The Platformm

📢Read the debut poetry collection by Kelera Ganivatu. She is such a solid poet and every line packs a punch 📢

Finally have my very own copy of writer Kelera Tuvou Ganivatu debut poetry book, "The Peregrine Falcon's Cry".
It arrived in a neat package. It's aesthetically pleasing to the eyes; from the layout, the gorgeous accompanying illustrations, to the font. It even came with a beautiful bookmark 😍.
Holding a physical copy in your hands hits different. I opened and read it in the park as the sun set, and my son ran around to the sounds of boys playing rugby.
Reading the poems is like digging into a favourite dish. I know I will return again and again to my favourite ones.
Support Fijian artists. It's worth the investment.

Good things happen to good people. 💕

We are inspired by our very own, Suli Lotawa! She's shared her heart and her journey over the years to get to where she is today! We also congratulate her for beginning her new role as Foreign and Commonwealth Assistant at Army Families Federation - AFF. We know you'll help countless F&C forces families and we are so proud of you! ❤🥳🎉

Read more about her awesome journey here:
https://www.maramaalliance.com/post/as-nike-said-just-do-it

The Platformm Bookshop is up on Etsy.

(But you can also buy direct from us by sending us a private message 😄 😉)

At the moment we have a small range of bookmarks on sale and The River by Paulini Turagabeci - Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur

We also have a wide range of lovingly read books which we are having trouble cataloging (there's just too much) but if you have a book you've been wanting to read just drop the name of title and authors name if known and we'll search the shelves to see if we have it.

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https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThePlatformmBookshop?ref=search_shop_redirect

ThePlatformmBookshop on Etsy You searched for: ThePlatformmBookshop! Discover the unique items that ThePlatformmBookshop creates. At Etsy, we pride ourselves on our global community of sellers. Each Etsy seller helps contribute to a global marketplace of creative goods. By supporting ThePlatformmBookshop, you’re supporting a ...

Two books by iTaukei writers are now available on Amazon.

📚 Ema Volavola - Running: The redeemed and victorious life of a solo mum

📚 Inoke Cokanasiga- Mending the broken: Powerful series of steps that will help you to heal your mind, soul and body after a broken relationship.

Both books are available on Kindle and Amazon (paperback copies less than £10 each)

We support Fijian writers and extremely excited to get our copy soon.

🇫🇯🇫🇯🇫🇯🇫🇯🇫🇯🇫🇯🇫🇯🇫🇯🇫🇯

🦅

I've been a bit silent on the writing scene for quite a bit but this week I tried to remember my WordPress password and wrote a post about a family member who we lost a year ago.

🦅

This is a tribute to a beautiful human- Vueti Raloka.

🦅

https://theplatformm.com/chronology-of-grieving/

Chronology of grieving 1. July 27, 2020 Vueti Raloka is ready to leave us. He doesn’t know it and neither do we until a phone call is received, a hasty trip to the hospital is made and the doctor looks at his watch to an…

The final session of our John Maxwell Leadershift course with Ana Laqeretabua of SALT Inc ended today on a high.

We are so happy to have been part of the first Fijians in Europe & UK cohort doing Leadershift with Ana. It was a really safe space to learn and build on the foundations we came into the course with.

We covered 11 leadershifts over 12 weeks and it helped reaffirm, realign and define our vision. If anyone gets the opportunity to do the course, I recommend really immersing yourself in the learning and getting together with like minded people who share that same mindset.

This was definitely one of the highlights of 2021

Thank you🙏🏿

Marama Alliance UK - MAUK Maramas Talk John C. Maxwell

Writer appreciation 👏🏿 ✍🏿

We love writers and artists of every medium. In this appreciation post we bring to you a Fijian born writer: Nirvana Chetty

Nirvana is an ultra urbane lady who has taken up nursing plants in her DC home. In this piece she so effortlessly puts her finger on why we, the divergent trailblazing millennials show whimsical obsession towards things like houseplants.

