Fw: welcome new members & enlisting your help

Tue Mar 2 10:53:45 PST 2004

Thought some of you might be interested in the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation.  Here's something about what they're doing.

Peggy

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Sandy Heierbacher 
To: peggy at opencirclecompany.com 
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 7:19 AM
Subject: welcome new members & enlisting your help

Hello, Peggy!  In this important members' announcement, I'd like to do two things:

1.  Welcome and introduce NCDD's 25 newest members.

2.  Encourage each of you to PLEASE share with your networks the latest news about NCDD - about the 2004 conference, the website and its new features, and the Let's Talk America project.

So first of all, I am happy to welcome into the NCDD community 9 new organizational members and 16 new individual members.  Ten of our new members hail from California; two each from Alaska, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon and Washington DC; and one each from Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, West Virginia and even India!

The new NCDD members are:

Newest Organizational Members

- coAction (Lauren Parker Kucera, Director; Alejandro Vilchez, second contact)

- Green Mountain Institute (Chris Paterson, Director of Civic Innovation)

- Gregoire & Associates (Rogier Gregoire, Ed.D., President)

- Information Renaissance (Rosemary Gunn, National Projects Director; Robert Carlitz, Executive Director)

- Mendocino Coast Peace & Justice Center (Myra Beals)

- The Public Dialogue Consortium (Barnett Pearce, President; Kim Pearce, Founding Member)

- Simple Idea (Richard Burg, Principal)

- Sophia Associates, LLC (Alicia M. Rodriguez, M.A., P.C.C.)

- University of Maryland, Office of Human Relations Programs (Sivagami Subbaraman, Coordinator of Multicultural Educational Technology)

Newest Individual Members

- Sarah Barton of RISE Alaska

- Sarah Bier, a student at the University of Illinois

- David Boyd, AICP of MSA Professional Services, Inc. (formerly of Focus St. Louis)

- Patricia Danielson of Thursday's Rose

- Jim Durkin, Ph.D. of Collaboration Laboratories

- Sadeque Hussain of Conflict Relief and Peace Organization in India

- Jonathan Hutson, Communications Director of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice

- Janell Jures

- Patriciafaye Marshall

- Kenoli Oleari of Horizons of Change

- Nancy Peden of Lived Learning

- Julie Pratt

- Don Roberts, Jr.

- Najeeba Syeed-Miller, J.D., Director of Intercultural Conflict Resolution Systems

- W. Marc Tognotti of the San Francisco Neighborhood Assemblies Network initiative

- Howard Ward

I encourage all of the new members to introduce yourselves to the rest of us via the NCDD Discussion List.

Secondly, I'd like to ask all of you to please share one of the following two announcements with your networks - or to create your own.

As you know, this is a very exciting time for NCDD.  We just launched our new website and a number of great new features (including several interactive features).  We also just announced the date and venue of the second National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation - which over 100 people emailed me about last week alone!  And we are working on an exciting nationwide dialogue program in partnership with Utne Magazine, Conversation Café, The World Café and the Democracy in America Convention.  We could really use your help getting the word out there about all of these things.

What follows are two very different announcements about these projects and resources.  The first is the just-the-basics message I emailed out to our list of 6,000 D&D leaders last week.  The second, written by my friend Tom Atlee, is much longer but much more interesting and powerful.  Tom created a kind of web guide to the new NCDD site, in addition to announcing the conference and LTA initiative.  Tom is able to say things about NCDD that I could never say about my own work, and his writing is simply inspiring.  If you can use this longer announcement, I think it may be the more effective one.

- Sandy's announcement -

News from the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

NCDD has three announcements they'd like to share with you.

1. The 2004 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation

NCDD just announced the date and venue for the SECOND National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation.  NCDD's 2004 conference will take place in Denver, Colorado, October 23 through 25 at Regis University.

NCDD plans to have this conference surpass the groundbreaking 2002 conference in every way - in numbers, in quality, in networking opportunities, in learning and skill-building.  So please save the date and let them know (at www.thataway.org/conference/2004/index.html) if you'd like to join the conference organizing team, co-sponsor the event, present a session or become involved in any other way!

