World Cafe Community

Contribution/s from Japan

We recently received a most welcome and moving letter from Mr Tomoyuki Tsunoda and the Art of Hosting/World Café community in Japan. It contained a check, and this note:

"Art of Hosting in Japan held a Charity Dialogue event on January 18th, 2012, in Tokyo. We called for donations to the World Café Community Foundation to say "thanks" because the World Café process is easy to use and provides a lot of fun that is needed now to recover our communities against the damage that has been done by the Tsunamis.

We Japanese need a lot of conversation, a lot of dialogue, to rebuild our communities and everyday life. The World Café process helps us hold such conversations.

So we say, Thank you World Café!"

To know that our friends in Japan are thinking of us and wanting to support and acknowledge the Foundation even with all they have to deal with there at home, means everything to us. These are true friends, and we are so grateful for their many contributions to the World Café, financial and otherwise. Our hearts remain with them as they go through the joyful and painful work of rebuilding their homes, communities, lives, and country after the multiple disasters of last year.

The letter was signed by:

Kazuaki Katori
Tamio Nakono
Hidetake Enomoto
Chizue Takeuchi
Rie Kuroi
Syuu Uraya
Tomoyuki Tsunoda
Mami Yoda
Nao Ashida
Misuzu Ninomiya
Yoshihiko Suko
Emiko Taguchi
Kaku Suzuki
Izumi Takii
Kazumi Yagi
Emi Owada
Yoko Itagaki
Kazue Takashige
Naoki Ishidoya
Ryota Yamauchi
Mamoru Oosone
Masaru Kojima
Kouya Nakaoka
Kouhei Noda
Tsuyoshi Kurosawa
Hiroyuki Matsumoto
Takashi Nisio
Toshiko Iwashima
Ayako Satou
Daiki Hayashi
Akikazu Hayashi
Hiroshi Okuyama
Kentarou Fukui
Syouko Matsumoto
Yuka Kamoshida
Yuuko Takahashi
Yoshiko Fukase
Kayo Fujiwara
Misato Matsubara
Takuya Murakami
Masaaki Mezaki
Hiroshi Ooki
Hiroko Nakajima
Miyako Sakatsume
Masaya Furuse
Ryoutarou Hayashi
Bob Stilger

World Café Signature Learning Programs

We have now scheduled our next set of Level One World Café Signature Learning Programs!

We will be offering these learning programs in three two-hour sessions online - one in January 2011, and one in February 2012.

Each one is timed to be convenient and accessible to people in different parts of our international community, so you can choose the one that works best for you. 

January 2012
Level One Online - The Americas & Asia/Australia
Offered online in three two-hour sessions
January 6th, 9th, and 11th
(in Asia/Australia that is Jan 7th, 10th, & 12th)
5pm - 7pm Pacific Time
REGISTER HERE

 

February 2012
Level One Online - The Americas & Europe
Offered online in three two-hour sessions
February 15th, 17th, and 19th
8am - 10am Pacific Time
REGISTER HERE

 

We call them Learning Programs rather than trainings, because while you will come out of the series (Levels One to Three) well grounded in the art and craft of hosting World Café, 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 Café by registering for one of these introductory Level One events now!

 

Level One is a pre-requisite for the Level Two Signature Learning Programs, so you'll want to take one of these currently-scheduled programs to prepare for our Level Two course being offered online in May 2012 in collaboration with Fielding Graduate University.

Read more about World Café Signature Learning Programs here.

 

If you would like to contribute a scholarship to one or more of the many people who would love to participate in this program but are prevented by financial limitations, please make your contribution using the "Give" button in the left column - be sure to indicate your wishes in the PayPal text field provided.

From the Heart

World Café Community Foundation board member Samantha Tan speaks from the heart in support of the Harvest Fund Drive:

So many of us are longing to speak from our heart about what we care most about in our lives and in our world today. The World Café is the most powerful and successful method I know to connect people through authentic conversations that ignite our courage and spirit to act - to make a difference and be the difference. It is my honor and privilege to serve on the World Café Signature Learning Programs team. My wish is for everyone to experience the satisfaction and profound joy of the
"World as Café".

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Our immediate goal is to raise $25,000.00 by November 4, 2011.

Thank you to all of you who have already joined us in making this Harvest Fund Drive a great success. Please make your valuable contribution to the World Café Community Foundation now.

You'll be helping to catalyze the most critical conversations of our time.

 

What Makes the World Café Important Now?

In support of our Harvest Fund Drive, Frances (Muryah) Baldwin shares her perspective on what makes the World Café so important now:

"For more than 10 years I have been excited about the far-reaching effects of eloquent and evocative conversation and realized how rarely people have such personal or business conversations in the real world. Repeatedly, I have witnessed large groups build upon their diverse perspectives to experience substantial shifts in what they believe about their real purpose, potential and interdependence.  Sometimes I try to imagine the amount of complexity, confrontation, pain, time and waste that is transcended, just because people intentionally practice seven simple but profound principles and take the time to determine the questions that will get them where they want to go. We are just beginning breakthroughs that translate the most  acknowledged and finest practices (systems, groups and individuals) into practical behaviors that are greatly needed in our relationships, communities and the world-at-large.  We must keep it going."

