ReStorying Life

Would you like all life to flourish in our world? 

Are you curious to explore:

• What it means to be human together, beyond our labels and world views
  
• A creative, nurturing space; grounded on care for life
• What fresh insights and questions arise as we share our stories?

Join us for a series of community gatherings; sharing conversation, food, music, and insights founded on care and respect for all life. Bring your mates, family, colleagues and neighbours. Everyone will learn something...everyone will learn something different...and we don't know what it's going to be. Come find out!

PS: If you'd like a clearer idea of how this is to run please look near the bottom of this page.

Nourishing relationships in which wild seeds of possibilities can sprout

This series of events has been designed as a rich dish of experiences, carefully selected and combined. While you could come to just part of it, that would be like eating the ingredients separately - possibly tasty but not nearly as nourishing or enjoyable as savouring the whole dish! Please join us for all the sessions if possible...or if not, we'd love to have as much of your company as we can.

Warm-up gatherings

Although the main event is on 15 October, we are offering earlier opportunities to begin to connect and explore: 

Sunday 17 September, 2 - 4pm, Manning Community Hall - finished

Face-to-face hosted small group conversations, building relationships and perspectives across a wide range of different contexts

What an amazing gathering we had! I still feel like I'm walking around in a hug.

Around 30 people joined us, the vibe was delicious, and the conversations were incredibly warm; alive, caring and juicy. Reflections from participants were diverse and intriguing. One of the newbies described the experience as art and asked that we hold sessions weekly, and one of the regular participants said these sessions are her one grounded place in a world of constant change. A family brought their three teenage boys, and the oldest (16) asked that they come back for the main event on October 15. Participants were aged 13 – 70+, and from a wide range of backgrounds. Can't wait for our online warm-up on October 8!

Sunday 8 October, 3 - 5pm, Zoom

An online version of the hosted conversations, continuing our process of discovery

Main gathering

Sunday 15 October, 10am - 4pm, Manning Community Hall

        
  

10am - 12pm	Hosted small group conversations in which we move freely around the room and explore our stories of our lives
12 - 2pm	Wander Manning Laneway and enjoy food, music and Changemaker story sharing
2 - 3:30pm	Sensing possibilities, together
3:30 - 4pm	Celebrations and invitations. All are welcome to share insights and/or invitations to keep something (conversations, relationships, ...) going

Enjoy beautiful jazzy tunes by Kaylene Harris, the dynamic sax and keyboard of Impromptu, and the spine-tingling harmonies of a cappella choir The Real Sing. Some food and drink will be provided, plus you're also warmly invited to bring food to share.

Who's invited?

Everyone is very welcome! The gatherings may be enjoyed more by people aged 15+.

If you're part of a group seeking to create life-aligned change in any way, large or small, we invite you to host a table or space during the Changemaker story sharing. This is an opportunity to share your stories and perspectives on your group and working with/in change.

Can you think of groups seeking life-aligned change in any or all of the following contexts, or any others that may come to mind?

Family, Ecology, Art, Culture, Economy, Education, Health, History, Identity, Law, Media, Politics, Science, Spirituality/Religion, Technology...

If so, would you please invite them, or give us their details (using the Contact Host button below) so we can reach out? 

The practical stuff

• Manning Community Hall is in the Manning Community Centre, 2 Conochie Crescent, Manning (behind the Welwyn Avenue shops)
• BYO water bottle and keep cup
• Please label food for sharing, e.g. gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, or with common allergens
  • Feel free to use this Google Document to help coordinate what we're all bringing
• Free parking under the Manning Community Centre, entry from Bradshaw Crescent
• Bus route 30 stops at the Manning Community Centre, Conochie Crescent before Welwyn Avenue
• If you would feel more comfortable wearing a mask to converse with lots of people indoors, please do bring and wear one
• To care for yourself and others, please stay home if you have any symptoms of COVID, the flu, or another communicable illness
• "BF" in the ticket price is Humanitix for "Booking Fee"!

