Issue #18: March, 2010
Greetings!
There is a lot happening lately with the World Cafe Community Foundation and in the global World Cafe community, and this month's newsletter reflects that richness. Here's a quick overview of what you'll find in this issue:
First, we invite you to participate in two new community initiatives being sponsored in the online
community space. We also highlight a World Café learning program being
offered in Second Life, and a brand new translation of the World Café book in
the most populous country in the world. Other news and notes include the Japanese Prime Minister recommending The World Cafe book, a link to a series of national blog posts on David Gershon's Global Warming Cafes, a warm welcome to our new intern and some noteworthy new resources.
In this issue we also express our heart-felt gratitude to all those who
have contributed financially to the World Café Community Foundation in 2009.
We are thankful for the privilege of supporting the continually expanding circle of people who have been touched (or even transformed) by a World Cafe experience - so thank you. Thank you for your work hosting conversations that matter, for being part of this community and for sharing your experience with others.
I hope you enjoy this celebratory
issue of TableTalk.
Warm wishes to all,
 Amy Lenzo, TableTalk Editorand the World Café Community Foundation
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| Great Dates
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Every Friday Night
World Cafe at Starbucks
St Petersburg, Florida
March 19
World Cafe Learning Journey
Second Life
March 25
Democracy Zone Cafes
Napa, CA
April 24
Community World Cafe
Online
June 6-12
Shambhala Summer Institute
Halifax, Nova Scotia
August 21-27
OD World Summit
Budapest, Hungary
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"Living people are composed of fields of centers, profoundly linked to fields of intensity and wholeness of other centers.
Therefore, we feel healed, whole, and alive when we are with others also focused on creating living structures.
By creating wholeness and beauty, we, in turn, are nourished and become more alive."
~ Christopher Alexander, Luminous Ground
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Thank You!
The World
Café Community Foundation makes a unique contribution to the global World Café community in many ways, including
helping ensure that the core World Café materials remain widely and freely
available, supporting the online community space, and catalyzing key initiatives.
We want to acknowledge the people who contributed
financially to TWCCF in 2009. Your support, at whatever level, is crucial and
very much appreciated.
Our sincere thanks to:
Individuals
Katherine Aldridge
Michael Bell
Juanita Brown
Donna Ching
Lynne Cramer
Susan and Paul Crutchfield
Anne Dosher
Sheldon Dunkel
Jenni Dunn
Andrea Dyer
George Emerson
Andrew Faller
Alain and Joan Gauthier
Roger Harrison
Jamison Helt
Sara Heppner Waldston
Joe and Barbara Hoffman
Tom Hurley
Cheryl Hutnick
David Isaacs
Arina Isaacson
Tom and Elaine Johnson
Thomas Kaluzynski
Beth Kanter
The Katcher Family
Sue Keely
Lynda Kinnane
Joe Laur and Sara Schley
Amy Lenzo
Jeraldene Lovell Cole
Manuel Manga
Janet McAliley
James McShane
Bonny and Barbara Meyer
Melanie Oakley
Kelle Olwyler
James and Hallie Parker
Patricia Perry
Andriano Pianesi
Mary Plumer
Joyce and Richard Rechtien
Matoka Rhinehart
Bertram Schild
Beatrice Selwyn
Rochelle Simmons
Kalani Souza
Mary Stacey
Tenneson Woolf
James Thorne
Myra Wexler
Nancy White
Christine Whitney Sanchez
Iantha Whittaker
Organizations
Alchemy Consulting
Cagwin and Dorward
Socrates Seminars
Spectrum Center
Whitman Institute
We also want to thank those in this group
(and many others not listed) who have contributed to the World Cafe Community
Foundation by volunteering their time, expertise, and care.
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World Cafe Learning Program
We are offering our first ever online learning program in Second Life on Friday, March 19th. The six hour professional workshop is being offered in association with the "Including the Excluded" online conference. It will be a comprehensive interactive session on hosting World Cafe in a virtual environment (most of which will be applicable in hosting face-to-face World Cafes as well). If you've been curious about World Cafe in Second Life, this could be a great
opportunity to explore it in a meaningful context. If you're interested in a World Cafe learning program but the idea of Second Life is daunting to you, watch the Community
Calendar for similar offerings using other platforms.