She says “Plants and the act of gardening itself makes me feel like I’m not completely useless or incompetent or all those other stupid feelings that holds us women back in our quest for perfection in all things — in this at least I can learn at my own pace, nothing is existentially at the threshold of a crisis, and if there is failure it comes at very little cost….”

I chuckle as I write this post looking at my poinsettia plant which I lovingly carried on my lap half dead from the vitamin deficient London skies to our new abode up North West.

I stubbornly nursed it back to life, willing it to last me another Christmas and when it grew strong enough I certainly felt the,"….. sense of accomplishment, of having nurtured and loved another living thing and asking nothing else of it but companionship,….” that Nirvana so beautifully talks about.

WHY DO I GARDEN- by Nirvana

We love us a good writer, and Nirvana is a great one 💙You can read her piece here.
You are most welcome

X
Miri

☺️☺️

https://link.medium.com/2rRTWy0Owgb👇🏿👇🏿

Why Do I Garden? Why do I garden?

Books galore💃💃

Marama Alliance UK - MAUK took the lead on partnering with Reading Force to add a new dimension to Our Shared Book Club.

We now have books for May in the post and we are jumping for joy in our corner.

You can contact the beautiful Leonora Sinclair Career & Business Coach for more info on this amazing initiative.

🙏🏿💙🙏🏿

Lolomas
Miri

Be a friend by Edgar Albert Guest

https://youtu.be/Y_yxBC-TCiM

Be A Friend – Edgar Albert Guest (Powerful Life Poetry) Read by Shane Morris-Edgar Albert Guest was an American Poet known for his sentimental, short, upbeat verse. Critics often ridiculed his work, but America ad...

https://youtu.be/lyMS4qJ8NXU

There's a blue bird in my heart .......

Charles Bukowski - Bluebird

Our Book Review for the Book Club is out now. It packs such a punch so the three months we took to read it was well justified!!

You can have a read here and share your own reviews with us!

https://theplatformm.com/girl-woman-other-a-book-review/

Girl, Woman, Other : A Book Review Our Shared Shelf book club read is the co-winner of the 2019 prestigious Booker prize and won, amongst many others, the Orwell Prize for political fiction and was the Fiction book of the year for 2…

We sat down with this inspiring lady, Sereima Sugia Tawake, the founder of The Esther’s of Now, a committee member of Marama Alliance UK (MAUK) and the organiser of the Fijian Women UK/Europe Arise Virtual Conference 2020.

Her act of obedience on 25 March, 2020 is now causing a discernible movement throughout the Fiji UK community. For every, "It can't be done" she's been told- she's always found a way to do it. And all this through the grace of Christ alone.

May you be blessed and inspired by her story.

https://theplatformm.com/sereima-sugia-tawake-dont-tell-me-it-cant-be-done/

Sereima Sugia Tawake: “Don’t tell me it can’t be done.” She is the founder of The Esther’s of Now, a committee member of Marama Alliance UK (MAUK) and the organiser of the Fijian Women UK/Europe Arise Virtual Conference 2020. We are honored to share the…

What books have you read this year?

This year we read two books we wouldn't normally pick off the shelf- the sci-fi work by Vic Grout titled Conscious and the the other was Klara and the Sun by Nobel prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro.

Like all good books they required a bit of thinking and a scratching off the surface. We paraphrase Alberto Manuel when we say of these two books that they presented to us a world that was scarily quite possible but in it we took refuge.

We have put together a short reflection here and hope you can share your reading journeys by telling us what you're reading right now.
https://theplatformm.com/man-machines-and-the-future/

Happy Sunday
Platformm

We love a good fiction here at the Platformm and exploring different writing voices through it.

This piece below was the result of a morning walk past St Thomas Hospital in London which has big glass windows (as seen in the second pic).

Tip: Writing inspos come from the strangest places so always have a pen and paper anywhere on your being☺️
..........................
How are you?

“Mr. Patrick?” The nurse called tentatively.

