2009 05 14 Envisioning Sandbox Board of Directors

Envisioning Sandbox – ROUGH NOTES – Albuquerque, NM, May 14,
2009

1^st day of In Person Board Meeting May 14-17 in
Albuquerque 2009

·        

Marshall: I'd like to talk about a dream I have
of the gang of the people who are offering trainings, both trainers and
organizers. Having regular connections so they can support one another, when
someone is not having things go as they like, then others may have some ideas.
Share celebrations. I have almost zero connection with any of the trainers or
the organizers.

·        

Margo: For me what is stimulated, an example is
how the meeting is being conducted, with a participant not on site but being
able to participate successfully, that stimulates use of available technology
to support connection, and that connection can take many formats for many
reasons, whether it's other avenues to provide trainings, besides the in-person
trainings, and also for committees, teams or groups associated around a topic
to not let time and dimensions getting in the way, there is technology there to
bring them together. I really see this as some beautiful tools, to support what
Marshall said.

·        

Robert: In conjunction with what Marshall said
about trainer connection/community - an ongoing depth training for trainers,
and that would include three different dimensions" inner work and
transformation, relationship work and systemic work. That ongoingness
is what I'm called to as a vision. In conjunction - some way of co-creating a
level of integrity/consistency with the body of nvc
work put out there, that can be communicated. To be more specific with what
Marshall proposed, i.e. synergy: how people can connect around these three
areas, restoring circles, schools, businesses, how there can maybe even be
institutes to support that. There are trainers out there who have experience in
these areas. Trainers with more expertise working with couples/relationships.
Systems/organizations. In depths/inner healing. Overall way of coordinating
this. I want to emphasize the ongoing training for trainers.

·        

Valentina: To add to
the consistency of trainer/trainings - at the same time I liked what robert was talking about. The fortes of several trainers, an
important place where... referrals coming into the office, the web page -
there's many varieties. Many trainers seem to be consciously forming different
areas where they are comfortable with their forte. Another group of people I
wish to connect with - the training for the assessors, especially new
assessors, in combination with the current assessors, more assessors in the
American Continent. A group I enjoy working with - they want to be part of the
network, have so much to offer and give but seem to back off a bit as they are
not certified, Marshall and I were establishing practice groups, to re-connect
these people "we don't want to be trainers but want to continue spreading nvc" - would like to heartstorm
and cocreate ideas to integrate the whole network not
just trainers and board but all of us, that has really been alive for both of
us. Very grateful that the technology right now is remarkable, we can go
anywhere... there are more ideas on this that Marshall and I will share later.

·        

Gail:

1 - clarity on strategy, mission, obj - clarity as in "Built To Last"
version i saw in notes left me with many questions
clearly defining the lines of what services CNVC provides
and to whom and with what resources / circles
-- doables --

2 - stable, working
technology that does what we say we'll do in our
strategy, mission, obj's

Gail Taylor: 3 - resource center circle - activly harvesting community
tools / materials / exercises / best practices
reservoire for people to find guidance
- how to grow our community
- how to make a full-time living sharing NVC
- how to start NVC practice groups
- how to bring NVC to schools
- how to bring NVC to organizations
- how to get funding/resources for our NVC initiative
- how to build an NVC mediation initiative in my town/city/company
- how to get help for our community
from other NVC-groups / leaders

Gail Taylor: 4 - city-circuit - a circle
with an annual commitment to the same areas each year
that they can build for and practice toward building
could turn into additional threads -
a suburbs circuit, a country circuit

·        

Marshall: The one way I thought of starting, was
to have a newsletter just in regard to this topic, for people who are involved
in trainings/organizing can share throught his
newsletter. Celebrations that I /we wish to pass on. People can share what they
have invented and want to share with others. Mournings,
problems, requesting support for others who may have some tactics for dealing
with that. Third part of newsletter - how to get more people out, what works on
the organization level. so far that is the least thing
I think that we could get started on. A newsletter, but I am also open to
exploring the other things that have been mentioned as well.