2. New NCDD Website

Secondly, NCDD's new website is up (still at www.thataway.org), and it is packed with invaluable resources and new interactive elements.  A few of the new features are:

- Our Community Happenings Blog -

The Happenings blog replaces the Dialogue to Action Initiative's "Community Section" (the news & calendar for the D&D community).  This weblog makes it easier for NCDD to post your news, resources, events and opportunities - while making it easier for you to find the stuff you care about.  With the blog, you can look up events, opportunities and news by type of D&D practice, type of resource, region, date, and more.

- Resources for Addressing Current Issues -

Finally - a way for D&D organizers and community leaders to easily locate the best resources available for fostering community discussion and action on specific current issues. 14 issues are already up, including Police-Community Relations, Intergroup Relations, Education Reform, and much more.

- Models & Techniques -

Detailed descriptions of leading D&D models, the networks that use them, the organizations that promote them and the circumstances they're most suited for.

3. Let's Talk America

We've all been hearing about how our nation is more deeply divided than ever - about how we feel about the President, about the war, about gay marriage. about just about everything. NCDD has been working closely with Utne Magazine, Conversation Cafés, The World Café and now the Democracy in America Convention to spark nation-wide dialogue about the future of our democracy that will move us beyond the polarization of left and right.

NCDD invites you to join them in this important work. With your help, this groundbreaking initiative could engage millions of people in a dialogue on democracy during this election year. Go to www.letstalkamerica.org if you'd like to learn more about how you and your organization can get involved (by convening, facilitating, endorsing, participating, etc.). We'd like Let's Talk America to begin truly mobilizing the power of the dialogue & deliberation community.

For more information about NCDD, go to www.thataway.org or email Sandy Heierbacher, NCDD's Convenor, at sandy at thataway.org.

- Tom Atlee's announcement -

News from the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

This email announces the National Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation in October and, more importantly, provides an introduction and guide to the amazing National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation website, a precious bookmark for anyone interested in dialogue or deliberation. You may want to keep the NCDD website guide as a reference, or send it to friends.

--

Dear friends,

If you are involved with dialogue or deliberation in any way as an activist, scholar, practitioner or otherwise -- and if you believe that dialogue and deliberation have important roles to play in the world -- then this email contains vital information for you.

First of all, take out your calendar.  Mark October 23-25, 2004 as your time to go to The 2004 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation in Denver, Colorado.  This is being planned, say the organizers, to "surpass the groundbreaking 2002 conference in every way - in numbers, in quality, in networking opportunities, in learning and skill-building."

Now I have to tell you that the 2002 NCDD conference was the most amazing conference I've ever attended.  You can read details about it at www.thataway.org/conference/index.html. Of course, if dialogue and deliberation are not topics that interest you, you might have found it as ho-hum as a conference on 16th Century Icelandic architecture.  But I and a couple of hundred other people who love this subject were really impressed.  Significantly, I only knew 7 of the 240 attendees at the start -- and I'd been in this field for a decade.  This is a big diverse field, bubbling with vitality.  And NCDD is bringing it all together.

So please save the date.  And if you'd like to be on the conference organizing team (NCDD is very inclusive and collegial in its organizing style) or if you'd like to co-sponsor the event or present a session, or get involved in some other way -- let them know using the form at www.thataway.org/conference/2004/interest.html.

And now I want to introduce you to the amazing new NCDD Website.

* * * *   The New NCDD Website  * * * * *

NCDD's new website -- still at <www.thataway.org/>thataway.org -- is packed with invaluable resources, new interactive elements, a great new look and easier navigation. Here are a few of the new features:

- The Community Happenings Blog <www.thataway.org/news/index.html> -

The Happenings blog replaces the previous Dialogue to Action Initiative's "Community Section" (the news and calendar pages).  This weblog makes it easy for NCDD to post news, resources, events and opportunities sent in by members - while making it easier for everyone to find the information they care about.  You just look up events, opportunities and news by the type of dialogue and deliberation practice, type of resource, region, date, and so on.

