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An experiment in community...
An interesting experiment has been taking place in Melbourne, Australia around the creation of generative spaces for strengthening neighbourhoods and tackling challenging issues.
The experiment was started, perhaps rather unexpectedly, by a church but most decidedly it was not an attempt to try draw people into the institution. Instead it asked how might we create more neighbourhood spaces for authentic engagement, person to person? It worked on the assumption that we can co-create a different type of world if we start with local conversations around issues that people care about. Based on Margaret Wheatleys call to gather people around us who share our passion on an issue and get talking, Adrian Pyle (the Uniting Church in Australias Director of Relationships Innovation), convened a gathering of about twenty people hed met who had a deep and genuine commitment to helping sustain healthy neighbourhoods. These were not just professional community developers but entrepreneurs, residents, change agents, artists, activists and business people. The gathered participants used the metaphor of a U to help describe the type of conversation they were trying to have the idea of the bowl or downward orientation of the U encouraging participants to keep there language personal, grounded, humble, real .and avoid postulating what we could/should/must do to others.
Something must have worked in this conversation. Grass-roots community blogger and activist Gail Plowman wrote this significant entry at her Pigs Will Fly blog. Gail was moved by the nature of the discussion and what appeared to happen within it. She made mention of others who commented or blogged on the event.
The one international participant at the event was Dave Cooper from Shalom Makers in the US, an organisation that searching for useful connections between community, organisational and spiritual development. Inspired by the event, Dave has begun to make connections into the MIT Community Innovators Lab and has started blogging about the experience with the first two entries available at the time of writing.
Adrian Pyle began the process of preparing for this event with a paper exploring the resonance between spiritual, community and organisational development, and how has observed that techniques of profound change seem to represent the U shaped wisdom. To provide background for what it is worth, Adrian has posted that paper on his blog over several entries such as:
Hi April - thanks so much for your very generous response! It was interesting to go back and read what I wrote at the time - it was a busy time and thoughI remember posting this, I don't remember choosing those particular words (and writing in the third person and making those spelling mistakes! ...and oh yes, I love long words too!) but that was obviously the language that flowed through me that day.The group that were present at Yarrmbat have kept in fairly good contact with each other directly and electronically andso have continued to let each other know of their further activities. I picked up on some of those in the above report but have also continued to "ginger that along" with the occasional comment, question or insight on the group e-mail list. It's been a really wonderful experiment to be part of!
I'll sign up for updates from your blog too as I can see you are doing wonderful stuff in Florida. That's a conrner of the US I haven't visted in my ten or so trips over there - I will be back next year for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies conference but unfortunately not in your neck of the woods. Everything I do in the US seems to be in the midwest.
Take care!
Adrian
wow -- this is wonderful stuff! Thank you Adrian for sharing with this articulate story.
I really like the following:
- 'the idea of the bowl or downward orientation of the U encouraging participants to keep there language personal, grounded, humble, real .and avoid postulating what we could/should/must do to others.' -- language is so crucial and I think was the first thing that attracted me to ABCD. Other things I studied and came across might promote a similar orientation, but were presented in such a way that recreated the problem by isolating folks with academic or over-postulated language. It's part of my own challenge too, 'cause I love long words!
- I like how you capture here what others went and did. How did you keep track of this? This is so often lacking post-gathering but is extremely important and helps us both remember and demonstrate for others the value of both the orientation and taking the time to gather.
And... neat blog! Love the layout, it's very catching, fun, creative, and deep. Will read more (I need to look into one of those blog-feed-organizer things)
Please keep this good stuff coming.
-A
p.s. I grew up in Melbourne... FL!