·        

Margo: would you see as part of the newsletter,
a concern I always have is lynergy, we keep building
on what others have already done instead of always reinventing the wheel, so if
there was a depository of "celebrating what is working well for me" -
a topic that can be categorized, that people can search on when they wish to
read about that particular category, a reference library. An area where I
believe this is happening, it's not organized in a way
to allow it to stay alive when someone is ready to look at it. You notice it
when it's there and then it's gone. Or people may remember it and tell you
about it. A way to help capture from a wide variety of areas and have it
available from now and to forever, that would be beautiful. Couldnt'
that be a part of it - the system, organizing it, keeps it under certain
categories, wehther it's working with schools, med
community. Later someone can go back and search for those topics instead of
reading individual newsletters.

·        

Marshall: teams that organize, to continue in
certain areas, what has been brought up, so it wouldn't just be something that
has been mentioned, but teams can be created to continue with this.

·        

Margo: or if a person/group is sharing what
worked/didn't work for them, it's captured and can be recouped when needed.

·        

Marshall: written somewhere?

·        

Margo: Yes

·        

Valentina: do we have
a place where this kind of info is shared?

·        

Margo: yes but it's nto categorized in a way where you can easily re-obtain it.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could have something like google
for nvc activities. I would
like to know, I heard that this was a successfully organized event - how did
they do it. It's available in the future.

·        

Valentina: like youtube, where you can also add comments, and it's there
for a long time, a lot of incredible research there.

·        

Margo: that's a good example, so someone would
know where to go to look up common topics where today you come across this
information by accident, want it to be accessible.

·        

Valentina: I'm
excited! I guess the other part of what Gail mentioned was part of what I
wanted to mention - fundraising . To be able to
co-create fun ways to do fundraising. Margo and I had shared some ways of doing
fundraising, I feel taht to be able to fund all of
these incredible creative ideas we are going to need some funding and this way,
with the funding being there, .. we just haven't had
the energy to do it in a way that was fun. I just want to add that we can get a
lot of what we're talking about, and share and just really ..
help support the network to feel that not only a
strong foundation, but a stronger community, taht we
have that connection of coming from the heart.

·        

Gail: I want to party! quarterly
regional gatherings to purely celebrate - what we did, the numbers of lives we
touched, the accomplishments we're proud of...etc.

·        

Gail: Contests, things to foster excitement and
energy, rather than ask trainers to submit their work - to have contests, this
quarter we're putting out - what's your most fun way to raise money. Winner:
super special trainer visit! Fun ways to engender contributions.

·        

Gail: An exchange program where we have new nvc folks from some remote area doing an exchange with
trainers who are willing to contribute in that area. Someone with deep love and
deep cherishing bring people across country lines.

·        

Gail: NVC music and jokes. We have a tradition
thanks to Marshall's guidance, fun songs that people put together with nvc content, top 40 nvc songs!

·        

Margo: Empathy song, think Obama will appreciate
that!

·        

Gail: ten minute of stand up
comedy routine about nvc, that includes nvc consciousness.

·        

Robert: NVC based intentional communities. The
whole topic, I know it's not new, of media, there is an unfilled circle around
this, just envisioning the sense that nvc with a more
global presence, somehow an intention to bring it to the worldwide media.

·        

Margo: When you say worldwide media,  how
are you defining media

·        

Robert: anything you can imagine, television,
movies, books. The primary thing I think would be television, in order to reach
larger numbers of people. a lot of that has to do with
finding a celebrity to hopefully help us to communicate. Celebrities can be
very powerful , to make certain things happen. Getting
the word out. Just watching the news, finding celebrities backing certain
causes, they really do a lot to create awareness.

·        

Robert: In terms of the vision of nvc and the world, trainers and organizers and
participants, a way of defining the projects - two dimensions of nvc - breadth and depth - are we doing, whoever is involved
in nvc work are they doing breadth work or depth work
- breadth work reaching larger audiences, people who come, and for the first
time is exposed to nvc. After the breadth work is the
opportunity to take those who are interested in doing more depth work. To be
clear in defining those two dimensions.

