World Cafe Community

In a Place Called Home

Poem & photograph offered by David Isaacs, co-founder of the World Café

In a far away place that seems a lot like a place called Home,

there lives a small voice who speaks softly and calmly.

It says:  Awaken and Stand Up and Listen!!!

Listen to the breath of the surf lapping at the shore of your soul.

Notice its’ continuous ebb and flow....

Reflect your attention on it in the same way that the moon and sun touch its surface.

Allow it to wash over you, caress you, provide nourishment and courage

to breathe, to walk, to embrace its’ patterns of being.

In this place called Home look around again and listen again with the surf’s rhythm in the background of your awareness.  The voice speaks again:

Go forth and seek other beings who have questions
and invite them to sit with you by your hearth
Then breathe all of your questions into the fire
Allowing those few with deepest meaning to emerge
and honor them as sacred words
and allow them to enter your collective heart
and let them be there in Peace and Quiet.

Until again a new question emerges in your midst
which you may trust is one that is shared in other places
all over the Earth.
In this manner your question is mirrored by other listeners
and you may now remember into the consciousness
that these sacred questions have brought to light
in this place called Home.

This place called Home is like a cafe
where the community comes together to share
their ideas, insights, challenges, opportunities
and, of necessity, their deepest questions.

This Home Cafe has brothers & sisters coming together in countless spaces & places
The communities of Home Cafes are a World Cafe
where all conversations and questions are united
in common cause to common creativity.

In this way humanity is awakening to the nature of Home
and seeks its way forward to that memory of the future
in which we remember our connection to life
to coming Home to our community of Peace.

What the World Café Makes Possible

From Ben Roberts of weDialogue, on what his engagement with the World Café has made possible for him:

On the occasion of this “Harvest Fund Drive,” I find myself reflecting back on what has been an incredible personal journey in which the Foundation has played a key role. A year and a half ago, I began an inquiry into the power and joy of engaging in “conversations that matter,” in the context of my involvement in the political initiatives of “the Coffee Party.” This led me immediately to The World Café as a process and to the work of the Foundation. There I found an inspiring array of resources and an incredibly responsive, sincere, generous and dedicated community of practice that was eager to support me. Talk about “creating hospitable space!” You can read a series of posts in the StoryNet section of our wonderful Online Community describing my efforts; here are links to part 1, part 2 and part 3).

As I learned more about the magic of large group dialogic processes, my interest quickly morphed from excitement about finding a set of tools to apply to this specific political initiative to a sense that I had discovered new and fertile ground for my life’s work in a much broader context. I became especially taken with the possibility for weaving these processes together with the incredible convening power of the internet. Here, the Foundation’s director of global communications Amy Lenzo proved to be particularly supportive. One of the world’s most experienced hosts of emergent dialogue online, Amy generously volunteered to teach me, connect me with resources and even to co-host many of my earliest efforts in convening virtual conversation.

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".

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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.

 

Culturewheel in Cairo

This just in from Deborah Goldblatt, the World Café Community Foundation's Director of Resource Development, who is travelling in Egypt right now:

"We can clean up the streets, build bridges and skyscrapers, but if we aren't building people, none of that matters."

You can feel Mohamed el Sawy's personal warmth throughout el Sawy Culturewheel, the center in Cairo, Egypt he founded in 2003 as a one-stop venue for music, art and theater.  An architect and engineer by training, Mohamed is the son of a famous Egyptian writer who has a deep love for all aspects of Egyptian culture.  He is a puppeteer, musician and craftsman as well as a supporter of the free exchange of ideas. 

Mohamed's dream of a town hall and community center for the new Egypt became reality during the days of the January 25th revolution.  The Culturewheel stayed on the pulse of the latest events by hosting debates and presentations, in addition to its artistic events, in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect.

His goal is to provide a platform for Egyptians to become even more thoughtful, active and engaged citizens.  In the past months, membership has grown quickly and he is currently in talks to open more cultural hubs in other Egyptian cities.  The spirit of the Culturewheel - and the spirit of el Sawy - is catching on.

Just yesterday, in Cairo, I had the great pleasure of meeting Mohamed.  One of my quests in visiting Cairo was to place a World Café book in his hands. As he received it from me and we spoke about what was possible in hosting World Cafés at Culturewheel, his eyes lit up, he smiled widely and appreciatively.... and his dream expanded right in front of me. 

This is a tiny glimpse into the world of the World Café and the work of the World Café Community Foundation.  Through a spirit of generosity, we keep passing it forward.  We have all read a book that changed our lives and then told as many people as we could to read it.  This was one of those moments in Mohamed's life (and mine) and I am excited to hear soon about the first World Café at Culturewheel, built under the bridge and over a dump in Cairo.

Please help us now to catalyze the most critical conversations of our time by making a contribution, any contribution - they are all welcome - and keep the gift of the World Café moving forward.

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

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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 Juanita's Up To!

More from Juanita Brown, co-founder of the World Café, including some highlights from her recent email on behalf of the World Café Community Foundation's Harvest Fund Drive:

"I continue to be excited and delighted by the potential of this work at the leading edge of conversational leadership around the globe. I’m hopeful that with your support we’ll be able to expand our Wiser Together initiative which is empowering the collaboration of people across generations with the capacities to co-create communities and organizations that embody the wisdom of all generations. Here's an interview from our own personal efforts in this regard on our ¨family farm¨ in North Carolina in collaboration with next generation leaders.

I’m also very intrigued by the pioneering collaboration we’re exploring with the International Storytelling Center that is demonstrating the power of connecting individual and collective storytelling with catalytic conversations, community-building and committed action. We're collaborating with their Staging Change Institute on Nov 3-6, and would be delighted to see others of you there!

