Last year I did a series of Open Space meetings for the Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transition Team, an Aboriginal child welfare authority on Vancouver Island. We were discussing the future of child welfare service delivery on the Island. There were three Open Space events that followed presentations by Dr. Martin Brokenleg. In Fort Rupert, near Port Hardy, we met in the big house, which is one of the biggest on the coast. This page of photos documents some of that gathering, including the above wonderful shot of a small group meeting at the base of one of the four huge house poles.
It’s events like this, with the circle of chairs gathered around the fire at the centre of the big house and lots of Elders and children in attendance that I feel like this process has come home.
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Utah Phillips, from thetyee.ca
Utah Phillips is back in our neck of the woods:
I’ve resisted political labels for a long time, but I find Utah’s gentle and insistent anarchism a more and more comfortable fit.
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I’ve written before about the Aboriginal youth I’m lucky to be working with. One of them, Ginger Gosnell, is involved with the Assembly of First Nations and she shares some thoughts on the recent annual general assembly:
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Gerry made a comment a couple of days ago about sharing books:
I like the idea, especially the boomerang function, where the books come back. But I have to say, I’m far more taken by the unconditional anarchy of BookCrossing! It makes it hard to coordinate something, but Bookcrossing has the gift theory thing DOWN in practice!
And here’s another example, courtesy of my friend Terry McGee in Australia who is an Irish flute maker. He has what he calls a Roving Ambassador flute, which travels the world from one potential customer to the next. It’s a brilliant marketing tool (because he makes great flutes and you have to actually play them to believe how good they are) but beyond that, it shows remarkable trust in both the goodwill of complete strangers and the power of self-organization. Is this a small peek into the merged worlds of commodity and gift?
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At the Giving Conference Ruthann Prange convened a session which looked at creating a gather of facilitators for the common good. Her inspiratino for this was the tremendous offers of help from professional facilitators who showed up to facilitate the Listening to the City project in New York after 9/11.
Now a nice synopsis of this has been published at the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation newsblog.
I’ve had it in the back of my mind to perhaps undertake a conference in the Vancouver area of facilitators for the common good. Anyone out there intersted in getting something going? I’m thinking of an Open Space gathering perhaps at the Canadian Memorial Cetre for Peace. The Open Space I’m envisioning would be a project-based gathering where we come together to share ideas and opportunities for us as facilitators to contribute to the common good in the world around us. It would be about designing and implementing projects together. Thoughts?