Ash didn’t know how long he’d drifted off but blimey, these hospital beds are comfy he thought. The doctor had taken a series of tests after he was escorted to St Thomas hospital on account of having thrown himself headlong into the Thames.

“Sorry I was miles away,” he answered.

“How are you?” the nurse asked, giving him a tired nod. She quickly exited without waiting for an answer.

Ash looked out the window at the Thames, its brown fluid ribbons bobbling peacefully like the sounds of the medical equipment around him. He loved the river having grown up upstream near Putney.

Back then the river had been throbbing. Rowers sweating through their oars on Saturday mornings, couples kissing on motorboats and naughty little boys running through the tracks hiding from their mammies.

But the grown up- lockdown Thames was too quiet. It mirrored the sombreness of social distancing, of bubbles and staying within a confined space. More sadly it reflected his current empty space of unemployment, loss and quiet chaos. He peeled his eyes away from the murky waters when he heard voices outside the room.

“He’s the second jumper from the same spot this week. How is he?” Ash heard the female paramedic say.

Such a common question that, Ash thought as he looked out once more towards Charing Cross, the centre of this big city. How are you? It was a question to which an answer was not required.

Just a peformatory nod would do.

How many times did the other jumper get asked that? How many times did he?

He limped over by the window, stretched himself out to his full height and screamed out into the cold London sky...

"I am NOT OKAY.” 
.............................

© MSuraki 💙

"The women we honor today teach us three very important lessons. One, that as women, we must stand up for ourselves. The second, as women, we must stand up for each other. And finally, as women, we must stand up for justice for all.” 

― Michelle Obama

IWD2021

The third carriage.

It's my favourite part of the train. It will take only four minutes to change for my next train but if I sat in any other carriage I could not.

Anyway, it's been a good day. I'm wearing my new orange blouse and the Pandora necklace my sister gave me on my birthday a few months before. My phone rings. It's her. An early morning call from her part of the world.

"Hang on, go slowly," I tell her.

As if repeating the words, "I lost the love of my life,"would resolve anything at all.

My heart beats so fast. I'm sweating through my orange blouse. It's cold outside- dead winter- yet within me I'm burning coals.

"Lord my life for his," I start to bargain silently. Anything for my brother-in-law.

"Raise him Father," I pleaded. "like you did Lazarus."

Time ticks. Still I sit here numb. In the third carriage.

I have four minutes to change trains now but I know I already had -something shifted during my beloved sisters call.

I changed right here in the third carriage.

Reflections on loss
By Miriama Suraki©

The little wooden church

Yesterday an old neighborhood friend went live from our beautiful church in Waiyavi. Everything was just as I had remembered; the wooden walls, the temperamental ceiling fans and the restless kids who were milling around the aisles like I used to do three decades ago.

And there was something else that was familiar. The sounds- the glorious singing sounds that bounced off the wooden walls off my childhood church. Oh that wonderful sound!

I remembered that when there wasn't singing there would be sermons of the gospel verberating through the timbers. And on special occasions when there wasn't a sermon we'd all be seated quietly waiting for the beautiful drama produced and directed by the talented late Amenatave. While we waited for the drama to start, he would play Vivaldi's Four Seasons from the brand new sound system that was still a novelty at that time. Oh what a glorious sound!

I'd listen to the beauty around me not knowing that years later I'd be able to effortlessly pick out the Concerto No. 4 in F minor, "Winter" (L'inverno), that I would be considered posh or cultured.

"Me? Posh?" I'd say in shock.

"No, no, no, my friend," I'd protest,

"...you see I went to this small wooden church...."

Reflections on my beautiful wooden church
By Miriama Suraki ©

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Image credit:Matthew Green on Flickr

[Original caption on photo :The fish was a symbol used by early Christians, because the letters of the word for "fish" in Greek were the initials of the phrase (in Greek) "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior".]

Our Shared Shelf Bookclub is back and to start off we are reading Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo.

Published by Penguin Books Ltd in 2019 it was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for fiction in 2020, the Orwell Prize for Political fiction 2020 and was joint winner for the Booker Prize 2019.

