Issue #19: July, 2010
Greetings!The World Cafe Community Foundation is in the process of re-inventing itself (more on that in future issues!) and in that context we'll be "re-presenting" the World Cafe. We're working on a re-design of the website now, and are looking for a new logo that will express the essence of the World Cafe and take us forward into the future. We want your help in creating it!
Please read the announcement of our World Cafe Logo Contest in this issue. If you're feeling creative, send in a design or two and be sure to pass the news on to all the other creative people you know. We're offering some great prizes!
Meanwhile, the World Cafe online community continues to grow and become an ever more dynamic place for connection and conversation with people around the world. Our numbers are up to almost 2200, and more and more people are stepping forward to share what they're learning and explore shared interests in this emerging community of practice. Many people new to the World Café are also joining us each day to see what we're about. Please welcome them and give them the benefit of your knowledge and perspectives when they introduce themselves, pose questions, or share stories.
Read on for details of the last two online Community Cafés, a World Café Master Class at the OD Summit in Budapest next month, and other World Café community stories and activities around the world.
As always, I hope you enjoy this
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
August 21-22
World Cafe Master Class
OD World Summit
Budapest, Hungary
August 21-27
OD World Summit
Budapest, Hungary
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"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a NEW model that makes the existing model obsolete."
~Buckminster Fuller
"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."
~ T.S. Eliot
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NEW World Café Logo Competition
What symbolizes your image of the World Café?
 The World Café Community Foundation is re-designing itself to increase opportunities for engagement and help ensure its long term sustainability.
As part of this effort, we're looking for a new logo that will help us re-present ourselves in a way
that symbolizes the essence of the World Cafe - authentic connection, co-creativity, excellence and innovation.
We invite you to be part of this shift and share your image for the new World Café. All contributions are welcome. Whether you are a
professional designer, a student, graphic recorder, or simply someone who loves the World Cafe and has an artistic sensibility - if
you have an idea for the new World Café logo, we'd like to see it. For more details, including prizes (you'll like them!), judges, design specs, and rules and regulations, check out our announcement in the World Cafe Community Blog.
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World Cafe Stories
Stories are the life-blood of our community of practice
 Cafe Harvesting through Story-Making - Hala Makarem recently hosted an inter-generational, intra-regional story-weaving event in Lebanon. She integrated World Cafe, U Theory and Appreciative Inquiry in the event's design and her collective story-telling process for the harvest is one of the most innovative ways we've seen to integrate art practices and the World Cafe.
Read Hala's whole story for insights into how you can apply her ideas in your own work.
 
Multi-generational World Cafe - Juanita Brown, Mariah Howard, Shilpa Jain and Austin from YES! co-hosted a multi-generational World Cafe on the topic of "sharing our gifts and privileges for social change" this June in northern California. Read more of their story ... Online World Cafes continue to
grow in frequency and popularity. The second Online Community Cafe was hosted in
late June by Adriano Pianesi on the topic of immigration. Take a look at
the May/June conversation thread in the Monthly Inquiry
Circle to see the graphic recording from the Café and read the story
of what happened here. If you missed the graphic recordings from the
first Community Cafe, have a look in the March/April thread.  Ben Roberts of the Coffee Party has
hosted a number of online "Coffee Cafes" after being exposed to an
online World Cafe and he is loving it.
You'll
want to read Ben's lively illustrated stories
about his series of Coffee Cafés. Here's what he had to say when I asked him about his
work:
"This
has been a thrilling and energizing adventure for me. The World Café,
both as a process and a community, has given me the tools and support to
tap into my own latent energy for hosting conversations that matter."
 Learning Program in Second Life - Speaking of online World Cafes, the innovative all-day World Cafe Learning Program in Second Life that we announced in the March issue of TableTalk was a unique and wonderful experience for those who braved the technology challenge and attended. Read the whole story here. |
Community News
 World
Cafe Master Class @ the OD World Summit in Budapest - An international team of
World Café hosts and graphic professionals led by Francis Baldwin and Tatiana Glad with Agota Ruzsa and Sabine Soeder, are
offering a World Cafe Master Class at
the OD
Summit in Budapest next month.
Check out the brilliant flyer that Sabine designed!
Jasmine Cargill has started an infectious conversation in the online community forum about integrating the arts into the World Café process. This idea has been inspirational for many World Cafe hosts and their experiments with the form have produces great results ( read Hala Makarem's story, above). Jasmine has been encouraged to start a group on this subject, and word has it that she's planning to do so! Stay Tuned.
 World Cafe Communications intern Benjamin Degenhart is still at it - his newest innovations on the online community include a collage of all the beautiful faces gathered there and an informative tag cloud taken from our conversation topics that will link back to them all in a rich taxonomy of our experience.
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Media Mentions
 Visionary social activist Chaiwat Thirapantu took his discoveries about collective intelligence and his passion for the World Cafe into a real life and very volatile situation with remarkable grace and clarity. Read the report in the Bankok Post
World Cafe co-founder David Isaacs uses Google Alert to find out where the World Cafe is showing up in the news. He drew our attention to a primary school in UK using the World Cafe to help students think about the shift to secondary school and a forum in New Jersey using World Cafe for conversation about issues that affect people with developmental disabilities. The Art of Hosting mailing list turned up a link to an article in the New York Times that says people who engage in meaningful conversation are happier than those who do not. But of course we knew that!
Keep updated with current media mentions and new resources as they are posted by subscribing to the community Cybrary listings. |
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The World Cafe Community Foundation
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