Seeds of Action Book Club and Friendship Circles

Comment

Comment by Susan Szpakowski on October 22, 2009 at 6:50pm

Okay, the first book club experiment is now in the works, with a second (Adam Kahane's soon-to-be-released book on Love and Power), in the pipeline. What else do we want to create, or is that enough for now?

Comment by Elizabeth on July 30, 2009 at 1:15pm

Hello Susan. I would be happy to help out with the organization of a group in Halifax. I live not too far away and would be happy to follow your lead. Beth

Comment by Susan Szpakowski on July 29, 2009 at 7:26am

Okay, maybe it was study *questions* and maybe it was mostly me talking about the rest :-) And then of course there's the difference between good ideas and what's doable. I wonder if there are a few people who would like to help think this through and maybe even help make it happen. Perhaps a few local book club leads?

Comment by James Gimian on July 29, 2009 at 5:59am

Hello everyone! I'm touched that there is interest in a book club on Rules of Victory. And I'm certainly interested in participating because I've always found that talking about this material with engaged people like you all is a great learning experience for me.

I am a little daunted now that I look at all that Susan reports I've promised to do--study guides, web pages, and mp3 talks. And as for frequency of meetings, my sense is that a good frequency is somewhere between "too much becomes a burden" and "too little risks losing the thread." And I think it's probably best for the participants to finally decide just what that is.

Overall, I'm very happy to follow Susan's lead in organizing this, and do whatever I can to help this come together if some members of the ALIA community feel it would be a helpful thing.

Comment by Susan Szpakowski on July 28, 2009 at 8:04am

I had another conversation with Jim Gimian, and he would be ready to begin in November (traveling etc. till then). We explored these questions and welcome your thoughts:

• How often to meet? (he thought more often than once a month)
• Time of day here in Halifax? Maybe breakfast sessions?
• Rather than a course with a fee, the idea of membership seems like a good model. How much would be reasonable? Could there be group as well as individual membership?
• If there are regional groups meeting elsewhere, he could imagine a one-hour call periodically for each group, and then a one-time webinar when everyone is online.
• He will put together a study guide and we'll look into creating a webpage where everyone can access resources, including MP3's of his talks.
• We could also arrange a conference call with Jim if we want to do more thinking and planning together.

Daniel, cycling around the Seaside Adjunct and Port Mouton sounds divine. I'm afraid the weather hasn't improved a lot in Halifax since everyone was here in June.

Comment by Jill Currey on July 27, 2009 at 8:00am

Hello from Tassie. One of my last actions in Halifax was to find that bookshop- begins with D- sorry, bedtime over here, and I bought the Rules of Victory- ready for the book club. Tho curious to see what time we choose.

Comment by Daniel John Slater on July 27, 2009 at 12:15am

Hello from the other side of the world. Back in Australia, post-ALIA and post-cycling in the beautiful area south of Halifax (Kedji Seaside Adjunct, Port Moutoun, and south). Will be looking forward to Jim Gimean and Rules of Victory discussion, albeit a punishing timezone translation.

Danny Slater

Comment by Susan Szpakowski on July 8, 2009 at 3:54pm

Breaking news from Cape Breton. Jim Gimian says he would be happy to participate in a study group/book club in Halifax focused on Rules of Victory starting in October. We could think about how to connect up virtually with similar groups elsewhere. Probably we could audiotape a couple of Jim's presentations, develop a little study guide, etc., and then have one or more "live" Q&A sessions (though I appreciate the time zone difference will make participation from NZ difficult/impossible). Any other ideas?

Di, great that you connected with Ric Young. He is a kindred spirit and has contributed to our newsletter, Fieldnotes, in the past.

You might try sending a note about your idea to connect first nations groups to Chris Corrigan, David Stephenson, Peter Goldsbury, Bob Stilger, and/or Jamie Snook--all on this site. Great idea!

Comment by Di Grennell on July 4, 2009 at 11:11pm

I'm interested in how participation could work from the other side of the world, and how the discussion can be extended to those who have not had the benefit of being at ALIA. Since my return to Whangarei NZ I have made contact with about a dozen people involved in social change work and shared some of Ric Young's work with them (visited with Ric in Toronto en route to Halifax).

I am also interested in increasing access and dialogue among 1st nations/indigenous groups.

Susan your ideas around involvement and dialogue with authors are exciting & look forward to seeing how this progresses. In the meantime will look for the book you suggested on Amazon. I have been unexpectedly gifted with post Alia reflection space as I have been sitting in a hospital room for 4 days since my return while my husband is treated for severe asthma and suspected swine flu.

I am also interested in the possibilities of sharing our own writing and including 'fiction' and poetry in the mix. mauri ora Di

Comment by Susan Szpakowski on July 4, 2009 at 10:11am

I am going to be seeing Jim Gimian early in the coming week and could explore this idea with him. Please send any further thoughts or questions. Some brainstorming: Since Jim is based in Halifax, maybe we could see if there's interest in a book club around The Rules of Victory here, and invite Jim to come and give a few commentaries, which we could audio or videotape and then share through the web as we move through the book? Maybe we could even set up an opportunity for live Q&A (ok, technology group, can you help us think about this?), a Second Life book club, etc.

Btw, I was fortunate to be able to participate in Meg, Jim, and Jerry's module last week (was it really last week?), and I thought Jim's presentations on the "rules of victory" were astounding. I think that this was at least partly because of the strength of the container we had created for ourselves, and the quality of listening, which allowed us to quickly enter the worldview that Jim was describing. So maybe we could also talk about how to create such a container in these chapters or groups, and this could be part of the "package" ALIA provides?

Let me know if you have other questions for Jim, and maybe we could invite and entice him to come online and join this conversation himself (though I know he will be offline all next week).

Any thoughts about when we would begin, how often we would meet, etc.? I have wished for an ALIA book club here in Halifax for some time and think it would be doubly wonderful to be part of a network of groups working with the same material at the same time.... and in some cases engaging the authors. How splendid that would be! And what a great way to stay connected and grow our local communities of practice.

I also like the idea of including novels and poetry, and maybe even writing and sharing our own poetry, photographs, and other art. It wouldn't be the institute otherwise. And of course there's also meditation. We taped this year's meditation talks and I'm eager to think about how these could support local groups as well.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page