Book us available on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241984998/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_4KX4A2P0EQ23HMR7BAJ6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Photo credit: AFP via Getty images

Revolutions cannot be done alone though. To truly work, they need a ride or die team☺️

So join us and together we will build a strong community one book at a time!

Last year we started a smallish literary revival but this year we want to go all out and start a literary revolution!

Are you ready? ☺️

This write up is from our archives 👇🏿

https://theplatformm.com/blog/resolutions/

Resolutions They had even named a drasted ship after it, this phenomenon that makes us feel brand new, this wiping of the slate clean and hopeful surrender to the new moon. I joined the millions excited for th…

Came across this post on LinkedIn by and we thought it was a good reminder for all of us

🎁🎁Be kind

Wise words from our favourite comic strip - Calvin and Hobbes ☺️

Meet Mrs Leba Lisa Rokoyadre, Warrant Officer at the British Army and Founder of Fiji Servicewomen UK (FSUK). She joins us this month for our Connected Conversations series and we are pleased to share her story with you.

Warrant Officer Rokoyadre is the Founder of Fiji Servicewomen UK (FSUK) and her aim is to make women more visible and break glass ceilings like she has.

Find her story in the link below.

Lolomas

https://theplatformm.com/leba-lisa-rokoyadre-i-am-all-about-making-women-visible/

Leba Lisa Rokoyadre: “I am all about making women visible.” The Platformm is excited to share the journey of Mrs Leba Lisa Rokoyadre, Warrant Officer at the British Army and the Founder of Fiji Servicewomen UK (FSUK). She kindly spares time from her hectic …

The weekend finale🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿

The Honourable Lenora Qereqeretabua MP brings our Veivosaki Workshop to a close this Sunday.

It was only fitting that the voice of Fiji closed our session and besides, we looked at our workshop participants and knew that the authenticity they brought every session could only be matched by the very genuine MP herself- it was simply a perfect fit.

Overall, the Team at the Platformm have been honoured to bring this about and we have a good feeling that the participants will become formidable speakers in Europe.

We have actually seen some of them in action this week during the Women Arise conference organised by and we have been amazed at the power of their presentations.

Together we thrive❤️

Chris Baldwin of 10X Speaker delivered a pretty amazing session at our Veivosaki Workshop tonight.

We were blessed to hear him speak and really mentor to us. To be able to share this experience with the other ladies was quite special as well🙏🏿

Vinaka

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all well. For those of you who have registered for the Veivosaki Workshop, the welcome email should be in your inbox now. Please also check your spam folders. If you still do not have it feel free to send me an email at [email protected].

We are pleased that our fourth speaker, The Honorable Lenora Salusalu Qereqeretabua has graciously accepted our invitation. We are so blessed to have her onboard.

The dates and times are as follows:
Week 1- Thursday Nov 5 @ 8pm UK time.
Week 2- Monday Nov 9 @ 8pm UK time with Chris Baldwin
Week 3- Monday Nov 16 @ 8pm UK time with Samson verma & Ziena Jalil
Week 4- Nov 23 to Nov 30 (exact date & time TBC)with the Honorable MP Lenora.

Registration is still open so either message us directly or register below and join our first cohort.

See you soon
The Platformm Team

https://theplatformm.com/our-shared-learning/

Our Shared Learning
THEPLATFORMM.COM
Our Shared Learning
As we take up new spaces, both physical and digital, and address new issues on a global scale; we need to be equipped with the right skills that will give our presence impact. The challenge is to n…

Our Shared Learning As we take up new spaces, both physical and digital, and address new issues on a global scale; we need to be equipped with the right skills that will give our presence impact. The challenge is to n…

Register now for your chance to join like minds (and speak your mind eloquently).

Registration details in bio or email [email protected]

🐚

We have three powerful speakers who will help us (yes we at The Platformm will learn alongside you☺️) deliver engaging content in a charismatic manner.