Fresh on the heels of a gathering I co-hosted here on Bowen Island this week, I have begun a year long research project to look at how hosting, facilitating and convening conversations can help shift people, organizations and communities to new levels of awareness, work and changemaking in their worlds. Posts here that relate to this research project are tagged with “CoHo” which is one of things some of us are calling this initiative. It is a contraction of “Council of Hosts” which is how we gathered and constituted ourselves last week. As a Council – a term that refers …
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For the past two years, I have been active in the Art of Hosting fellowship. This is a global community of practitioners dedicated to uncovering the new and emerging forms of meaningful conversation and organizational shape. Together we have been conducting trainings, working together on projects and deeply learning our patterns. Several of our mates in this fellowship have been working hard to bring about an online presence for our work, and today it went live. So I introduce to you the brand new Art of Hosting site, a place that describes what we are doing, how we are doing …
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One of the decision making tools we teach in the Art of Hosting is called “Council.” In it’s essence it is a way of making a decision collectively which uses dialogue and conversation to get to a point where the decision is fully supported and meets the needs of the group. This kind of process can take a lot of time, but the quality of the decision is incredible. It leads to sustainable action, solid relationships and wisdom. There are a couple of other things required for making council a good process. First you need mates, people with whom you …
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Been quiet here the last couple of weeks but not in my life. Two weeks ago I visited The Shire near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to teach with Toke Moeller, Sera Thompson and Tim Merry in the Art of Hosting. It was a beautiful time, working on the land, working with people from Yarmouth, Montreal and the eastern US who are doing deeply important work with youth, food and community. And it was great working with my mates. A couple of pieces have showed up around the web about this training. Here is a post from Brian Hurlburt, a truly generous …
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I am a very mindful driver. For me driving is an exercise in flow and self-organization and I even see it as a bit of a giving practice. So I was intensely interested when my friend Kathryn Thompson told me of an article entitled “Why don’t we do it in the road? recently published in Salon, which talks about how to make streets safer by removing controls. “One of the characteristics of a shared environment is that it appears chaotic, it appears very complex, and it demands a strong level of having your wits about you,” says U.K. traffic …