~ Frances (Muryah) Baldwin, World Café Community Foundation board member and President of consulting group Designed Wisdom

Help us achieve our immediate goal of raising $25,000.00 by November 4, 2011.

Thank you to all of you who have already joined us in making this Harvest Fund Drive a great success. Please make your valuable contribution to the World Café Community Foundation now.

You'll be helping to catalyze the most critical conversations of our time!

The Way the World Café Spreads

World Cafe Community Foundation Board President Tom Hurley leads off Week Two of our Harvest Fund Drive with this thoughtful post about the power of cross-pollination:

"I'm continually astonished by how the World Cafe spreads...

• As when it moves virally through a community, conversations in one place sparking dialogues in others. A World Café at the National Native American Economic Policy Summit inspired tribal leaders to take the process home and convene their own Cafés on key tribal concerns.


• As when there's a slow, steady uptake, word percolating through a company about a better way to address key business issues. Over the last year, we've hosted a series of World Cafés for Marathon Petroleum as one leader after another has called after hearing about how colleagues have used the process to engage collective intelligence and shape collaborative action in their teams.


• As when one World Café host seeds transformative conversations around the world, in new and sometimes surprising places. After a World Café training we did for Dr. Jessica Thompson and her Climate Change Education Partnership team at Colorado State University, she hosted Cafés in national parks around the United States and then with communities in Mongolia as well!

Help keep this gift moving. For over sixteen years, those stewarding the World Café have ensured that the core ideas and process are freely available, helping people change the conversation in order to change their world.

Now the World Café Community Foundation needs your help. Please make a donation to help ensure that "the gift continues to move" -- especially if you’ve ever used the World Café and found value in it for yourself, your organization, or your community.

I'm giving. I hope you do, too.
~ Tom Hurley

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Our immediate goal is to raise $25,000.00 by November 4, 2011.

Thank you to all of you who have already joined us in making this Harvest Fund Drive a great success. Please make your valuable contribution to the World Café Community Foundation now.

You'll be helping to catalyze the most critical conversations of our time.

Chris Chopyak on Miracles

Chris brings us into day six of our Harvest Fund Drive with this inspiring message:

"Miracles happen EVERY Day!  Our abilities to see these miracles are limited by the distractions we experience everyday.  How do we find, uncover, and illuminate these miracles that we seek?  Through conversations that matter.  Your support of the World Cafe Community Foundation ensures that these important conversations can be framed and supported through principles, hosting and design that is proven, that is of the highest quality and that delivers the "miracle" you are looking for.

Please support the amazing and important work of the Foundation."

~ Chris Chopyak, World Café Community Foundation board member, and co-founder of Alchemy: The Art of Transforming Business

Our immediate goal is to raise $25,000.00 by November 4, 2011.

Thank you to all of you who have already joined us in making this Harvest Fund Drive a great success. Please make your valuable contribution to the World Café Community Foundation now.

Help catalyze the most critical conversations of our time!

World Café Services: An Update from Deborah Goldblatt

With the launch of our new website on June 1^st, World Café 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 Café Services is being on the frontlines of the World Café world hearing about the diverse communities and businesses who are curious about The World Café – 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 Café 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 Café Services work is helping an organizing team for a conference in Arusha, Tanzania to find some guidance and support to co-create their World Café design.

Community for the 21st Century

We finally have the story of weDialogue's first session of the "Conversations for the 21st Century" series up in StoryNet! Here's an added enhancement you will only see here: an audio recording of the round table of conversation starters with Peter Block, Sarah Whiteley and Maria Scordialos, and Nancy White:

Just to get you to want to see more, here's a sneak peak of Susan Kelly's graphic recording of the conversation starters (click to see it full size):

Letter to Daisuke and Our World Cafe Friends in Japan

Paper Whites, photograph taken/donated by Stephen Goldblatt

Dear friends in Japan,
 
We in the World Café community want you to know that our hearts are with you in this time of devastating loss and heartbreak.  At the same time, to see the way your citizens have come together to help and support one another in the midst of this tragedy is very inspiring. We can all learn from you about how we can come together as caring human communities in times of trouble.
 
Please let us know if there are ways the World Café community can be of support and we will be sure to let our global friends know.  And, we’d be grateful to learn more of the conversations you are having in Japan in the face of this crisis and how the World Café process can be of service in some small way.
 
We send you our prayers and the wish that these challenging times can strengthen us all to meet adversity with the grace and courage that Japan is showing to the whole world.
 
With warmest regards and best wishes,
 
Juanita Brown and David Isaacs
& the World Cafe Community Foundation
on behalf of our global community

Conversations for the 21st Century

World Cafe Online Services partner WeDialogue is launching a series of free, interactive public conversations called Conversations for the 21st Century. These events will be telephone-based and use a World Cafe format. Each will focus on a different topic of significance for life in the 21st Century - economics, health, the environment, etc. - and feature a triad of "conversation starters" (thanks to the Heartland community for this term).

The three conversation starters are chosen for their diversity of perspective and together they will seed the conversation with insights based on their work in the subject area.

The first of the series, Community for the 21st Century, is happening on April 1st and will feature Peter Block, Nancy White, and Maria Scordialos and Sarah Whiteley as conversation starters.

Come, be part of the conversation!

More about the Community for the 21st Century session.
or REGISTER NOW (you must register to participate)

More about the Conversations for the 21st Century series.