhttp://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/DDMI/research_trust_building.htmlabout_TalkWorks_files/%27Consequences%20of%20a%20Nuclear%20Renaissance%27.pdfabout_TalkWorks_files/World%20Nuclear%20Power%20Reactors%20and%20Uranium%20Requirements.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Bloomfieldabout_TalkWorks_files/Nuclear%20Futures%20Forum%20Final%20Report-%20aide-memoire%2030.09.08.pdfabout_TalkWorks_files/MajBritt%20Theorin,%20%27Four%20Sworn%20Men%27.pdfshapeimage_19_link_0shapeimage_19_link_1shapeimage_19_link_2shapeimage_19_link_3shapeimage_19_link_4shapeimage_19_link_5shapeimage_19_link_6shapeimage_19_link_7shapeimage_19_link_8shapeimage_19_link_9shapeimage_19_link_10shapeimage_19_link_11shapeimage_19_link_12shapeimage_19_link_13shapeimage_19_link_14shapeimage_19_link_15shapeimage_19_link_16shapeimage_19_link_17