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Issue #22: July, 2011
World Caf� friend
We launched the new World Cafe website (along with World Caf� Professional Services and Signature Learning Programs) only a little over a month ago, and already we are learning so much!
In this issue Deborah Goldblatt, who manages World Caf� Services, shares some of what she has been noticing. This issue also brings something special from the Signature Learning Programs, more Community news from around the world, and an exciting invitation from World Caf� co-founder David Isaacs.
Thanks so much to those of you who responded to last month's invitation to show your financial support for the World Caf� Community Foundation. In these times, which are challenging for so many, it's important to remember how valuable our personal and professional networks are and support the organizations that keep them going.
So if you appreciate the value you receive from using the World Caf� in your life and/or work, please "pass it on" with a financial contribution to the Foundation. By doing so you are making sure that the free materials, open events, community dialogue, and resources for World Caf� practitioners that the Foundation provides remain available. With your support, we can continue to evolve and better serve the changing needs of our community and the larger circles of World as Caf�.
Enjoy this issue!
Amy Lenzo, World Caf� News Editor,
For the World Caf� Community Foundation Core Team and Board
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| Upcoming Events |
Every Friday Night
World Cafe at Starbucks
St Petersburg, Florida
August 23rd & 30th
World Caf� Signature
Learning Program-
Level One (English)
Online
September 10-16
Nexus Africa:
Advancing the Field of Whole System Change
Johannesburg, S Africa
September (dates TBA)
World Caf� Signature
Learning Program-
Levels One & Two
(in Spanish)
Columbia
October (dates TBA)
World Caf� Signature
Learning Program-
Level One (Spanish)
Online
January, 2012
Encontro Intergeneracional
(in Portuguese)
Sao Paulo, Brasil
__________
Details on all these events & more on the World Caf� Community Calendar.
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"The human imagination has become a force of nature.
It incubates the future direction of evolution.
Whether or not evolution was teleological, it is now."
~ Brian Swimme
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What We're Learning
World Cafe Services: An Update by Deborah Goldblatt
With the launch of our new website on June 1st, World Caf� Services moved into high gear with a flurry of inquiries from all directions!
During the month of June and July, I enjoyed many conversations with people from a variety of public and private sectors: education, energy, forestry, sustainability, entrepreneurship, immigration, climate change and health.
What is so encouraging for me about World Caf� Services is being on the frontlines of the World Caf� world hearing about the diverse communities and businesses who are curious about The World Caf� - not just as a method or process but as a practice and way of being in all our communications - and are wanting or are already implementing an approach of "learning together through inquiry" in life and work today.
World Caf� Services, through our professional network, is serving community and business clients everywhere- whether that's by having a half hour conversation with myself and others looking at the possibilities of convening very small or very large groups in a new way or exploring ways to renew or deepen the conversations they've been hosting internally within their organizations.
One of my favorite stories from this month's World Caf� Services work is helping an organizing team for a conference in Arusha, Tanzania to find some guidance and support to co-create their World Caf� design. | Keep Reading...
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| World Caf� Signature Learning Programs
We are extending a special invitation to celebrate the launch of our World Caf� Signature Learning Programs:
 For all participants who register for one of the inaugural Level One programs being held online this August (in English) and September (in Spanish) we invite you to bring a friend to the table.
That's right, the World Caf� is all about connecting and cross-pollinating, so we're inviting you to ask someone you care about - a friend, family member, or colleague - to join you in this initial Learning Program, free of charge1.
We call them Learning Programs rather than trainings, because while you will come out of the series well grounded in the art and craft of hosting World Caf�, the process is one of collaborative learning rather than pedagogical instruction. Interactive and experiential, these programs are held in an atmosphere of shared inquiry and mutual support. Start your own "learning journey" into the magic of the World Caf� with one of these introductory Level One events!
Read more about World Caf� Signature Learning Programs and register to attend Level One today.
1If you prefer, you are welcome to gift your extra seat at the table as a scholarship to one of the many people who would love to participate in this program but are prevented by financial limitations.
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Nexus Africa Global Conference on Advancing the Field of Whole System Change features David Isaacs, co-founder of the World Caf�
What might be possible if leaders, practitioners, activists, scholars and students come together to advance the field of whole system change and in so doing address the critical challenges and opportunities facing our communities, our organizations, and our planet?
And what if excitement and hope can be generated by learning about collaborative change approaches and the latest thinking in this field, and experience the methods as we learn about them?
Join David Isaacs, Co-Founder of the World Caf� and other global leaders of key doorways to collaborative change on September 10-16 in Johannesburg, South Africa for this unprecedented global gathering. David will be hosting a Plenary World Caf�, as well as a conference learning workshop and a post-conference seminar entitled, Conversational Leadership at the World Caf�.
See the Nexus4Africa website for more details and registration.
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Community News
News from the International World Caf� community
New Translations of World Caf� Documents: The Conversational Leadership article by Juanita Brown and Thomas Hurley was translated into Portuguese by Maria Helena Magalhaes Sarmento Afonso and Tere Kienast, with digital design by Nuno Afonso; and Caf� to Go was translated into Slovak by Jozo Vasko. Thank you! See these and other translations of key World Cafe documents in the World Caf� Publications page and Tool Kit on the website.
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World Caf� hosts a session on Conversational Leadership at the Craigslist BootCamp in the San Francisco Bay Area; co-host Mariah Howard tells the story. * * *
 World Caf� community members in St Petersburg Florida celebrated three years of weekly World Caf�s at Starbucks last month. Analesa BatShema traveled to Florida to join the celebration. Here's her report.
* * * The World Caf� was listed as a social innovation under "new ways to communicate" in the recently published We Are Not Ants, collaboratively written by four young authors from Spain as an appreciatively-conceived "guide-book for the well-informed optimist". Read more in the World Cafe Community Blog
(While you're there, check out the new design and let us know what you think)
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The World Caf� Community Foundation
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