We are receiving good wishes and birthday messages from our friends around the world!

Here are just a few of them:

Dear Eliat,

First, a very warm congratulations for the award of Companionship of the British Academy of Management. What a fantastic testament to your work over the past ten years and to the work of all at the TIHR. Thank you for the excellent newsletter and I wish you all the very best for the 70th Anniversary celebrations – a momentous occasion in the life of the Institute. I wish that I could be there and will check out the festival update page. As I approach my first experience of directing the NIODA Group Relations Conference in November, I often recall the 2007 Leicester Conference and how much I appreciated the way that you took up this leadership role – one reflection was my felt experience of the love and warmth you brought to the role, along with clear and strong leadership. It feels like a good precedent to attempt to follow 🙂

Warm regards,
Brigid

Dr Brigid Nossal Deputy CEO & Director, Consulting, Australia 

Dear Eliat,

I hope you are doing well and the preparation for the 70th anniversary announces a great success. Probably you already know what is happening in Catalunya and the brutal intervention of the Spanish police and Government. Because of Innova Institute involvement in social and political life in Catalunya, we are engaged in different roles in the process. It is being a difficult time for us and our co-citizens. We feel we must be participating in the movements that are taking place right now at a crucial turn of our history. Unluckily, that means we are not able to attend the wonderful celebration of the 70th anniversary. We wish you and all the Tavistock Team Institute a joyful celebration and the best of success.

Warm wishes,
Joan Roma

INNOVA
Institut per a la innovació organitzativa i social

Dear Eliat and Mannie,

Congratulations to you and everyone whose thoughtful work and dedicated efforts see the Tavistock Institute celebrate 70 important years this week! In my own professional journey to date, and in the work of group relations conferences, consulting and learning within Australia the Tavistock has always ‘loomed large’ – a most significant influence and leader. I commend you all for your leadership and your fortitude. May the years into the future continue to see the institute grow and spread its influence and its support to the smaller organisations across the globe.

Sincerely, Joanne

Joanne Fitzgerald
President, Group Relations Australia

Dear Eliat,

Wishing you and the staff all the best for a wonderful week of celebrations. The program looks superb, and I wish I did not live so far away!

with love,
Jinette

Jinette de Gooijer
Castlemaine, Vic. 3450 Australia

Dear Eliat, dear Mannie,

It is to my deep regret, and it is a shame for me, that I won’t be able to come over to London and celebrate together with you the 70 years of the Tavistock Institute in this week! I know that the program is so very interesting and of course that there is such a lot I shall be missing. As you might recall it from our meeting in Jerusalem, where I had the chance to speak about my relation also to the Institute, I am deeply grateful for what I owe the Institute and the two of you in person in very specific ways. Some aspects of the learning in the Leicester conferences are staying with me ever since, they remain connected with you. Now, I am writing of course also in my role today as the chair of PCCA and on behalf of my colleagues. At least some of us, especially my colleagues on the board of PCCA, Mira Erlich-Ginor and Louisa Brunner, and Shmuel will be with you, while I have to restrict myself to being with you in the mind. I can only wish you on behalf of all of us in PCCA exciting days, rich in experiences, rich in learning together – and of course also a lot of joyful meetings, and fun. I have been in contact recently with some of our colleagues, and I know that there are high expectations and a lot of what we call in german: Vor-Freude, the joy that you can feel ahead of an event.

I shall stay in a lively contact with you and the colleagues these days – and of course again after the event.

With my very best wishes from Berlin
Dorothee

Dr. Dorothee C. von Tippelskirch-Eissing
– Psychoanalytikerin –
Lehranalytikerin und Supervisorin (DPV, IPV, DGPT)
Stuttgarter Platz 20
10627 Berlin

Dear Eliat!
Congratulations to you and your leadership of the Tavistock Institute and it’s 70 th Anniversary-the program is impressive. I’m really sorry that I’m not able to attend, at least one or two days, but it’s not possible. I Will follow you on the web and hope to get myself a trip to London quite soon. Maybe we could meet, I’ll come back to you later on to see if it’s possible.

Many Warm Regards from Ingela

Adamsson & Löfgren Organisational Development AB
Sweden

Dear Eliat,

I write to you not only in my role as Managing Trustee of Group Relations India, but also as a colleague and friend who has learnt and gained immensely from the “Tavi”. It’s a proud and happy moment that the 70th Birthday party is on in such a celebratory, creative, meaningful and fun way through the Festival. My wishes to the Tavi team – many of whom I know and have had the pleasure of working with and knowing, to the large extended circle of those who will join the festival and participate , people like me who through their participation wish to learn and contribute , but more than anything wish to pay tribute to this grand and generous institution. The Tavistock Institute through its multifaceted work , and its amazing people has made a rich and thoughtful contribution to our making sense of our worlds. I so regret not being able to be there personally , to share in the laughter , the pride and the spirit of camaraderie.

The Tavi Festival dates coincides with Diwali , one of the most loved festivals in India –celebrated by different communities to mark different mythical events and stories, but they all symbolise the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, hope over despair. Happy Diwali, Happy Tavi Festival and Happy Tavi Birthday!

Love and good wishes
Rose

Rosemary Viswanath

Dear Rachel,

Again, thank you so much for the kind invitation to the Festival. I’m v. sorry that I’m not able to attend, it’s such a pity. I would have loved to see you all again and join the birthday party. I’m glad Martha is joining you for some of the days, so I can feel that we (as the Dutch liaison in general, specifically the CCC-course from Utrecht University) are represented in some way. I’ll be in NYC, but certainly will join you in-the-mind. 

With lots of love and warm wishes, enjoy the party,

Martijn

A.M.J. (Martijn) van der Spek M BSc | assistant professor / senior organisational consultant / programme leader Coaching and Consulting in Context | Utrecht University | Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance | School of Governance (USG)

Dear Eliat and Mannie,

In your roles representing the institute-as-a-whole and the group relations programme specifically, I want to congratulate you on the 70th birthday of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. Of course one dimension of the congratulations is symbolic as you represent a set of ideas, practices and people who, over decades, have contributed to the institute’s evolution and growth. But another dimension is personal, as you bring yourselves to your roles in a way that makes it inviting and easy to relate to the institute from the ‘outside’ – in inverted commas because I, we (TILT) and I am sure many others who are not formally employed by the institute experience ourselves as being part of the institute and its work. I am very sorry that I am not able to share in the experience this coming week, but in my work with Michelle over the past weeks I feel connected to the activities. I wish you a real celebratory and contemplative mood and that the many logistical arrangements and stresses can recede into the background.

Cheers! And warm regards,

Jean

Dr. Jean Cooper
Director: Transformation 2.0 – Leading at the boundaries of the unknown (A Group Relations conference in the Tavistock Tradition); Co-founder and Executive Chairman of TILT: www.tiltinternational.com
Advisor in Leadership: www.jeancooper.co.za

Dear Colleagues,

Almost a decade ago we met for the first time. I can recall was an April of 2009 in Baumont Hall. A decade of a relationship implies many experiences together, all of them built a network of learning; dates like the ones you are facing are times to celebrate, times to do a FIESTA – the Spanish word that comes from FESTIVAL. This is a FIESTA all around the world, so in this part of this South world I will be celebrating with you, dancing with you like in a FIESTA and been grateful with you because of your generosity, your capacity to change when things do not go well and the learnings you are still developing to the world. Cheers in all the locations you will be present this week at the FESTIVAL.

With love,
Gaby

Gabriela Barrial
Directora Ejecutiva
Partner Tavistock Institute, Founder & President GRAR