FW: [NCDD-CONF] important update on August NCDD conference

[Robyn S Berkessel]

With pleasure I forward the following.
 

  _____  

From: NCDD Conf Updates [mailto:NCDD-CONFERENCE-UPDATES at LISTS.THATAWAY.ORG]
On Behalf Of Sandy Heierbacher
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 11:16 PM
To: NCDD-CONFERENCE-UPDATES at LISTS.THATAWAY.ORG
Subject: [NCDD-CONF] important update on August NCDD conference



Hi, everyone!  For those of you joining us in San Francisco in August,
please look over this update on the 2006 National Conference on Dialogue &
Deliberation
.

- Early Rate of $300 Set to End Thursday
  But Not Really -

The early registration rate of only $300 is set to increase to the regular
$450 rate on Friday.  I’m going to be sending out one of my email updates
tomorrow, and I’d like to give people a little more time to register at the
early rate.  Please don’t put off registering (at
http://thataway.org/conference/registration/index.php) if you were planning
to take care of that this week.  But if you need more time, you will have
until the end of the day on Monday the 26th to take advantage of the $300
rate.

- Important Details for Workshop Applicants -

We received over 90 fabulous workshop proposals for 40 slots, and a group of
volunteers is making the difficult decisions about which workshops we can go
forward with right now.  Facilitators of workshops that are selected will
receive a discount code that deducts $50 off of their registration fee as a
thank-you for their contribution to the conference.

Please know that we will give workshop applicants a full week to register at
the early rate (even if that means it’s after the extended deadline of the
26th) after we have let them know whether or not their workshop has been
selected for this year’s conference.  We know it’s not always possible to
register before you know whether you will be presenting a workshop or not,
and we hope this solves the timing problem we’re in.

And if you have already registered and paid your registration fee, and we do
go forward on your workshop, we will refund the $50 to you at the
conference.

- Amazing Lineup for our Reflective Panel -

Our “Reflective Panel,” a well-received process we developed for our 2004
conference which models dialogue while enabling conference participants to
hear from key leaders in the field, is almost final for the San Francisco
conference.  Four of our five panelists are confirmed, and we are excited to
announce them to you:

1.  John Gastil, professor and researcher at the University of Washington’s
Department of Communication and Co-Editor of the recently-published
“Deliberative Democracy Handbook.”

2.  William Isaacs, author of “Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together,”
Founder of Dialogos, and Co-Founder (with Peter Senge) of the Center for
Organizational Learning at MIT.

3.  Leanne Nurse, Program Analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, the leading federal agency in public participation

4.  Daniel Yankelovich, author of “The Magic of Dialogue” and Founder of
Viewpoint Learning, Inc. and Public Agenda

- Help Us Get the Word Out -

If you haven’t already, please-please-please tell your networks and
colleagues about the conference (especially those of you in the Bay area)!
I’ll be happy to send you an email announcement you can share, but you can
also grab the details from the conference section of the NCDD website
(http://thataway.org/conference/index.php).  Andy also designed a great .pdf
flyer that you can download, print out, email to your colleagues as an
attachment, etc.  The flyer is online at
http://thataway.org/conference/files/ncdd2006_flyer.pdf.

I’ll also post a current announcement below, so you can just cut and paste
it from this message.  It’s long (which people don’t like) but detailed
(which people like), so please feel free to edit it down for your purposes.
Thanks for your help with this!

That’s it for now.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.  Hope
to see you in San Francisco!

Best,
Sandy

Sandy Heierbacher
Director, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD)

Web:  <http://www.thataway.org> www.thataway.org
Email:  <mailto:sandy at thataway.org> sandy at thataway.org
Phone:  717-243-5144
Address:  114 W. Springville Road, Boiling Springs, PA 17007

--

You’re Invited to the 2006 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation

The 2006 NCDD conference will take place in San Francisco, California August
4-6, with pre-conference trainings on Thursday, August 3rd. If you are
dedicated to solving group and societal problems through honest talk,
quality thinking and collaborative action, we invite you to join us at this
innovative gathering.  The conference will be held at the Renaissance Parc
55, a beautiful hotel in the heart of downtown San Francisco.

Members of the rapidly-growing dialogue and deliberation community regularly
engage and mobilize millions of people across the globe around today's
critical issues.  The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation and our
biennial national conferences bring together practitioners, scholars,
trainers, artists, activists, teachers and students from all of the various
streams of practice that exist in this critically important field.  NCDD’s
conferences and resource-rich website (at www.thataway.org
<http://www.thataway.org/> ) are crucial to the development of this emerging
field of practice, and we welcome you to join us if you haven’t already.

