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.

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

Our Friends in Japan

We at the World Cafe Community Foundation have been feeling the concern and empathy that the rest of the world feels for our brothers and sisters in Japan during this challenging time. Our prayers and thoughts have been with the entire nation as it goes through this difficult re-adjustment period, and especially with our many dear friends in the Japanese World Cafe community.

We got this beautiful letter from our friend and colleague Daisuke Kawaguchi that reveals the invincible charachter of his countrymen and women, even during this time of tragedy, and the courage and valor in his own heart. His words inspire me, as I know they will you:

As you know, Japan has been facing a severe tragedy of Tsunami.

Fortunately, my family and acquaintance were safe, however, we are spending a sad moment to recognize the fact that estimated 20,000 people have died.

Still, we see a good sign in this tough situation.

Although there are a lot of problems to solve, this experience has reminded us of the importance of social capital and the beautiful human dignity at the same time.

People are helping with each other more than ever here in Japan, and we are relearning the spirit of sharing and volunteering. (Some impressive twitters are on this site)

Foreign media surprisingly reported that there was almost no robbery even in this severe situation.

A lot of courageous people in a self-defense force rescued tens of thousands of people (Yesterday an 80-year-old woman and her grandchild were rescued from the rubble after 9 days!).

Lack of electricity in Tokyo has changed our life totally. We are saving the electricity as much as we can. There are no neon lights even in the downtown. Now I go back home from my office earlier than before, which enables me to spend more time with my family.

All of this might be opportunities to think about energy savings and what is important to us in global level.

In addition, we are encouraged by billions of prayers and support from all over the world every day. I just want to say thank you, thank you for letting us know that we never walk alone!

I believe that when we get over this situation, we can be stronger, more gentle to the people and environment, and create the better society which we can be proud of. In order to realize this, conversational leadership will play the most significant role.

I am determined to dedicate myself to the recovery of our society by creating space for reflective and generative dialogue such as the World Cafe offers with our networks of practitioners!

World Cafe in Korea

David Tamoschus recently sent this pdf with the story of a World Cafe he hosted for a multi-national company in Korea. They called their event a Space Cafe, and David's story includes many details of their unusual design.

Download the pdf here.

Extraordinary World Café at Taiwan SoL Conference

World Café steward Ulric Rudebeck was the team leader for the hosts of a four day conference sponsored by the Taiwan Society for Organizational Learning in November 2007.

Ulric and his team members Ken Homer, Andri Lehn, Stephen Meng, Samantha Tan and Morel Foreman worked with SoL coordinators to create an extraordinary experience for everyone gathered there.

This is their story, beautifully written and illustrated by master graphic facilitators, and an Executive Summary of this special event:

Download tsol_world_cafe_reflections.pdf
Download tsol_cafe_executive_summary.pdf

Day One: Evening

Monday evening we had a dinner with some special guests from Asia to honor the publication of the new Japanese and Taiwanese translations of the World Café book.

There were five members of the Japanese translation team, including Daisuke Kawaguchi, who had been my main contact throughout the process, and his colleagues Toshimitsu Kanekiyo, Kazuaka Katori, Mikako Yusa and Riichiro Oda; Stephen Meng from the Taiwan translation team was there and Chaiwat Thirapantu from Thailand, along with Alfred Hanner of Saudi Arabia.

We were all tired from a long full day and our various travels, but the energy was wonderful, the stories inspirational and the conversation incredibly rich and heartfelt. Sitting next to Japanese colleagues I learned that there is a new online World Café community being formed in Japan, and that Riichiro had himself hosted seven World Cafés in Japan this year, the most recent being one on Climate Change.

I fell in love with each of these incredibly kind and thoughtful people as I found myself relaxing after the full day, being asked wonderfully gentle and stimulating personal questions like “What is your vision of the future” and “What do you hope for in your own life?”

* * *

To keep reading this harvest chronologically, click here for Tuesday morning's weaving and the keynote by Boeing.