We shared our social change inspirations and disappointments and were introduced to Majora Carter and her work greening the South Bronx.
We were impressed with Majora's ability to challenge the viewpoint of the mainly white audience with the need to reclaim and protect public park spaces in ghetto areas, that the inhabitants were as entitled to beautiful parks as residents of affluent areas. She asked Al Gore not to just give money to her projects but to ensure that people like her were placed in advisory and decision making situations. Our discussion identified the way she got people to see problems in a different way but identifying with her personal story and personal charisma.
Some of us wondered if the viewpoint she was presenting needed to be expanded to be more than just humanistic, that we would protect environments for their own sake, not just so human-beings could enjoy them.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Einstein
At the end of the evening we created an agenda for our next meeting: discuss 5-10 projects, talk about systemic change, review the structure of the evenings and how it is serving our purposes.
Michael Franti and Spearhead's "Time to go" feature on the CD Yell Fire! available from Amazon.
"Take a Ride" by Brooklyn Bounce is featured on YouTube here.
I have put up a list of books onto the national website at www.changemakers.org.nz ... just to give readers a bit of a taste of the sort of ideas we are exploring with ChangeMakers 5-10-5-10.
There are lending copies of many of these books already circulating our group.
If you are interested in borrowing them ... do let us know at the next meeting.
We gathered with a visitor from Auckland. We listened to Mavis Staples sing Eyes on the Prize. We checked in with our inspirations and nasty surprises. We watched Charles Leadbetter on innovation. We thought together about innovation as incremental and collaborative; open source vs traditional closed systems. Schopenhauer was quoted re innovation and the way that new ideas are firstly ridiculed, then attacked and finally become self-evident. Changemakers have to tolerate this process and what it brings up for them. Leadbetter talked about creating a platform for innovation, giving tools, a little instruction, nurturing innovation, noticing it. I thought about neither abandoning or interfering with innovation. We wondered about fear as an obstacle to innovation. We asked ourselves the question - What if a Changemakers group produced the next round of social innovations?
We wondered about the loss of innovation in the Public Sector, how it had once been the platform for wonderful innovators such as Beebie. Perhaps there was a need for a fellowship for Public Service innovators.We talked about the difference between reformation and innovation and there was a quote from someone re "Reformation needs to be equitable. And innovation is not reformation."
Our learning friendship wondered what it would take to make Changemakers self replicating? What aspects would we want to have replicate? How do we enroll other change makers into learning groups? Do we use our own or do we start new ones? What's the difference between the worst kind of proslytizing/conversion seeking and giving other people the opportunity to use the tools we have discovered in their own way? How do we make Changemakers open-source?
The soundtrack Bobby with Aretha Franklin & Mary J. Blige & The Harlem Boys Choir "Never Gonna Break My Faith" is available from Amazon.
Also available from Amazon is We'll Never Turn Back feat. Mavis Staples and Ry Cooder "Eyes on the Prize"
We listened to SJD singing Beautiful Haze. We checked in with what was inspiring us or irritating us: David Bain, Earthsong, opposition to S59.......
We watched William McDonough speaking about Cradle to Cradle design from the TED talks. Our conversation included the beauty of his design brief for a tree, touching and smelling a copy of his book made out of plastic and opening to the idea that synthetic products could be infinitely re-cycled and/or designed to decompose without a blueprint. The challenge to the hippie in us.
We were taken with the simple way he opened up the complexity of choices in manufacture and purchasing, with the simple contrast of the toxic duck and the nurturing baby blanket. He seemed to make the problems and the solutions look more complex and more simple at the same time.
We got talking about the failure of environmentalists to create systemic changes. We started to understand what systemic change might look like. We talked about the reaction to the complexity of life by the hippies and by the neo-hippies being an attempt at a personal solution to a systemic problem and thus doomed to fail. We considered that a return to Eden philosophy, reduction of footprint and of consumption not solving or changing things at the systemic level and not being enough. We need "Think global, act local, organize systemic change" perhaps.
We loved "for all the children of all the species for all time." I hope we come back to this question of what is systemic change and what creates it. I suspect it's connected with Bill Drayton's vision of everyone as a changemaker. We were inspired by the idea that business success and sustainability can go together and the examples of the living roof and the 7 Chinese cities.
His utopia does not ask us to reduce our lifestyle but rather to fit it in with the earth's biosphere so it does no harm and may, like some of his building produce more clean water or energy than which they absorb.
There were lots more dimensions to our conversation but I've left it a bit late to capture them. We talked about veganism, and the impact on the planet of meat eating and a dairy culture. We wondered if anyone is working with technology to create a non-burping cow. We looked at the way he refutes the idea of a tragic response to the world's problems, that it's all going to go terribly bad and the inertia this generates. He certainly is part of the solution.
Lynne
You can download the track Beautiful Haze directly from SJD's website at http://sjd.co.nz/
Intentional Learning Friendships meeting fortnightly around 5-10-5-10.
Being flexible about the numbers so they remain a call to awaken rather than a whip with which to beat ourselves.
Starting each night, after the music with a quick check in, what inspires us, what we are learning, what we need.
TED talk video scheduled for 3 out of 4 nights. These nights open to other Changemakers. Circle sharing/dialogue to follow applying what we have seen and heard to who we are and what we are doing.
One Changemaker to arrive at 7pm to set up the space and play their choice of music and lead of the sharing.
An intentional finish, eg checkout with how we are or what's staying with us.
The 4th night to be about reflecting on the process and sharing more about our 5-10-5-10 projects.
Let's finish with a party or musical whaikorero rather than drift off like we did last year.
Notes from Changemakers Weekend held at Waimea Garage and at Oakura on May 4 & 5, 2007.
