letter from Switzerland…

2012-06-14

Richard Moore

Bcc: FYI
rkm websitehttp://cyberjournal.org
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Greetings!

I’m writing from Espace Noir, a very homey anarchist co-op bar / theater / hangout in St-Imier, a town between Geneva and Basel. I’ve been having a wonderful time in Switzerland, the guest of my new friend Chris Zumbrunn. Unbeknownst to me, he’s been a subscriber to cyberjournal for many years. I met him not that way, but because we are both involved in the Dynamic Facilitation community. As I reported in my last posting, I came to Switzerland to participate in a DF session on ‘deepening democracy’. Chris Zumbrunn is the one who invited me, and Chris Thorman is the one who made the trip possible via funding the airfare. Somehow people named Chris keep showing up as very welcome benefactors in my life. It was another Chris (Chapman) who helped get the Awaken Ireland movement launched in Ireland – as a volunteer facilitator at our historic Boghill gathering.

We did have the DF session here, as planned, and it turned out even better than my fondest hopes. ‘Deepening democracy’ is such a broad topic that I had no idea where it might lead, or whether any kind of agreement might be reached. Not only that, but I thought we were going to have an experienced DF facilitator for the event. Instead, it was me who ended up being the main facilitator (who had done it only once before), with Chris Z co-facilitating, who had never before done DF facilitation (but who had taken the training). As it turns out, I felt very comfortable in the role, which means I now feel empowered to offer DF facilitation as part of events I help organize, or that are organized by others. The outcomes of our session are described in this slide show:


<— time lapse; I’m now back in Wexford –>

Besides the outcomes described in the slide show, the nine of us who were involved emerged from the session with the feeling that we had become an ongoing group, and with the intention to launch a movement. We’ve created an email list for the group, beau-sejour, named after the venue where the session was held. Chris Z has identified a large number of groups and movements in Europe that are pursuing democracy-enhancing objectives, and we’ll be seeking to create connections and promote synergies amongst them. We’ll be using DF as one of our primary tools, partly because it is good at bringing out synergies, and partly to spread awareness of and appreciation for the power of DF.

all the best,
richard
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Chris Z & me at a BBQ event





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