Back in April, I got to be a part of one of the best hosting experiences of my life when I joined Tuesday Ryan-Hart, Toke Moeller, Monica Nissen, Phil Cass and Tim Merry and a bunch of others in designing and hosting the 2008 Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Conference. The other day Erin Caricoffe, one of the staff members of the core team we worked with sent out this summary of where we are now: By all shared accounts, the 2008 Food and Society Gathering for Good Food was a success, meeting planning Team goals of providing a …
We’d like to invite you to join us for an Art of Hosting workshop here on Bowen Island in September. Myself, Monica Nissen, Caitlin Frost, Tenneson Woolf and David Stevenson will host you here at Rivendell Retreat Centre for three and half days of learning, exploring and playing with the art of hosting and harvesting conversations that matter. Please grab the invitation, share with others and consider joining us. You can also register online through the Berkana Institute website. And if you are already registered, leave a note in the comments to let folks know who is coming. Confirmed …
Jean-Sebastien is alive with rock balancing. He and his mates are decorating the whole campus with sculptures. He has become one of our rock balancing senseis here at the Institute and it’s very cool to see what he is learning from the practice. Today, just before our module started, he was sitting with me in the centre of the circle and he asked if here was something to knowing which kinds of edges would sit together, and as he took his mind off the task of balancing, in the act of asking the questions, the rocks he …
Wicked fun day here today at the Shambhala Institute for Authentic Leadership in Halifax. I’m here as faculty teaching a module on the Art of Hosting with Toke Moeller and Monica Nissen. Highlights of the day included being asked to create a slam poem harvest from a World Cafe with all of the participants today, running the first day of our module and then singing tonight on stage with Judy Brown, Tim Merry, Mark Durkee, Shauntay Grant and Mary Jane Lamond (whose music I have loved for 15 years) and others. We were up on stage tonight in a mixed …
So it’s been more than thirty days that I have been on my 30 day learning journey, but here is a harvest from some significant conversations. Consider this the tender early sproing greens. There is more to follow. I began this learning journey leaning into thinking about what role I can play in taking change to scale. My reasons for this inquiry have to do with the fact that I am increasingly working with systems, beyond organizations and beyond groups. Also, some of us in the Art of Hosting community and the Berkana Institute are deep in this inquiry as …