Turning to One Another

Our friend Meg wrote a book with the simple premise of inviting, inspiring, and equipping people to come together in meaningful conversation. The book has helped so many in their desire to recapture this ancient human capacity for civility and community building. When she asked us if we would host a space for a community of conversationalists committed to restoring hope to the future, we accepted with glee.

Come in and make yourself at home. We have some ideas about what kind of place would be of great service to conversation practitioners, new and old, and trust YOU will help with your contributions and suggestions.

A Few Ways to Play. . .

1. Join a conversation. We will host a conversation weekly, seeded by a reading, poem, question.

2. Learn from conversation leaders. Enjoy these monthly features on people using conversation.

3. Participate in events. Save the dates to engage in quarterly live events with Meg and others.

4. Share your experience. Offer practices, conversation starters, stories and methods in our knowledge base.

5. Connect with others. Build your network and ours spreading great conversation everywhere!

Take what you need.  Offer what you can.

Your Hosts, Carole Schwinn & Lisa Connors

Meet Paul Born, President and co-founder (in 2002) of Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement, located in Waterloo, Ontario. Paul is the author of Community Conversations: Mobilizing the Ideas, Skills, and Passion of Community Organizations, Governments, Businesses, and People, and the soon-to-be-published book, Listening! Engaging Dialogue to Build Collaborative Communities. This new book will be Paul’s way of describing his love for conversations, great talks and dialogue, and the role of dialogue in building strong collaborative communities. Paul is also the editor of Creating Vibrant Communities: How Individuals and Organizations from Diverse Sectors of Society Are Coming Together to Reduce Poverty in Canada.

Paul’s organization, the Tamarack Institute, describes itself as “a dynamic organization that develops and supports collaborative strategies that engage citizens and institutions to solve major community challenges, and to learn from and share these experiences.” Dynamic is right – and not a big enough word to capture the energy and diversity of Paul’s and the organization’s work in the field of community organizing and development throughout Canada.

Tamarack offers both online and face-to-face workshops, an e-magazine called Engage!, Engage to go! Podcasts delivered to your desktop, as well as free tele-learning seminars via conference call, including an April 22, 2009 event featuring a dialogue between Paul Born and Meg Wheatley, based on her article,  “The Promise and Paradox of Community” (see Current Conversations on this page for a conversation based on questions Meg posed during the seminar)! Highlights and audio excerpts of this event are available at http://tamarackcommunity.ca/g3s61_2009c.html. The event with Meg was part of Tamarack’s exciting new tele-learning series, called “Seeking Community in Chaotic Times,” which is designed to engage participants in a better understanding of the purpose and value of community in their lives and in the lives of those they serve. A brand-new interactive website will launch over the next month or so around the same theme, and a new related book to be published in December 2009 will support this initiative.

If you believe in the power of engaged conversation to transform the lives of individuals and communities, keep in touch with the evolution of Paul Born’s thinking and the innovations taking place at Tamarack (www.tamarackcommunity.ca).  Check out the country-wide poverty reduction initiative called Vibrant Communities, and watch for launch of the new Waterloo Center for Community Life, a center for local community engagement that may just inspire a vision for similar centers all over Canada and beyond.

Our FEATURED conversation this week asks you to share the story of a conversation you're in that is nourishing and inspiring you! Please feel free to create a conversation of your own at anytime.