Something like this is what I would like to see:
- We've just formalized the support (project umbrella) of ABC for Free Aiki Dojo and the Martial Nonviolence training I intend to offer to various schools. I'm hoping for collaborative input and also needing to move forward at a pace that is not as leisurely as might be possible in less financially constrained times. I hope to build a Culturesmith team to work this into shape and deliver the trainings.
- We've just been chosen by Wildfire Studio as one of the 100 nonprofits they will help in 2011 to launch an marketing upgrade with the resources to get the word out about that program as well as the fundraising DVD of my conversations with Huston Smith.
- Next steps
- Core Group Formation: Begin regularly meeting once a month in person, and working together online via email, to recruit other people interested in building community by learning, practicing, and teaching the process arts to model peace-making by working through the natural differences that emerge as conflict between people. Some attendees will self-select to meet as a fundraising and opportunity-creating working group and reestablish a diverse Board of Directors always seeking to refine ABC's mission and offerings.
- Open Community Council (OCC): Offer a facilitated monthly event/gathering in the form of a simple community circle that begins with silence, moves to personal check-ins, and then into in-depth communication. This space will be friendly to potential members and might also include media to watch and reflect on, as well as be a place to propose actions, projects, and collaborations, and provide opportunities to find allies across lines that usually divide so that the work that matters to us might have a brighter future.
- Public Service: Offer ABC as an umbrella for projects again, with the caveat that the central decision-makers involved would have to make time to build community with us first and on an ongoing basis, at least through participation in the OCC. Set dates for annual Community Building workshops and facilitation trainings as well as opportunities for those developing the process arts and related organizations to communicate, develop mutually supportive habits, and identify as a practicioners in a field of study.
