Palomilla Ana Cristina Maldonado sent this story about her experiences right after she returned from the 2nd World Café Europe event in Bilbao:
Bilbao was different from Dresden's *POW* of seeing café writ large for the first time, and I have a deeper reflection after having been working on this (the World Café) for a year now - and then renewal in Bilbao.
The community cafes reached 12,000 people again. I went to a cafe on gender hosted by an NGO and a cafe at the Universidad de Deusto with 4th year business students (~85 of them, plus ~25 faculty/staff). The conference cafe had about 100 from 15 different countries, many new faces and many returning ones - there was a 10 person crew from Brazil (from a German auto parts factory with factories in Brazil). The theme was 'renewal' and Bilbao was the perfect space for it. Highlights include playing in the Guggenheim sculptures with some fellow cafeistas, dinner with Pat and Jeff about their corporate work and perspective on cafe, and talking to Andri and Thomas about the cafe in the prison and especially meeting Donatella and (briefly!) Edgar Gouveia live and in person -- Edgar jumped in and did a closing piece/movement which everyone loved.
Perhaps my biggest insights/reminders came at the end from my conversations with Tom Hurley and the subsequent Harvesting cafe-- that TWC is a fermenting process, not about instant outputs,with results (many unexpected) that emerge over time and out of everybody's offering. I needed that reminder to stay in the storm's calm eye, that refresher on how time and even mistakes are fine and part of the process.
un abrazote to y'all!!!
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