To register, or for more information about the event see the Community Calendar listing. If you are already comfortable in Second Life and would like to
be part of just the World Cafe experience (which will form the basis of the workshop) at no charge, register directly through session host Amy Lenzo.
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The World Cafe Book News
 Mainland China Translation!
The World
Cafe: Shaping our Futures through Conversations that Matter has just been translated into simple Chinese characters for mainland China! The first run has already sold out but a second run is underway and you can order it now.
This new volume joins the seven existing translations of the World Cafe book into Spanish, Portuguese, German, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish.
Japanese Prime Minister Honors World
Cafe
 Our friend and colleague Daisuke Kawaguchi in Japan contacted us
recently to share the news that the Japanese Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama had chosen the recent Japanese translation of the World Cafe
book as one of 28 "Books that will Change Japan". This photo, from a
newspaper story, shows the Prime Minister reading the World Cafe book! Read the whole article here (in Japanese).
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Community News
 Members of the World Cafe online community have launched two important new initiatives to offer the World Cafe experience to all who would like to take part.
The first initiative is a group called the World Cafe Inquiry Circle, which will focus on a topic of significant global importance each month. The second is a regular online Community World Cafe hosted in association with the Inquiry Circle and based on its explorations. Both these offerings are free (except for the cost of a long-distance phone call to participate in the Community World Cafe).
The first
online Community World Cafe will be held on Saturday, April 24th. The first question for the World Cafe Inquiry Circle is:
"What crucial conversations should we as a global community be having in light of what recently happened in Haiti, Chile and now Turkey?"
That space is open now, and so please join us and offer your thoughts.
We are very excited to introduce
Benjamin Aaron Degenhart, our new World Café
intern, who will be working with our global communications team. He's already making magic
- check out the Google Map he created of and for the people
in the World Cafe online community. Scrolling across this powerful visual, we can see
who we are - an incredibly diverse and vibrant community, truly global in
scope. Thank you for that vision, Benjamin.
Just for fun, he also made this Wordle "Word Cloud" of the community profile answers ...
Long time World Cafe friend David Gershon took the World Cafe process and worked with the World Cafe Community Foundation to modify it for use in what he calls Global Warming Cafes. Here's what David has to say about the process:
"I wished to use the World Café process in a somewhat unconventional way. Rather than attempt to generate the group's collective intelligence, I wished to develop its emotional intelligence. Specifically, to enable people through heartfelt conversations to assist each other in moving through their fears about our future as a species into helping shape that future by becoming part of the solution."
For more of the story, read David's six-part series in the Huffington Post, especially Part Four which focuses on the Climate Change Cafes.
 Several of our friends and colleagues have been working on a project called the Powers of Place Initiative, which focuses on the relationship between transformational group work and the places in which it occurs.
They've recently launched a website and the Field, a working space to collaboratively evolve this important field of inquiry.
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Latest New Resources
Peg Carlson Bowen is one of the wonderful new volunteers helping to support this World Cafe village. Among other things, she has been posting media links for material David Isaacs finds through World Cafe Google Alerts. Her latest postings include links to a World Cafe "Vision Day" in the Church of Christ in Redlands, CA, and a Mental Health Services plan using World Cafe in North Carolina. Other recent resources include:
Keep updated with current resources as they are posted by subscribing to the community Cybrary listings. |
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TWC Communications Survey Results
 Forty eight people - from Taiwan, India, the US, Canada, Columbia, Australia, Mexico, Germany, Nicaragua, Malaysia and Romania - responded to the survey we posted in the last issue about our online communications. We learned some really interesting things about ourselves and what we most use and value in the World Cafe website, this newsletter, and in the World Cafe online community site.
The information from this survey will impact many upcoming changes in our communications, so if you haven't had a chance to register your thoughts, we've left it open for a little longer so you can still take the survey.
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The World Cafe Community Foundation
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