News

On June 25-28, our four Core Team members and Directors -- Tree Bressen, Sue Woehrlin, Daniel Lindenberger and Dave Pollard -- along with our newest Stewards' Circle member Christopher Allen, met at Dave's house on Bowen Island, BC for our first 2013 face-to-face work session.

The purpose of the session was to hammer out our direction, priorities and strategies going forward, and streamline some of the tasks we have been doing to date.

Pursuant to our overall Goal/Mission: to learn and share the core wisdom of what makes deliberative group work successful, primarily through the development and promotion of a pattern language for group process, we identified seven organizational Objectives and a prioritized list of short- and long-term actions and strategies to achieve them. The seven Objectives are:

1. To get trim -- to update, streamline, and simplify the tasks, procedures and technologies we use to accomplish our work
2. To maintain a well-functioning, sustainable organization
3. To foster a culture of collaboration -- so that anyone interested in group process feels invited and empowered to participate in achieving our objectives
4. To help people learn the possibilities of the Pattern Language and Group Works
5. To share more tools for bringing life to groups
6. To deepen the Language
7. To remain open to emergent opportunities as the profession evolves and as new technologies and collaboration and application possibilities arise.

To these ends, we made a lot of decisions on tasks, procedures and technologies going forward, including the decision to close our Wagn wiki-based development platform at grouppatternlanguage.org later this year once the last of its content has been moved to the...

We are pleased to have the opportunity to present a 2-day Group Works workshop at the end of June in British Columbia.  If you are curious about the deck and want to further explore how to use it, this is your chance!

When: Saturday June 29, 9:00am-4:30pm, and Sunday June 30, 9:00am-4:00pm.

Where: Quayside Village Co-housing, 510 Chesterfield Ave. at W. 5th Street in North Vancouver, near the Lower Lonsdale seabus dock.

Cost: Sliding scale $25-$200 (cheque or cash at the door)

RSVP: Please mark the dates in your calendar and reserve your space by email ASAP (this event may sell out) to Daniel Lindenberger (daniel@smallboxcms.com), indicating if you plan to attend one or both days. If there are particular topics you'd like discussed/explored, let Daniel know in your RSVP.

Available Spots:
Saturday: Waiting List

Sunday: 4

Topics will include:

• How to use the Group Works Deck (Sue Woerhlin and Tree Bressen) - An introduction to practical applications for the Group Works deck.
• How Not to Do Public Engagement (Dave Pollard) - A humorous role-play looking at some of the pitfalls of public engagement, and ways to improve the process based on Group Pattern Language
• Games and Other Activities (Dave Pollard and Daniel Lindenberger) - An opportunity to explore various games to make learning and deepening facilitation skills fun with the Group Works deck.
• Method Mapping (Sue Woerhlin and Tree Bressen) -...

The sessions last month in Berkeley were fabulous.

On February 22, about 16 of us gathered to engage in Method Mapping, under the able leadership of Sue Woehrlin.  Method mapping means taking a type of group process you are familiar with, and figuring out how to illustrate it using the Group Works deck.  For example, this time small groups worked on Sociocracy, World Cafe, Anti-Oppression, and more.  We intend to enter the "maps" created this way into our online module, along with posting photos & videos about them.  One of the groups also had an exploratory conversation to notice what we are learning about different ways of creating the maps.  While the people who can participate most effectively have experience both with the Group Works deck and with the particular method under consideration, as long as they have one or the other it's enough to get by.  Overall it was very fulfilling.

The following day, almost two dozen people attended an introductory workshop on how to use the deck, led by Sassy & Tree.  This Applications workshop arose out of a common experience we've been having since the deck was published, which is that when we show it to someone new, the first thing they say after, "Oh!  How beautiful!"  is:  "What do you do with it?"  This workshop is designed to answer that question.  We offered a combination of sample activities to try out, stories from other people's experiences, and collective brainstorming on other possibilities. 

In addition to the public events, we spent hours meeting in Stewards' Circle.  A particular theme this time was our relationship with technology.  There are so many...

Wowie zowie, it's finally here, the tech infrastructure we've been waiting for to map card sequences! It is now possible to select a sequence of cards online and save it for later. Each sequence is assigned a unique URL for later viewing and editing. You can choose a default layout of 10 cards in a row, or make up your own layout within a 10 x 10 grid.  You can start from someone else's layout or sequence and then modify and resave under a new name.  You can even ask the site to "deal" you a random card, thus bringing Group Works tarot online.  The new card-mapping program can be used to save specific sets of cards for such purposes as:

• illustrating a facilitation method
• planning out a session in order by cards
• sharing and discussing with your team

To try out the new card-mapping program, first log in on the regular site (otherwise you won't be able to save any work in the new program), and then go to this page:Card Mapping. The program includes documentation and help pages, visit the links posted there.  This new program is still in "beta," so for any work you care about, we suggest making notes in hard copy or on your own system, or laying out the physical cards and taking a picture for the record.

A huge thank you to Vine, our dedicated programmer.

Good news: Tree & Sue's proposal for a workshop on the cards has been accepted for the upcoming NCDD conference in Seattle!  If you are attending, come and share your experience with the cards...  If you know someone from your network coming to the Seattle conference, encourage them to check out our workshop.  

Group Works Cards:  Applications    Friday, October 12, 2 -4 p.m.

The Group Works deck is a creative synthesis of core wisdom in the field of facilitation and group convening, collaboratively distilled over several years by experienced practitioners from a variety of organizational backgrounds.  Come to this workshop to learn how these pattern cards can be used by groups and individuals for reflection, planning, analysis, and other guidance to generate more alive and productive group sessions.  Participants will receive a color booklet with summary charts, suggested uses and further resources.

On May 10th Tree Bressen and Sue Woehrlin co-hosted a telephone presentation on the card deck with some 45 NCDD members around the country.  Tree and Sue shared the history of the Group Pattern Language Project (and specifically the process that birthed the cards), lead participants through a couple of reflective exercises with the category keystone cards from the deck, addressed possible uses of the cards, and then facilitated an open-ended discussion.  Several other project members participated, including John Abbe, Raines Cohen, Betsy Morris and Amy Lenzo.  Toward the end of the call Sandy Heierbacher (NCDD director) invited the assembled group to brainstorm sugestions for how the cards might be used at the upcoming national NCDD conference in Seattle this coming October. All in all, a very lively event!