Issue #4, December, 2007
 Greetings! Welcome to the 4th issue of World Café TableTalk!
As we near the end of 2007, I'm feeling grateful to be part of this vibrant global network.
The World Café came into the world as a gift. It was born into the "gift economy", or as some of us like to call it, a "culture of generosity". What that meant to co-founders Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, who continued to mindfully nurture this gift through the next 10 years, was that it remain a gift, freely accessible to all.
Throughout this issue, we'll be exploring what this gift has meant to World Café hosts and how they're helping ensure that the gift continues to move, enabling a continually expanding circle of people around the world to experience the power of conversations about questions that matter.
 We've asked some of
the key stewards of the World Café to share about why they continue to
invest their time, money and care in this work. Their responses show
that the gift of support for the World Café is like a river; in passing it on we become a
channel for its current. The gift has momentum and naturally creates
relationship; it leaves a sea of gratitude in its wake. The depth, beauty and variety of
sharing touched me, and I think you too will be inspired by it.
See 'In this Issue' below for
a list of other articles in this issue. It includes some history and context from Juanita
Brown; an invitation to contribute from steward Nancy Margulies; a piece on why harvesting our stories is so valuable; links to blog posts people wrote inspired by Conversation as a Radical Act; kind words from a friend in Colombia; and much much more.
Finally, many of you will have seen the recent letter from the World Café Community Foundation, talking about ways we can all support this gift and continue to foster conversations that matter across the globe. We have already started received your contributions; thank you so much, and please, keep them coming - each one matters.
Whatever your contribution - supporting the work of the whole with your financial donations, hosting cafés, sharing their wisdom through your stories - I think I speak for everyone in saying how blessed we all are to have this work and each other as we start a new year in the culture of generosity. Amy Lenzo, Editorand the World Café Community Foundation
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The Gift of the World Café:
Pay it Forward!
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| Great Dates
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Feb 20 - 22, 2008
Methods for Strategic Collaboration, Singapore
Feb 23, 2008
Cool the Earth Café, Kensington, California
June 5 -7, 2008
World Café Europe Gathering, Bilbao, Spain
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Details on all these events & more on the World Café website Calendar
Send us your dates!
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GiveLine:
Shop & Give Online
An Easy Way to Support the World Café
The World Café Community Foundation recently registered as a 501c3 non-profit 'cause' at the socially-responsible online store GiveLine.
Giveline
redirects consumer dollars to charities and non-profits. So now all
your holiday - and everyday - shopping can benefit the World Café. Use the link above, or the one on the website's Ways to Contribute page to browse available products.
GiveLine's 2007 Holiday Sweepstakes
will run through December 31st, where all purchases over $50 qualify as
an entry to win a $500 Giveline gift card and a $2,500 donation to the
World Cafe Community Foundation (no limit to the number of entries).
Click here to view official sweepstakes rules.
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"The World Café in itself is a gift economy where the currency is meaning."
~ Ulrich Soeder,
Dresden World Café host
"The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation."
~ Lewis Hyde
from The Gift
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"You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit f love."
~ Henry Drummond from The Greatest Thing in the World
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What You Appreciate, Appreciates
We asked a number of Global and Regional Stewards to share a little about why they contribute their time, money and care to the World Café.
World Café stewards from Thailand to Germany, Singapore, Sweden, Florida, Mexico and California responded with heart-felt and thought-provoking answers.
Read on to hear what they said...
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A Steward's Invitation to Contribute
by Nancy Margulies
Ever sit at a World Café table and bask in the glow of a great conversation? Ever find yourself accepting the thanks of colleagues or community members who loved their Café experience, one you hosted?
 These emotional responses and the hope for the future they inspire are the result of lots of volunteer efforts and contributions of funds, largely from David and Juanita.
Now it's time that we, the larger World Café community, step in to further nurture this work and generate the funds necessary to keep the Café phenomenon alive and growing.
Read More about how...
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Gifting the World Café
by Juanita Brown
I never thought of myself or David as being especially generous; we just "knew" when the World Café was born in our living room that it was somehow a gift, meant to be used, in our friend Finn Voldtofte's words, for "world service."
 We recognized early on that this innovative gift which we had experienced together, needed to be shared freely.
There were several of us from that initial gathering who then began to experiment with offering the gift of the World Cafe in various places around the globe.
Read more about gifting the World Café ...
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Harvesting Our Wisdom
The essence of the World Café work is in the evocation of collective intelligence for the good of the whole - be it the 'whole' of each individual café,
the World Café global network, or the larger communities of which we
are all a part.
One very important way to contribute back to this
'whole' is to share the story of your own experience. Perhaps it
doesn't sound like much, but it is one of the most valuable
contributions you can make.
Read on to find out why...
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World Café in Colombia
From Colombian World Café host Luis Carlos Jacobsen: " I feel happy and proud about any contribution we can make, because we receive sooooo much from you guys. I don´t think you can even imagine, how heavy was the stone you threw to the pond, it is not a pond anymore. Water is connecting, rivers are flowing, and it all will end up at the same seas ... You guys are an example of the principle that cooperation brings prosperity."  Read this lively story
about a World Café he hosted for 460 people in Bogota supported by the lovely graphic recording of Viviana Torrijos.
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What's New?
There was a strong World Café presence at this year's Pegasus Systems Thinking conference in Seattle last month, and I live-blogged much of it for those who couldn't be there.
The Conversation as a Radical Act breakout that Juanita Brown, Nancy Margulies, Nancy White and myself presented, in particular, inspired a series of really spectacular blog posts!
For More News...
Check in regularly with the 'What's New' page on the website for ongoing World Café news, and please send in your own updates so they can be shared with the network.
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Conversations that Matter
Hot conversations in the World Café network
 One of the gifts of the World Café is continually being invited into great conversations.
One such conversation happened last week when social visionary Nipun Mehta joined us in Mill Valley to reflect on the principles and resourcing practices at the heart of CharityFocus, an experiment in the gift economy.
Our interaction stimulated some wonderful creative thought; afterwards Nipun wrote this post summarizing his ideas, and Lloyd sent me something he'd written on what it means to be a social entrepreneur.
What are your thoughts on resourcing? How do you envision the "gift economy"? Send your thoughts to us here, or add them as comments on the World Café Community blog.
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World Café in the News
Media Citings
 An article in Mammoth Times
reports on an appreciative World Café that Bay Area regional steward
Laura Peck convened for the people of Mammouth Lakes, California to
help them "shape the future people want to create." Darryl Cook from Anecdote came up with a fun technique for ' reverse cafés', whch he shares in their newsletter.
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"Gift Economy" in the News
We're not the only ones thinking about the Gift Economy! RadioHead's new album, In Rainbows, has been released without a set price - you pay what you want to.
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Connectivity Tips
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The Web2.0 Internet is the poster child for the gift economy with valuable information being freely exchanged around the clock: if you've never seen these wonderfully informative videos created by the folks at Common Craft to make complex subjects understandable to everyone, then you are in for a treat.
Here are a few to get you started:
Social Networking in Plain English
Blogs in Plain English
Wikis in Plain English
RSS in Plain English
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Visual Intelligence
Nancy Margulies draws the graphic flow of information exchange; from casual conversation and a variety of media to action planning in the boardroom.
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Great Resources
World Café host Bonnie Marsh from Chanhassen, MN shares rich evaluations and participant feedback from a World Café she hosted for senior management, directors, front line staff and physicians at the University of Minnesota Medical Center.
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The World Cafe Community Foundation
Email: news@theworldcafe.com
Web: www.theworldcafe.com |
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Artist 