“Tell me a little more about what you hope for from the practicum?” This is a question that pops up during our phone calls with the people who have applied to attend The Circle Way practicum happening on Whidbey Island, Washington this August. One of the common themes in the answer to this question is […]
Tag: hosting
As part of my preparation for the Art of Hosting on Bowen Island in February I have been reflecting on what’s alive in my work these days. An Art of Hosting learning experience is not delivered from a standard curriculum that we dust off and teach. Rather, it is informed by what inquiries participants bring […]
This week I had the great fun of collaborating with Claire Atkin of WeAreYVR and Todd Sieling, Tylor Sherman, Arian Khosravi and Sam Dal Monte of Denim & Steel. WeAreYVR is a not for profit, collaborative project, with the goal of making Vancouver’s startup community more connected, transparent, and welcoming. In March WeAreYVR received enough municipal […]
An important part of planning a participatory gathering or meeting is the harvest. I like to explain this as what do we want to harvest in our hands (the tangible – reports, photos, videos, sculptures…) and in our hearts (the intangible – togetherness, team spirit, clarity, passion, new relationships…)? In fact, we aren’t planning a […]
In my last post about the Strategic Reflection Session, I mentioned a context setting piece on the Two Loops, which is a map of how living systems change. Here is how I described it to the group. This is a context-setting piece, not a roadmap of ‘change management’. I’ll touch on some of the core […]
It was a group of about 60 church leaders and lay people, gathering for a regular business meeting. They meet face to face like this only a few times a year. I was invited in to provide participatory design and hosting for the session. They wanted to use the time to look back and discover […]
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Springtime Circle
I’m fortunate to be part of a few circles that gather on a regular basis. One of those circles describes our purpose as: Time to slow down, reflect, connect on a deeper level, explore our inner journey and life path, our soul choices, our questions, our courage, where we are holding back or afraid, bringing […]
My work is in the realm of participation. Inviting people together to take part in something, to turn-towards-each-other. This is not participation for the sake of participation but to support change and learning – if it’s about us, don’t do it without us. Cynthia Kurtz describes “In my experience the greater the degree of participation the […]
This from Bob Stilger in the Art of Hosting community: Several days ago, in Montreal, we held a one day workshop using stories from Japan’s disaster area as fuel for a conversation about thrivability in Montreal. Several things were key to the event’s success. One was that we brought beauty into the center. As we […]
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Governexx Annual Forum
I spent today with a group of 100+ folks at an event with the purpose of “creating leadership platforms for innovative, imaginative and idea driven individuals in public service”. The core planning team for Governexx had some creative ideas in the agenda, like inviting both public service and private sector folks together, Chitter Chatter (their version […]