Issue #8: August, 2008
 Greetings! Hi! Welcome to TableTalk!
We're a lot closer to our goal of keeping this newsletter short & sweet in this issue, but of course that means there's more happening than we can possibly share here! If you want to make sure not to miss anything, subscribe to the World Café Community Blog and Online Community for the new stories, conversations and resources as they occur.
Once again, thank you! for your contributions to this newsletter and other World Café communications. The community thrives because of all of you who so generously share your stories, knowlege, and resources with "the whole".
As Isabel Allende says:
"What is the point of having experience, knowledge or talent if I don't give it away? Of having stories if I don't tell them to others? Of having wealth if I don't share it? I don't intend to be cremated with any of it! It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world and with the divine."
Warm Wishes,
 Amy Lenzo, Editorand the World Café Community Foundation
|
|
|
The Gift of the World Café:
Pay it Forward!
|
|
|
|
|
| Great Dates
|
September 6
World Café
City of Dialogue
Solothurn, Switzerland
September 25 - 28
Art of Hosting
Melbourne, Australia
September 28 - Oct 1
Art of Hosting & Harvesting
Bowen Island, BC, Canada
October 3 -5
National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation
w/Youth Cafés
Austin, Texas
October 11 - 14
Art of Hosting
England
November 17 - 21
Global Human Development Conference
Takayama City, Japan
__________
Details on all these events & more on the World Café website Calendar and in the "Freinds" event announcements in this issue.
Send us your dates!
|
"Poet, rake the strings. Strike fire.
Staying quiet is not for now.
Be generous.
A baby must cry before the mother nurses.
Make a noise, poet."
~Rumi
(sent in by Tim Merry)
|
|
|
|
|
Maturana on Love & Being Human
Juanita Brown was among those who had the pleasure of meeting with Humberto Maturana and others from the Matriztico Institute in Boston earlier this month. Juanita posted her notes and reflections from this extraordinary event on the World-Café hosted Conversation as a Co-Evolutionary Force blog; here are two excerpts from her report:
"As humans we are born in the trust of loving and in being loved-within
an ecology of the natural world and within the larger living cosmos."
Love is the legitimate co-arising of the other in the relational space
between us. What we understand as humanness are relations conserved on
and in love over many generations of our co-existence."
"Words are not trivial - words are the nodes or elements of networks of
conversation. Language is the coordination of doings, not a symbolic
act as we commonly understand it. With one word I can follow one path
and with another a different path. Our languaging distinguishes a way
of inhabiting a human community and culture."
For the rest of Juanita's post on her experience with Maturana
|
What's Else is New?
There have been some wonderful stories about World Cafés coming in to StoryNet recently. One of the most intriguing is from Tai Ahu, a young Japanese man who embarked on a 52 week adventure with Ship for World Youth, hosting "floating World Cafés" onboard the Nippon Maru for 283 young people from 14 different countries.
They travelled from Yokohama to Singapore, Muscat, Chennai, and back to Tokyo, and a s Tai discovered, sea sailing for weeks is an ideal environment for fostering conversation! Read Tai's story...
World Cafés are being held at Starbucks in St Petersburg, Florida each Friday, and will continue through Halloween, reports regional steward Sharon Joy Kleitsch. They've been hosting them for a while now, in partnership with the local Starbucks management. "Ideally" says Sharon Joy, "they will expand to other parts of the region." 
The World Café group in Second Life is coming together for the first time in the World Café's new home on Info Island to talk about what's possible for World Café in Second Life, and how it might support what we're doing in "real life".
We'll be meeting in early October (specifics to be announced in the next newsletter), but if you'd like to jon the group, or be a part of hosting this first meeting, contact Amy for details.
Good News for World Café Hosts in Italy: Mario Gastaldi has translated Café To Go into Italian and now he's working on the Art of Powerful Questions! Don't forget the World Café City of Dialogue events throughout the city of Solothurn in Switzerland on September 6th! Details of the specific Cafés are on their website.  The San Francisco Bay Area World Café Meeting last month resulted in the birth of several new projects, including a city-wide café, group purchase of Café supplies, and an expansion of World Cafés at UCSC into the UC Peace & Conflict Stidies curriculum. ( Here are some photos of the gathering.) For More News...
For ongoing World Café news and resources, subscribe to the World Café Community blog and check in regularly with the "StoryNet", 'What's New' and Cybrary pages on the website.
Send in your own updates so they can be shared with the network.
|
Special Events & Announcements
"from the World Café & our Friends"
Check the calendar on the left for main World Café events; here are more details & other events offered by our friends.
September 8 - 12 ~ Pioneers of Change will be using the Art of Hosting pattern to celebrate its 10th anniversary with a multi-generational gathering in Axladitsa-Avatakia, Greece. For more information, download this pdf, or register directly. September 12 ~ Heartland Circle is hosting a special extended Thought Leader Gathering with Peter Block as the conversation starter. He'll be speaking on The Structure of Belonging: Community as Relationship, Leadership, Citizenship from 8am - 4pm. If you haven't yet been to a Thought Leader Gathering, this is a great way to start! For more information or to register. Heartland is also offering morning & evening sessions of their 6-month core Art of Convening tele-training series, starting on on October 8th. Sign up for one of their free 1-hour preview calls scheduleded between now and September 17th, if you want to see what all the excitement is about. Sept 29 - Oct 1 ~ A special Art of Hosting with Caitlin Frost and Chris Corrigan is being held at the Rivendall Retreat Center in Bowen Island, BC. For more details, email Caitlin or go to the Berkana website to register. ~ Rockrose Institute's Youth Dialogue Project will be offering two Cafés at NCDD's conference,
culminating in a multi-generational sub-plenary. People between the
ages of 15 and 30 living in and around Austin, Texas are being
encouraged to attend. These sessions will be designed in partnership
with World Café stewards and hosted by six young leaders selected from
the Bay Area program On the Verge. November 16 - 18 ~ Empowerment Works is bringing together social change agents of all kinds for The Global Summit Planning Symposium. This symposium will be held in San Franscisco, but they're planning a significant online component so don't let geography stop you from participating! For more information and registration, see their website. |
|
|
|
The World Cafe Community Foundation
Email: news@theworldcafe.com
Web: www.theworldcafe.com |
|
|
|