NCDD conferences encourage conference attendees and planners, together, to
continue developing this growing field of practice—a field that has the
potential to solve many of society’s most pressing problems.  The conference
provides opportunities for networking, experiencing different methods,
sharing learnings, hearing from leaders in the field, learning about new
research, building skills in this work, and exploring key issues facing the
field.

- What can you expect from the 2006 National Conference on Dialogue &
Deliberation? -

As you can see from the conference schedule posted at
http://thataway.org/conference/schedule.php, we will be utilizing some of
our plenary sessions to take you through a collective planning process to
help determine were the D&D community should go from here if we are to
become the far-reaching field or system-improving movement we hope to be.
At the same time, you will be exploring the same questions in a more
personal way about how you got where you are in dialogue and deliberation
work, what the trends are that affect your work today, and what’s next for
you.

You won’t have to sit through a lot of speeches and panels at the 2006 NCDD
conference.  The closest we come to a “keynote speech” is our Reflective
Panel, a well-received process we developed for our 2004 conference which
models dialogue while enabling conference participants to hear from key
leaders in the field.  Four of our five panelists are confirmed, and we are
excited to say that you will have the opportunity to hear from the following
four amazing individuals:

1.  John Gastil, professor and researcher at the University of Washington’s
Department of Communication and Co-Editor of the recently-published
“Deliberative Democracy Handbook.”

2.  William Isaacs, author of “Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together,”
Founder of Dialogos, and Co-Founder (with Peter Senge) of the Center for
Organizational Learning at MIT.

3.  Leanne Nurse, Program Analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, the leading federal agency in public participation

4.  Daniel Yankelovich, author of “The Magic of Dialogue” and Founder of
Viewpoint Learning, Inc. and Public Agenda

Another innovative plenary we are planning for this year’s conference is a
“D&D Methods Showcase.”  In the span of about two hours, you will have the
opportunity to hear numerous brief 10-minute presentations by leaders of
innovative methods such as OrangeBand and Conversation Café.  This session
gives you the opportunity to develop a basic understanding of leading and
up-and-coming D&D methods while meeting some of the most creative people
involved in this work!

In addition to these plenary sessions, you will have the opportunity to
select from 40 high-quality workshops that enable you to focus on the
issues, challenges, and questions most relevant to your work.  You will
enjoy numerous opportunities to experience how the arts (graphic,
performing, etc.) can enhance dialogue and deliberation.  You will have
multiple opportunities to network and develop relationships with others who
do dialogue and deliberation work or research.  And we fully expect that you
will leave inspired not only by established leaders in the field, but also
by the highly innovative efforts initiated in the San Francisco Bay area and
elsewhere.

- And Consider Our Stellar Pre-Conference Trainings on August 3rd -

We're also very excited to offer the following selection of pre-conference
trainings at the conference.  Full-day pre-conference trainings are only
$125, and half-day trainings are only $75 (or $125 for both)!  If you are
not planning to attend the conference, you are still welcome to participate
in the trainings.  Bay area folks interested in learning and skill-building
are particularly encouraged to take advantage of these great trainings.

Full-Day Pre-Conference Trainings:
1. Choosing Deliberative and Dialogue Techniques that Work (Janette
Hartz-Karp, 21st Century Dialogue) 
2. The World Café: The Art of Hosting Conversations That Matter (Ken Homer
and Nancy Margulies, The World Café) 
3. Tailoring Dialogue To Cultural Contexts, A Collaborative Exploration
(Meenakshi Chakraverti, Public Conversations Project) 
4. Compassionate Listening: Bringing Our Hearts To Dialogue and Deliberation
Work (Rachel Eryn Kalish, M.C. and Susan Partnow, The Compassionate
Listening Project) 

Half-Day Pre-Conference Trainings
1. Fast Forward Framing for Critical Issues (Carole and Craig Paterson,
National Issues Forums) 
2. Taking Dialogue & Deliberation to Scale (Ashley Boyd and Janet Fiero,
Ph.D., AmericaSpeaks) 

Learn more about the pre-conference trainings (and the innovative BrainJam!
on technology and D&D, which is only $50) at
http://thataway.org/conference/sessions/preconference.php.

