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Story Field Conference Report - Outcomes

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 5 months ago

 

Outcomes

Conference Participant Impact, Activity and Collaborations

 

At the time of this report, 2 months after the conference, there is a remarkable aliveness following this gathering.  Rather than a five-day meeting that just comes to an end, what we find appears to be a substantive beginning to ongoing engagement.  Many attendees continue to meet in small groups, contribute to the post-conference wiki, and pursue passions that sprouted or found their roots during the gathering.

 

Some specifics can be found by visiting: http://storyfieldteam.pbwiki.com

 

The most visible cluster of activities is supporting the formation of a project dubbed “Telavision” that invites people to create their vision for the world and share it through special online videos.  This project is based on the fact that something wonderful happens when someone commits to a vision for the future of our planet and its people, and tells the world about it.  The sample videos we saw as stimulants for this project had such a profound impact on us that some of us began to wonder what would happen if hundreds or thousands of people made and shared these videos.  The idea appealed to many attendees, and some decided to see if they could make it happen…

 

A number of people also were excited about working with youth, including

  • the Gen-Up (Generation Waking Up)  initiative
  • creating new college curricula and other developments in education
  • developing rites of passage and
  • intergenerational work.

 

One of the most common and notable responses to the conference was how powerfully it affected the participants' perspective on their lives and work:

·        A remarkable number of people said, “I now have the courage to act on my convictions”; “I know that I am not alone; I have allies”.

·        Others said, "This gathering changed my life."

·        Still others said, "I now know what to call the work I do – it is story field work."

 

A large number of attendees said they grew or learned more about themselves through the conference and felt empowered to pursue their personal mission or projects -- books, plays, service work, research, blogs, etc. -- with more power, confidence, focus, and aliveness -- or to move their work on to its next stage.  About a half-dozen said they wanted to help advance the work of other inspiring attendees they'd met, like meta-storytellers Michael Dowd and David Korten, filmmaker Shalini Kantayya, and poet Vanessa German.  A number of them even said they felt called to be in service to anyone or to the whole story field network or enterprise, in whatever ways would be most helpful.

 

A vivid example of emergent support began at one Wednesday session when a participant mentioned that $1000 was needed to complete a project she was involved in -- building a home for a Waldorf kindergarten teacher at Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.  Her fellow session participants spread the word among conference attendees. By Friday morning $1,375 had appeared in our midst to realize this dream.

 

In general, attendees expressed much interest in maintaining ongoing connection, friendships, and conversations, or in working with and learning from each other.  Most significantly, a core team and many supporters volunteered to help organize the next national story field conference in 2008.  However, it seems some participants don't want to wait that long to get together again.  People from a number of locations -- Hawai'i, DC, the Northwest/Seattle/ Bellingham, New York, Kentucky, New England, and Colorado -- are planning get-togethers or story field conferences in their own local areas in the near future.

 

How did attendees rate the conference in general? 

On the final conference evaluation questionnaire, most participants answered this question: "On a scale of 1 (unsatisfactory) to 10 (mind and heart blowing), how would you rate this conference?"  43% of respondents rated it at 10 or even off-the-scale higher.  63% rated it a 9 or more.  72% rated it at 8 or higher.  Responses from the 54 evaluation respondents were as follows:

 

Participants' post-conference thoughts and activities are posted on the conference wiki: http://storyfieldteam.pbwiki.com/

 

As hosts, we find ourselves moved by the power that so many people experienced at this conference, and hope to help make subsequent gatherings even more profound and effective.

 

 

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