5-10-5-10 Changemaking

We started with an overview of how the Monday nights are going for us. We are enjoying having the focus of the video and all the richness and depth of the TED talks. We appreciated the connectedness between one week and the next and the weaving of ideas. We also acknowledged the way we are now thinking as a group and are practising a way of talking that is much closer to our collective understanding of dialogue than we have had in previous years. We all feel we can take responsibility for how the conversations progress. We talked about how group thinking has been proven in research to be more creative than individual thinking or two people in discussion.

Some believe the Monday nights are having a direct impact on their ChangeMaker activities in that they feel more sure about the type of work they want to do and how they are approaching it. Others find the learning friendships are more worthwhile to their 5-10-5-10 projects allowing them to focus on their already established plan of action. We talked about how all the seemingly small activities we are doing are actually capable of making quite a difference when you look at them collectively.

Some time was devoted to the exploration of systemic thinking. We talked about the difference between the band-aid approach to fixing a problem and really getting to the underlying cause of the problem. When we related this to our personal experiences we realised band-aids do have their purpose, it is just important to identify them for what they are. We talked about the things that encourage systemic thinking and they included being present, putting some distance between yourself and the issue and separating off your emotions. We saw the parallels between these ideas and the group thinking we are doing on a Monday night. Being present was very much like the intent listening involved. Distancing yourself from the problem was like creating a space for weaving of ideas. Separating emotions from the problem was like putting your preferences in front of you and acknowledging them.

We talked broadly about oppositional thinking, staying open to new ideas and the pleasure we have had when the Monday night videos had completely upturned what we believe to be true. We also discussed the social impact of the Pill and how the focus on the individual has only come about within the last couple of generations. We considered how having to care for children later in life impacts on your capacity for empathy. We also talked about whether the social impact of recent advances in the medical world has been given full consideration.

Finally Tom has a new bike called an Evolve, made by Ellsworth, which is very very wicked.

Sue