We also encourage conference participants and others in the Bay Area to
attend a unique training offered by the Global Facilitator Service Corps
(GFSC) on Monday and Tuesday, August 7-8, right after the conference. GFSC’s
Disaster and Crisis Intervention workshop for experienced facilitators,
called Facilitating Psycho-Social Reconstruction, prepares participants to
train and mentor other professionals working in direct recuperation efforts,
and to design and deliver a DCI workshop to address the needs of a local
population in affected areas. Learn more about this 2-day training
opportunity.

- Register Now -

Registration is only $300 until June 26, so be sure to register soon at
http://thataway.org/conference/registration/index.php (the fee is $450 after
the 26th).  If finances are an issue, scholarship applications are online at
http://thataway.org/conference/scholarships/index.php.

The 2006 conference is funded, in part, by the William & Flora Hewlett
Foundation, the Whitman Institute, and by leading dialogue and deliberation
organizations including the Forum Foundation, the Public Conversations
Project, and the Study Circles Resource Center.

If you have questions, or if you are interested in exhibiting,
co-sponsoring, or just staying informed as planning progresses, email
conference director Sandy Heierbacher at sandy at thataway.org and let her
know.

We hope to see you in San Francisco!

--

A few of the nice things people said about the 2002 and 2004 conferences


“We were able to connect with many people working on similar types of
engagement, share experiences and learn from each other. It was also very
stimulating to see the broad range of interests in the field of dialogue and
deliberation, and better understand the connections between them.”
- Judy Watling and Nandini Saxena, Canadian Policy Research Networks

“The setting was beautiful, the range of speakers impressive and the care
for the diversity of participants was sincere. Attending the conference was
very replenishing for me. What a gift!”
- Susan Partnow, Let's Talk America

“NCDD has cultivated a broad and emerging field by making it possible for
diverse threads of practice to learn from each other. Its mode of working is
respectful, inclusive, and practitioner-oriented. Everyone who believes that
dialogue and deliberation are key to transforming people, relationships, and
society--including political systems--can benefit from being part of NCDD
and its next conference.”
- Martha McCoy, Executive Director of the Study Circles Resource Center

“I have been raving about the conference ever since I got back home to
Durango. I have been attending professional conferences for over 20 years
and this was the most fulfilling of any of them to me! Thanks for all your
work to organize such a stellar event.”
- Lauren Patterson, Program Evaluation

“It was a fine, fine conference for us. This is one of the exceptional,
distinctive communities in America.”
- Libby and Len Traubman, Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue of San
Mateo, California

“I wanted to thank you and all the organizers of the NCCD conference for a
great event, very well organized and especially sensitive to everybody's
needs and concerns. It was a great experience for me and it benefited
greatly our work. I hope to continue building these relationships and learn
from all those extraordinary experiences and people involved in dialogue.”
- Marc-Andre Franche, United Nations Development Programme

“The 2002 NCDD conference was the most amazing conference I've ever
attended
. This is a big diverse field, bubbling with vitality.  And NCDD is
bringing it all together.”
- Tom Atlee, Founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute

“You all were amazing -- I’ve never had a more exhilarating experience at a
conference.  Nourishing to mind, body and soul!”
- one participants’ comments on the 2004 conference satisfaction survey

“I just wanted to let you know what an amazing conference it was in Denver.
It deepened my understanding of D&D and I met many wonderful people.  I
believe events like this help strengthen and grow, not only the D&D
community, but the work of conflict resolution and democracy world-wide.  It
was the best organized conference I have ever attended.  You and those that
helped you did an amazing job.”
- Stephan Gilchrist, Portland State University

“I must say that my attending the national conference this past fall was
life altering.  The conference really gave me a sense of direction and
purpose for the work I’d like to do as well as the vision I have for a more
just and sustainable world.”
- Matt de Caussin, Intern, Denver District Attorney’s Office

“Thank you for putting on such an amazing conference.  I thought the
conference was absolutely phenomenal.  I learned a lot, and I think even
more importantly, realized that I am / we are part of a community!”
- Priya Parker, Sustained Dialogue Campus Network

“I met more people that I will follow up with at this conference than any in
my 30 years of professional experience.”
- Stephanie Nestlerode, Omega Point International, Inc.

“Thank you for the incredible work you are doing in creating opportunities
for those of us involved in this work to meet, communicate and inspire one
another in so many ways.”
- Glenna Gerard

Robyn
_______________________________

Robyn Stratton-Berkessel
LIT Global ...connecting the dots
+1 732 291 0462 
+1 917 816 5597 (cell)
http://www.litglobal.com <http://www.litglobal.com/> 
 
 <http://www.litglobal.com/>  

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