NVC USA Meeting 2 Apr 2006

Sun, Apr 2, 4-5:30pm PDT (Note: Daylight Savings starts this day)

Antendees

Jane Connor, Rick Smith, Margarita Mac, Meta Hough, Lisa Goldish

Next Meetings review, and settle on phone number

There was some confusion in phone number as we've used two numbers for the meetings. For ease and clarity, from here in out we will be using this number for our meetings:

712-580-7700 code: SPEAKPAX

Conferred on future meeting times - time adjustments for future meetings to be accessed at each meeting.

• Apr 15, 1-2:30pm Pacific time
• Sat May 6, Sun May 21, Sat June 3, Sun June 18 - all meetings 12:00 Pacific, 3:00 EST

Jane's summary of the Leaderful Event

Jane summarized Leadership Event she planned, attended, and recently returned from:

• conceived as an event where all are leaders and learn from each other
• low cost since no trainers had to be hired
• high quality of connection due to equanimity of leadership and most everyone convening groups which resulted in small groups
• used open space technology
• leadership team called listening team; rotated 2 off and 2 new people on every day.
• large group conflict handled without hierarchical structure
• some mourning that there wasn't more depth on topics in groups {due to lack of experienced resource people preplanned for groups and topics}.
• still going over feedback from participants
• attendees from same geographical region; ad hoc NVC northeast US network created.

Jane raised the question that Gina is being brought in to facilitate open space technology and will she be in the role of leader or leaderful participant?

Considerations raised of having Compassion In Action as a leaderful event:

• messiness and need for order
• difference between events: 29 people for 5 days, and 120 people for 3 days
• similarity in events: skilled NVC practioners
• others?

Margarita shared about recent 9 day intensive training by...

• deepening, differently structured than IITs
• organized by trainers.

Goals & Plans for Beyond Compassion In Action Conference

Mary suggested we consider what the US project may be beyond. Here's a start of a list to carry forward into future meetings.

• clearinghouse of what is happening and who's doing it
• country-wide calendar, perhaps in wiki format
• FAQ webpage on how NVC endeavors have been accomplished
• regional sharing of resource people {enlivening to bring in people outside of 'local'}
• 800-EMPATHY hotline {perhaps sponsored by a donor and staffed by NVC volunteers with some substantial experience}

Follow-up to actions from last meeting

• Rick setting up portion of wiki to act as conference information website - done: Compassion In Action

Agreement & appreciation voiced on the work Rick did setting up an intro info page on the wiki for the conference. He still is figuring out how to upload images to the wiki.

• Lisa worked up a flyer for the conference - done
  

Lisa pulled together a 2nd draft from feedback she received from Rick and Mary. Jane voiced concern for more dynamic attention getting overall and quicker comprehension of what the conference is about. She agreed to present it to Dian, founder of Brooklyn NVC, to see if she is able to receive her feedback/ideas, as Jane has found her work very dynamically satisfying. Rick uploaded the images and MS Publisher source to yahoo groups file folder

• Rick contacting Sandy Heierbach at the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation - now done, sent email including link to conference web page.
• More ideas on how to share what happens at the conference? (point 10 from last time)

Previously listed:
-scribes in each break-out group {possibly journalism students} entering onto computers during the conference
-compilation of scribing made during the event itself
-video cam
-a creative mix of photos, writing, audio and video on a webpage
-using some conference money to hire someone for before, during and after the conference to think through and operationalize this

Jane mentioned that she had a very challenging time trying to get audio contributions from the Leadership Event attendees on how the event was meaningful to them

Added to the list:
-regional sharing: people take back to their region, possibly sharing the information to each other's communities.

• Outreach

Found satisfying: talking to people once reached, using the approach of "What are you needing in your area to support NVC and it's growth?"
Found frustrating: reaching people, not having more information, feeling like door-to-door selling, not having topic resources established.
Wondering where John Abbey is at with the contacts he volunteered to make.
Concern voiced about having open space end up being all questions, without answers and people resources to share their experience and suggestions on specific topics.
Confusing feedback loop: need to find out what people need and are interested in soon so we are able to find resource people - need to offer topics with resource people to people in doing the marketing of the conference.
A recent event in Munich had a website where people could offer themselves as resource persons in specific areas for groups set up before the open space event actually took place.