March 16 Meeting notes

****  Please note:  We meet again on Wednesday, March 28, 4:00pm  ***

Attending this call:  Peggy, Tom, Gabriel, Stephen, Heidi

*** Note to all  ****

If you have not put your bio and picture at www.attendr.com/storyfieldconference, please do!  Since we’re telling people about the wide array of participants and pointing them to this link, it would be nice to see an array there.

The meeting opened with Tom a reading some excerpts from Deena Metzger, From Grief into Vision:  A Council.  Here is a sample:

Two stories intersected in the moment of September 11th:  a story streaming toward destruction and a story streaming toward healing.  We are still at this point, this intersection of stories -- the cataclysm, the possibilities. 

We are being called into a dynamic complex narrative, as intricate as the ecology of the planet, informed and created by the myriad beings walking multifarious paths on behalf of creation.

There is a matrix here, an ecology of knowledge being revealed through interconnecting events and circumstances.  They are part of a single piece; together they hint at a coherent story revealing something of a path. 

We are looking for new forms that allow the larger story to emerge from all the stories, individual and collective. 

***********************

Our meeting focused on the status of inviting.  We estimate that among us, about 200 invitations have been sent so far – to journalists, philanthropists, visual and performing artists, and others.  We’ve already got 6 people registered – pretty remarkable for a conference that is almost 6 months away!

The response has been quite positive, including two offers of funding and an interest in co-sponsorship from the Institute for New Media Studies, School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota.  More, the response has been enthusiastic from all ends of the spectrum, young and old, mainstream and edgy, and from all the difference disciplines we hope to reach.  In other words, we’re off to a great start!

Please do keep inviting.  As it says in the invitation, here’s the way to think about reaching out:

Share the invitation mindfully. By this, we mean sense who you most want to be in this conversation with. As we asked ourselves that question, we reached out to creative innovators, who are skilled, respected professionals in their field; people who are well connected, willing to collaborate, willing to risk, able to listen and committed to creating a world that works for all. Overall, we are striving for diversity in age, ethnicity, and perspective.

REQUESTS FOR FUNDING SUPPORT

We also discussed how to handle funding requests.  The good news is that we do have some money and given the offers of support, may have more.  This message captures the spirit of how we are approaching the question with “askers”:

We want to tickle you with an idea.  How about throwing a story party that invites your friends into your story field and support of you; something that includes them in this adventure?  This can be your way of paying it forward to others in need who may not have your gifts and resources for reaching out.  It is also a way in which the upwelling vision that gave rise to this conference can begin to ripple out into the world even before the conference happens, touching and vitalizing the hearts and minds of those who love us and our stories. 

If this idea appeals to you and you have the time to birth it, fabulous!  And if not, please feel free to let it go.  It is an idea to pursue only for the love of it, and not from any feeling of obligation.  We are so looking forward to seeing you in Boulder in August.

OTHER ITEMS

Gabriel has moved the home page so that search engines will find it more easily than when it “hides” on the Co-intelligence Institute site.

Tom has added some wonderful briefing materials for those who want to read more about such terms as “story field” or “imagineering”.  These are available via the conference home page or at:

http://co-intelligence.org/SFC-Story-Articles.html

If you haven’t responded to Tom’s invitation to join the TWO blogs, please do. 

One is a place to gather contributions of stories from participants.  Please make a contribution of your work.  It would be wonderful to have sound, images and video already there from all of us when we start sending a welcome letter to participants asking them to contribute.  Here’s the link:

http://www.storyfieldcreations.wordpress.com/

The other blog is a conversation space, a place to post reflections on the Story Field Conference as it begins to perk among us.  It is at:

http://www.storyfieldconversations.wordpress.com/

That’s all for now!