In addition, the World Café is joining with others in nurturing inter-generational gatherings of leaders across modalities of conversational work, helping to catalyze a global effort to bring many of the doorways to collective intelligence into the “jardîn central¨---the central garden—of our human experience—and to use these on behalf of movements for positive futures across the planet.

(Click the image to see it larger)

As David and I transition from our role as direct coordinators of our global work into the role of ambassadors for the ¨World as Café,¨ we are deeply grateful to Amy Lenzo, Deborah Goldblatt, Barbara Krohn and the core team who is continuing to nurture the life of the  World Café. We hope you, too, will continue to fuel this incredible movement with your time, your skills, your financial support, and your love.

With gratitude for all that you've helped to happen,

Juanita

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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.

 

Message from David Isaacs

As we move into day four of our first ever formal fundraising event, the Harvest Fund Drive, here's a message from David Isaacs, co-founder of the World Café:

Some Members of the World Café Community of Learning and Practiced have asked: "If the World Cafe is a "gift", why is the Foundation requesting financial contributions?" 

My answer to that sincere question is:  "Because allowing the "gift" to continue to be shared broadly through the World Cafe online community and through the website
allowing people on all 7 continents to freely use the process and the principles to generate collective learning and wisdom is interdependent with members appreciating the
value of the work and resourcing it with financial as well as energetic currencies."

in a recent trip to South Africa, I learned about Ubuntu, an African cultural contribution to humanity's remembrance of the essential nature we share with all forms of life, the essence of acting creatively in community. It is expressed simply as: I AM, BECAUSE WE ARE! 

The World Cafe, the world "as cafe"  as energized and resourced by The World Cafe Community Foundation is committed to that remembrance!

That is why Juanita and I continue to financially support the work.  We hope that you too feel called to contribute to TWCCF's continuing capacity to pay forward the gift of the World Café.

With respect,

David

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.

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

Warmest Holiday Greetings

This lovely video was created by storyteller Bob Kanegis, who shared it with the World Cafe community on LinkedIn as a "ritual of greeting for World Cafe members ... rekindling the Campfire of the Human Heart."

It has been suggested that this simple, universal ritual of greeting could be used by World Cafe hosts and participants all over the world! If you use it, let us know what happens!

World Cafe and MaestroMonth

What's easier than picking up the phone to connect and get people talking to each other?

Nothing, right?! Well, what if we could meet for a World Cafe on the phone - break out into small groups with touch of a button and then come back to the large group to share the highlights and harvest our conversations? What if we could experience the intimacy and collective excitement of a face-to-face World Cafe, on the phone?

Well, now we can!

Amy Lenzo, Christine Whitney Sanchez and Gabriel Shirley are hosting a special series featuring interactive events from Juanita Brown & Nicole Boyer, David Isaacs, Christina Whitney Sanchez, David Copperrider, Diana Whitney and Harrison Owen. This series, called Beyond Facilitation: Accessing Collective Wisdom, is one week of October's MaestroMonth, which launches MaestroConference, the company behind this revolutionary new phone-based interactive technology.

These 5 events, like all the events in MaestroMonth are FREE. Most of them start at 9am and go through to 11am. For more information about each event and/or to register, go to MaestroMonth.com, scroll down to the event you're interested in and then click the "Details" or "Register" button beneath each one. It's that simple.

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The full MaestroMonth schedule features an array of luminaries across several fields, including many of our close friends and colleagues. :

Business: T. Harv Eker, Michael Port, Robin Sharma, Lance Secretan, Chip Conley, Ray Blanchard, Jeff Hoffman, David Finkel, Lynne Twist, Mari Smith, DC Cordova, Cynthia Kersey, Charlotte & Laura Shelton, James Malinchak, Bettie Spruill, Rinaldo Brutoco
 
Health: Deepak Chopra, John Gray, Candace Pert, Olivia Newton John & John Easterling, Judith Orloff, Joan Borysenko, Norman Shealy, Eric Pearl, Len Saputo, Mary Shomon, Jennifer MacLean, Lee Gerdes, Mona Lisa Schulz
 
Personal Growth: Debbie & Arielle Ford, Dan Millman, John Assaraf, Hale Dwoskin, Vishen Lakhaini, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Dave Ellis, Brian Johnson, Mike Robbins, Tripp Lanier & Jayson Gaddis, Zen DeBrucke, Amy Ahlers
 
Societal Change: Gregg Braden, Seane Corn, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Jean Houston, Starhawk, Aqeela Sherrils, Azim Khamisa, Steve Bhaerman, Fred Johnson, David Cooperider, Anodea Judith, Lynne McMullen, Richard Rudd, Miki Kashtan, Stacey Lawson
 
Spirituality: Marianne Williamson, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Andrew Cohen, James Twyman, Genpo Roshi, Andrew Harvey, Carter Phipps, Lisa Schrader, Ron Alexander, Lauren Mackler, Paul Hoffman, Paul & Patty Richards, Ellen Debenport, Nicole Daedone, Stephen Dinan & Devaa Haley Mitchell
 
Special Track for Entrepreneurs: Sharon Drew Morgen, Morgana Rae, Ken Foster, Leesa Barnes, Garrett Sutton, Larry Ousley, James Burgin & John Ward, Steve Maxwell, Leslie Grossman, Brian Burt
 
Special Series for Change Leaders: Harrison Owen, Juanita Brown & Nicole Boyer, David Isaacs, Diana Whitney, Christine Whitney Sanchez