·        

Margo: what is resonating for me,
is the nvc movement has been an extremely successful grassroot movement, so successful we haven't kept up with
it for years. tehre's a
beauty there we don't want to forget. if we acknowledgte it in a different way we may be able to work more
WITH it so we're all mroe effective. Somehow just
re-looking at what has supported that grassroot mvoement, what is that intrinsic value, are there an
opportunity to duplicate that in our efforts.

·        

Margo: what is it that brings someone to an nvc training at first, that they get this breadth work, and
then that percentage that is interested in that depth work, what sparks that
interest, and when we identify those areas to not take them for granted but
nurture and support them.

·        

Valentina: Something
that comes very alive, in the past years there used to be nvc
conventions where everyone would get together and do teh
celebrations, connect, find a mutual place and celebrate. A face to face of the
community, the last one in Belgium in 2005 or 2004, that is what I recall
people really relished and looked forward to having that kind of connection. Weve grown so far, we could have more than one, in
different regions, so people cfan have that
connection, and heart storm like we are now - ideas, and empathically connect
and be together.

·        

Second person votes for party!!

·        

Marshall: I'm glad you recalled those
conventions, I don't remember one since about five years ago and they had a
fantastic result, because there were parts of them where people were sharing
what was working for them and just getting to know what is going on in other
areas, how they are organized.

·        

Valentina: some people
sharing workshops, differnt styles of doing things,
just sharing everything that's alive for them in different parts of the world

·        

Marshall: interpreters...

·        

Gail:  - nvc
depth - projects in already-established communities
living nvc and buddhism
living nvc in polyamory
living nvc in rescuing marriages
living nvc in schools between administrators and
teachers
(communities in practice, or communities in crisis)
- healing in nvc communities - a team that goes
around to growing communities and helps where the challenges exceed the threshhold of skill

·        

Robert: Part of the newsletter MBR spoke about -
an advice column... Ask "trainer of the month" or somethign
like that. Whether it's any of the three dimensions. The questions can come
from the community at large. Maybe Marshall can be the first ' Ask Marshall.
And that column could be put out there as an ongoing
discussions. Another version of that are
weblogs, an ongoing lively discussion, in depth clarification - some of the
discussions happen in the email forums, around needs or spirituality or
different things.

·        

Marshall: you're talking about a newsletter?

·        

Robert/John: more about newer technologies.. ask Abby

·        

Marshalls: More on teh
conventions they have... on TV.

·        

Margo: webcasts, trainings, conventions - it can
be all on TV or in person, and then usually things like the advice column or
newsletters, they're all components of it, different stages of connection. I
just did one with Jack Kenfield, didn't have the time
to go to Denver for a conference so registered online and participated through
my computer and it was a wonderful experience around business logistics and
getting your juices going, and there were people from all different industries,
there were breakout groups - I would still have liked to be there in person but
this made it doable for me.

·        

Robert: The technology around webinars/webseminars, a few weeks ago I had a meeting with a number
of people, there were two other nvc groups with their
representatives, this company had a technology to support this global kind of
connection. [name] . Had an audience of around 500
people plus 10,000 people around the world participating in this live webcast. Thsi would fall under media.l It can be done locally, from ABQ or LA. It's one of the
growing models that are happening right now.

·        

Margo: expanding it to so much more, and still the quality is there.

·        

Gail: Having done a lot of these webinars, allowing
people to get access to courses that are going, doing telewebinars
like that, taps into internet marketing, teaching nvc
leaders how to use internet as a growing outreach tool, in a way that is easy
and lucrative for them.

·        

Margo: another side point to that - we then also
will not be losing the younger generations. The kids that are 4-6 years now are
so much more technologically advanced, they're used to
even in middle schools doing teleconference classes. We do have our family
camps and that's wonderful, but we want to be thinking about the next
generations too and what they're used to in tehir
norm of communicating.

·        

 Marshall: twitter/nvc

·        

Gail: it's a part of the internet marketing,
people following me that I have not even been in contact with

·        

Margo: that makes it more real for me to hear
that, thank you for sharing that