How the sessions will run 

Hosted small group conversations

The hosted small group conversations are what's known as Warm Data sessions. The face to face version goes something like this:

• One of the trained Hosts introduces the session and explains how it's going to run
• A trained Host tells a story. This isn't a Hero's Journey kind of story, or one with a moral, or one that pretends to have all the answers. It's a personal story about being a human in our messy, juicy, unclear and often confusing world
• A question is announced, which is what we'll be exploring together. The question will be in the format "What is...in a changing world?". We don't announce the question in advance as we would like people to respond in the moment rather than bringing pre-scripted thoughts
• The room is laid out in sets of four chairs, and people can move the chairs around if they so choose. Each set of chairs is given a different context, for example Family, Ecology, Art, Culture, Science, Education, Health etc. The more people, the more contexts. Yum!
• Everyone is invited to go to whatever contexts they wish, and converse with the other people at that context about the question of the day in that context. So, for example, if we were exploring "What is risk in a changing world?" (hint - we won't be doing 'risk' in this series!), and you were sitting at the Family context, you would explore "What is risk in a changing world in the context of family?". You may then move to explore "What is risk in a changing world in the context of ecology?". Or politics. Or education. Or...
• People may share ideas, or metaphors, or personal stories, or whatever comes to mind. Personal stories are particularly rich as they always, by their very nature, contain multiple contexts
• When you feel like it, even though someone in your group may be talking, you move to a different context. And then another one. And then another one. You might even go back to a context and see how the conversation has changed with different people in it
• After a while that part is drawn to a close, and we're all invited to share, if we wish, what we are noticing

There is no attempt to come to a shared conclusion, or to impose one perspective. This is about learning together. Everyone will learn something, it will be different for each of us, and we have no idea what it's going to be.

A friend who has attended many of these sessions, and later trained as a Host, describes them as "An antidote to social media". It's hard to remain polarised when you've just heard so many different perspectives from so many people in so many different contexts, all in response to the same question.

The online version, known as People Need People, is similar but not identical. We use different questions and a tech host moves us between a series of three breakout rooms, each of which has three different contexts, so we're still exploring one question with different people and across multiple contexts.

From the Warm Data creator, Nora Bateson:

"The People Need People (PNP) and Warm Data Lab is created to help release and revitalize sensitivity to the sacred processes of the life that have been fragmented by the last several hundred years of history. People Need People and Warm Data Lab are made for a broken world...

...these sessions have been designed to deepen the collective perception of interdependency, complexity through personal stories, and professional expertise. Together these groups of people are building relationships that build relationships that build relationships—this is how systems change happens. A consequence of this mutual learning and warm data is the profound emotional/intellectual/ cultural healing that takes place in these sessions...

...There is no goal in a PNP session or a Warm Data Lab. Only warmth, and Life. The rest takes care of itself, in ways that are radically different from traditional ways of intervening to effect change...

...Because of our conditioning, we are too often unwittingly part of the problem, despite our best intentions. Diving deeply into the PNP and Warm Data Lab experience, we are more likely to become part of the solution."

Changemaker story sharing

Manning Laneway will be set out with tables and chairs. Different changemaker groups will host spaces and share stories about their group. They might choose to offer activities, or handouts, or just sit and chat. Ideally there'll be several people from each group so while one person is hosting their space the others can wander around and hear stories from the other groups.

During this section there'll be yummy food to share (feel free to bring some!), and live music from The Real Sing and Impromptu to enjoy.

Sensing possibilities, together

During this session we'll be participating in 4-D Mapping, a practice created by The Presencing Institute and taught in MIT's u-lab. 4D mapping explores how the highest aspiration in a system might come forward. It is about surfacing and noticing what shifts in a system might be significant in going from a current reality to an emerging future reality, and is based on what is actually emerging, not on manipulation or what we think something should be.

• Most of the group will sit in a circle and hold the space, while 10-12 people volunteer to be players
• The players are guided through an embodiment practice which makes it possible for everyone to get a sense of the current and emerging future state of the system
• The space holders observe the practice and may choose to share a sentence about what they have observed
• The whole group reflects on what they have experienced

Threads for more information for the extra curious

Conversation Hosts are grounded in Warm Data, Theory U and Social Permaculture.