Some short notes about various things: Friends of mine in Estonia have started the White Tulip movement to bring peace to a deep seated ethnic conflict that is flaring up there at the moment. In the Ukraine, the 15th annual OpenSpaceonOpenSpace has just concluded and the photos are online. I was reflecting on how much easier it is to harvest from these gatherings now than it was when they began, or even six years ago when we hosted OSonOS in Vancouver. I haven’t plugged Redwire Magazine for a while. Redwire is published by indigenous youth in Vancouver, and it captures …
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I’m back from Bella Coola, and reflecting on the remarkable three days of learning and Open Space we did there. Saturday, we held a small community Open Space gathering around the issue of what the community needs to do to prepare for assuming full responsibility over child and family services. This is a provocative question in the Nuxalk Nation. The Nation is a strong and independent community and putting children and families in the centre of any conversation brings heart, passion and commitment. We had a small group of people present for our Open Space. 20 people began the day …
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Yesterday, in preparing for two days of teaching and training I spent the morning over breakfast reading some of th stories of Clayton Mack, the grandfather of my friend and client Liz Hall. I was reading about the way in which Nuxalk people gathered food from the land, whether it was the fish, game or plants and berries. He talked about the way the amlh – the spring salmon – were harvested using fishtraps. At one time there were 22 traps on the river. These traps would form barriers that the salmon would need to jump. When they jumped they …
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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 …
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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.