- Resources for Addressing Current Issues <www.thataway.org/resources/practice/issues/issues.html> -

Here's a way -- at last -- for dialogue and deliberation organizers, community leaders and ordinary citizens to easily locate the best resources available for fostering community discussion and action on specific current issues. 14 issues are already up, including Police-Community Relations, Intergroup Relations, Education Reform, Government and Politics, Economic Growth, Development and the Environment, Health Care, Iraq, the Middle East, Violence, Youth.....

- Models & Techniques <www.thataway.org/resources/understand/models/models.html> -

Here you'll find detailed descriptions of leading dialogue and deliberation models, the networks that use them, the organizations that promote them and the circumstances they're most suited for.  This informative compilation includes Appreciative Inquiry, Citizen Juries, Compassionate Listening, Conversation Café, Deliberative Polling, National Issues Forums, Nonviolent Communication, Open Space Technology, Public Conversations Project, Socrates Café, Study Circles, Sustained Dialogue, Web Lab's Small Group Dialogue, Wisdom Council and World Cafe, 

- High-Tech Tools Used in D&D Programs <www.thataway.org/resources/practice/hightech/intro.html> -

Here you'll find a fine introduction and overview of this often complex field followed by LOTS of simple descriptions of some of the best high-tech tools, products and programs used to enhance both online and face-to-face dialogue and deliberation programs, collaborations, discussion mapping, polling, public participation and online community-building.  A great feature here is a helpful glossary of technical terms (linked to every page) to help people at all levels of technological savvy grasp these remarkable tools.

And that's not all.  Even the traditional features that have made me so excited about the NCDD site for so long have been beefed up and given a new look and accessibility.  These include:

www.thataway.org/resources/understand/what.html

Definitions of dialogue and deliberation from many sources (including yours truly).

www.thataway.org/resources/understand/index.html

Fabulous Resource Guide Number One - loaded with great quotes and tools, a mouth-watering (mind-blossoming?) annotated bibliography, and a fascinating glossary of dialogue and deliberation words and phrases from every corner of the field (including this one).

www.thataway.org/resources/practice/index.html

Fabulous Resource Guide Number Two - Here are lists of how-to manuals and guidebooks, videos, e-resources and even TEN complete sets of dialogue and deliberation ground rules to choose from, mix-and-match or just get inspired by.

www.thataway.org/resources/explore/index.html

Fabulous Resource Guide Number Three - Here's the learning corner where you'll find dozens of dialogue and deliberation organizations described, as well as training opportunities, educational programs, and truckloads of research materials and websites -- all nicely annotated. Here, especially, you see the wide sweep and amazing diversity of this field.

www.thataway.org/projects/index.html

Here you can read about the many exciting projects underway in and around NCDD -- from peace and democracy initiatives, to articulating visionary missions (not only for NCDD, but for the whole field of dialogue and deliberation), to media initiatives and mutual support and learning networks -- national, global, local... the list goes on and on.... And if you want to talk with colleagues, get advice, or just stay in touch with what's happening, there are a number of different listservs and online discussions and collaborations listed at www.thataway.org/discussions/index.html (one of which, the NCDD Wiki, has gotten me more excited than anything I've seen in years, but I'll talk about that later...).  In other words, if you want to get involved, there's no shortage of activities here!

And of course the site tells you how to contact and join NCDD -- see www.thataway.org/join/index.html -- which I hope hundreds of you do this year because this is going to be one remarkable year... a watershed year... a time for us to weave our diverse gifts together into a culture of dialogue capable of bringing forth a civilization that works for all, learning and changing wisely as our world grows toward the Seventh Generation after us....

NCDD exists to help the pioneers of this journey -- including you -- find greater power, wisdom, common ground, and vision together.  Welcome aboard.

Coheartedly,

Tom

Tom Atlee

The Co-Intelligence Institute

www.co-intelligence.org

Thanks, everyone.  I do hope many of you can help get the word out about our projects and resources!

Sandy

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