We met on Friday night at Waimea garage for a potluck dinner. We seemed glad to see each other and a bit sad about the drop-out rate from last year but determined to get started and also acknowledged the benefits of not having to accommodate so many people and adjust to new members.
The first chapter of Paul Hawken's new book, Blessed Unrest was distributed. I loved the final paragraphs:
Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what is flawed; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, recover,re-imagine, and reconsider. Healing the wounds of the Earthand its people does not require saintliness or a political party. It is not liberal or conservative activity. It is a sacred act. -adapted from "Blessed Unrest" -How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming by Paul Hawken pub 2007 Viking
We also talked about the work of social entrepreneur Bill Drayton. I'm particularly inspired by his image of changemakers as white blood cells:
The most important contribution any of us can make now is not to solve any particular problem, no matter how urgent energy or environmental or financial regulation is. What we must do now is increase the proportion of humans who know that they can cause change. And who, like smart white blood cells coursing through society, will stop with pleasure whenever they see that something is stuck or that an opportunity is ripe to be seized. Multiplying society's capacity to adapt and change intelligently and constructively and building the necessary underlying collaborative architecture, is the world's most critical opportunity now. Pattern-changing social entrepreneurs are the most critical single factor in catalysing and engineering this transformation ...”— from “Everyone a Changemaker”, by Bill Drayton (2006)
We looked again at the Changemakers slide show and a few issues arose from this. One of us spoke about noticing his resistance to entering the group and realising that this was a normal part of starting a project and that anything worth doing brought about resistance. In getting on with it in spite of resistance something shifts and enjoyment follows.
Another talked about wondering if it was possible to stay in the group even if she were not able to manage a “proper” 5-10 project and as the group responded with encouragement to think small and stay in the group she opened up to the possibility of blogging. Her honesty seemed to open up a possibility of engaging creatively with 5-10-5-10 rather than experience it as a burden.
Someone else talked about the difficulty she had with using her professional knowledge as a basis for her 5-10 project and the issue of whether she should charge for it or not. The group helped her realise that getting on with it was what was important, and that she could think through the issues of what and who to charge. That being paid or not being paid didn't need to diminish the status of the work she was offering.
We all engaged with the 5-10-5-10 in some way disidentifying from the “should” aspect of them to allow what felt possible manageable and enjoyable in terms of the complexities of our current lives. For instance there aren't 10 of us this year and there is nothing magical about the number 10.
Two members spoke about the national picture and how it required support both financial and in energy to help co-ordinate and facilitate the starting of other Changemakers groups. It's exciting to hear of the national co-ordinator's enthusiasm and that he is introducing 5-10-5-10 to young people at the Hope gathering this weekend.
We all talked about our 5-10-5-10 projects as far as we had got with them. It was great to look forward to meeting on Saturday as well.
On Saturday we started to think about what we wanted from the group. One of us condensed the need to have evenings that were "inspiring, encouraging, refreshing." That there should be an attraction to look forward and that we could use Ted's talks downloaded from the internet to focus each evening. There was an element of resistance to this, lets talk about what we need to learn rather than opt for an easy option of infotainment. We discussed this a little and saw the need to have an attractor to the evenings and to acknowledge the limits of our own weariness after a day's work. After discussion we thought the 5-10-5-10 engagement could happen within the learning friendships and the evenings could start with a video and then be a discussion or dialogue following this. We got the idea that other changemakers from previous years or friends of changemakers could be provided with a list of these videos and could come if they wanted to. Every 4th night would just be for the Changemakers group and we could assess how things are going and tune in to our 5-10-5-10 projects and what support or skills we needed to learn for them.
Other things we discussed were the call to be intentional, where to put our money and energy and its centrality to the opportunity of Changemakers. That intentionality lies behind a to do list. Also being accountable as citizens to each other.
We discussed advocacy and pressure groups and how these were different from Changemaker groups in that we were trying to be reflective and active rather than reactive. That building and maintaining relationships was more important and made more difference that advocating issues.
We were given an image of changemaking not being about publishing your recipe but more about waking up to yourself as an ingredient in the recipe revealed by is in relationship with each other. Looks like mystery. Changemakers seen as a method of making Heart Politics more systemic to people's lives, to make Heart Politics more sustainable, how to create gathering less defined by who showed up to them.
5-10-5-10 could be adapted to other pre-existing groups. A good approach might be If you were to spend 5% of your income on a social change project what would it be, if you were to put aside 5% of your time to do 10 things what would they be, who would you like to meet with to support your social change work...etc.
We drew our Intentional Learning Friendship partners out of a hat.
We watched Larry Brilliant's talk at the World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship and were inspired by his story about eradicating Smallpox.
We realised we could get through the programme design with out meeting on Sunday but that we didn't have enough energy for a circle sharing so we talked about our responses to the video a little and checked out. It felt like we had been meeting together for a long time and had accomplished a lot in terms of re-designing the form Changemakers Taranaki will take this year. We completed tired but satisfied.
The main things I learned were to keep open to co-creativity in the structure and content of Changemakers so that we are forming a group, learning in the group and finding out what best serves the group at the same time. I became enthusiastic about recording the process in some way so I could reflect on it and that our experiment might be useful to other Changemaker groups that might follow. A vision starts to unfold of many kinds of Changemaker groups as each one engages creatively and tunes the resources and the precedents to their own needs and context.
Taranaki ChangeMakers is one of several New Zealand groups that have been developing a new style of community group which aims to inspire and support a greater citizen engagement on social, economic and environmental issues. Our group follows a 5-10-5-10 framework of active citizenship.
Michael Franti and Spearhead's "Time to go" feature on the CD Yell Fire! available from Amazon.
