Bella Coola, BC I’m up in Bella Coola this week working with the Nuxalk Nation. I am running some facilitation training and then on Saturday, an Open Space meeting here in the community on the subject of reclaiming Nuxalk child and family services. This place is out in the middle of virtually nowhere. It’s 450 kms west of Williams Lake, but only an hour and a quarter by plane. However, the Bella Coola valley is surrounded by the tallest mountains in the Coastal Range and man are they huge. We flew PAST them this morning, over …
A couple of mates of mine, Brenda Chaddock and Myriam LaBerge are hosting a practice retreat July 9-11, 2007 at Rivendell, here on Bowen Island called “Wise Action That Lasts: How to host, convene, design and facilitate meaningful conversations around complex issues.” If you have been looking for great facilitation training, or an Art of Hosting type course around the west coast of North America, this one is for you. Both Brenda and Myriam are smart and experienced women, great facilitators and fun teachers. And Bowen in July is just pure heaven.
Starting a new regular type of posting. These are a series of short notes and thoughts, too small to warrant a post, but looking for a home nonetheless, and possibly becoming more. I invite your curiosity on any of this…queries may set me to growing these little guys into something more substantial. Conversations that matter is the home for the world cafe Europe blog. Good reading there. Dave Pollard on the distinctions between dialogue and debate. Dave wrestles with his conscience on this one and comes up with a finer grain analysis as a result. Interesting as usual, and deeply …
Barry Lopez – “Eden Is a Conversation” Eden, we should be at pains to point out, is not a place. Eden is a conversation. It is the conversation of the human with the Divine. And it is the reverberations of that conversation that create a sense of place. It is not a thing, Eden, but a pattern o (tags: conversation dialogue) Toronto Arts Council – THe Creative City Every person in Toronto has the right to enjoy the rich cultural life that is the hallmark and pride of Toronto. Through partnerships and initiatives, TACF’s Block by Block program seeks to …
Readers who have been with me for a while will know that I have taken great inspration from Vaclav Havel over the years. An artist, playwright, dissident and peaceful democrat, his writing on totalitarianism and post-totalitarian ways of being have influenced much of my work and thinking on working towards post-colonial First Nations communities and organizations. Yesterday in the Globe and Mail there was a great interview with Havel and it was rich with quotes about what it takes to move from the idealistic state of a dissident to the hard work of institutionalizing large scale social change. …