Join us in extending a warm welcome to CommunityWeaving.org founder Cheryl Honey,  who specializes in designing innovative community building strategies.  These strategies increase community capacity and engage citizens to work together in order to improve quality of life while creating a more civil society.

8-10a PDT | 11a-1p EDT | 3-5p GMT
Click here to register

In this week's Vital Conversation, Cheryl will speak to some of the following concerns:

  • Why we might not ask for help when we need it.
  • Why we might not offer help when we see a need.
  • How might we breakdown the veil to knowing our neighbors better?

She will share her inspirational stories of caring between neighbors, of when people's gifts come together to support others' needs.

Cheryl is a valuable resource to state and federal agencies, organizations, communities, schools and faith-based organizations that are developing programs in volunteer recruitment, leadership development, civic engagement, prevention and community mobilization initiatives.

Cheryl’s motivation for starting Community Weaving was to create a safe place for people to find support and feel nurtured.  Her question at the time was,"Can we weave a system of support so we can help one another?"   She believes everyone is able to learn and grow, but needs a system of support and access to low/no cost resources.

Community Weaving responds to these concerns by syncing with existing community infrastructures to build and bridge social capital and weave people and systems together into a whole, community network that is responsive and adaptive to change.

Givers and receivers are viewed as equals, without blame or judgment.  Whoever shows up are the right people.  Everyone has a purpose and a place to belong in the “process” of Community Weaving.  The evolution and practice of Community Weaving aligns with the theory and practice of Open Space on a community-wide scale.

What does it mean to be a good neighbor? 
Relate an experience of being or having a good neighbor. 
~~~~~~~~
What gifts/skills/resources would be willing to share with your neighbors? 
What requests or needs do you have?  


Invitation Into Action:  Sign up as a good neighbor on http://www.goodneighbors.net/gnr.html within the Occupy Cafe good neighbor group on goodneighbor.net.  Use the group ID "CWOC" to do this.

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Start weaving your own good neighbor network locally.  

Cheryl will provide a one hour teleclass to walk you through the specifics of starting your own group in the Community Weaving network.  Join Cheryl on Thursday, August 30th, at 10am PT / 1pm ET.

Click here to sign up and receive your call-in information.

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Instructions on how to grow your own Good Neighbors Network. 

Attachments:

HELPING PEOPLE SIGN UP AS GOOD NEIGHBORS

Please print and follow the instructions on How to Grow your Good Neighbors Network.

There are three ways people can sign up as Good Neighbors and be connected to all the Good Neighbors in their group affiliation and others around the world. :

1) Sign up on line at www.goodneighbors.net/gnr.html

2) Contact a Good Neighbor who can sign you up over the phone.

3) Complete a hard copy Good Neighbors Registration and a Good Neighbor will enter the information on-line and then shred the form.

I've uploaded a hard copy of the Good Neighbor Registration form.  Use this when people don't have access to internet or don't type.  We place Good Neighbor Registration forms at the local grocery store and schools where people can pick them up, fill them out and leave them for me to pick up and enter within 48 hours of receiving them.  

 

Attachments:

Case Examples of Good Neighbors Network

Attachments:

Chapter on Community Weaving from the Change Handbook (2nd Ed.), publishers Berrett-Koehler

Attachments:

Sample of an alphabetized Resource Directory for the Oasis Group

Attachments:

I'd love to hear from those who are living in or connected to an intentional community.  How did you get involved in it. What attracted you to be a part of the intentional community you belong to?  We are seeing a trend where Good Neighbors are self-organizing into intentional communities (not all geographically based). Would love to hear your experience. 

Our work has involved leveraging social change internationally by stimulating wealth in local communities. My colleague who died a year ago in his efforts left this thought about community over and above the connection of social media:

"The corporations involved in this almost fantastical deployment of the machines and communications infrastructure that we now rely on profited for themselves and their shareholders, and certainly produced social and economic benefit around the world. Those efforts were and are so profound in influence as to transform human civilization itself. That is the Information Revolution, and it is nothing short of astonishing.

So it is safe to say that all these players in the Information Revolution — the enterprises that created it — have engendered almost immeasurable social benefit by way of connecting people of the world together and giving us opportunity to communicate with each other, begin to understand each other, and if we want, try to help each other.

It is that last phrase — “try to help each other” — which is what the phrase “social enterprise” is getting at. As Bill Gates said in 2000, “poor people don’t need computers.” and rejected a business approach to alleviating poverty. That statement served to mark the clear distinction between what traditional capitalism did and did not do. Gates’ aim at that time was to profit from people who could afford his company’s products, while those who couldn’t were largely or completely ignored. That has been the accepted limit of traditional capitalism. It has been a marvelous means of social benefit and economic advancement for many people. Nevertheless, those excluded are just left out.

The term “social enterprise” in the various but similar forms in which it is being used today — 2008 — refers to enterprises created specifically to help those people that traditional capitalism and for profit enterprise don’t address for the simple reason that poor or insufficiently affluent people haven’t enough money to be of concern or interest. Put another way, social enterprise aims specifically to help and assist people who fall through the cracks. Allowing that some people do not matter, as things are turning out, allows that other people do not matter and those cracks are widening to swallow up more and more people. Social enterprise is the first concerted effort in the Information Age to at least attempt to rectify that problem, if only because letting it get worse and worse threatens more and more of us. Growing numbers of people are coming to understand that “them” might equal “me.” Call it compassion, or call it enlightened and increasingly impassioned self-interest. Either way, we are all in this together, and we will each have to decide for ourselves what it means to ignore someone to death, or not."

http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/what-is-social-e...     

Just encountered this post on the "Resilient Communities" website (h/t David Eggleton) talking about how the core insight of an community-wide sharing that Cheryl has created a process to systematically support is also spreading organically.

It engages me at a deep level, your heart felt caring and action oriented work, Cheryl.  It challenges my imagination find my expansion into this so fully that I fill up all the corners and crevices with care... so it becomes no room for judgements and making sense and hiding.

I"m so skeptical & respectful of the action 'to help'.  In so many ways can it be harmful, damaging, antisocial.  Selfless service must be the 'highest' human endeavor. To be selfless is to love and therefore to have no motive of gain whatsoever.  But, there is still responsibility with it.  What one does 'to be helpful' without knowing about all the conditions or circumstances can make things worse, even increase the problems.  For example, wrong help can prolong or cut-off learning that would otherwise take place that would solve the deeper problem.

So, the questions, "What gifts do I have to offer?"  and "What requests/needs do I have?" have deeper elements connected.  For example, is there a trap if one of my needs is, To Be Of Help To Others?  And is it not common that so many find it difficult or impossible to ask for, or receive help?  what's that all about?

Yet, here it is, perhaps the most sacred of doors to humanity and on which I'm knocking... calling it 'being a good neighbor'.  It works as I'm ready for growing into it... on my difficult journey.

I have been living in intentional community for many years and am working with the core team of OC with a clear intention for encouraging community building. I would love to connect with you (Cheryl) soon.

Ron

When reviewing the questions for this vital conversation, I was reminded of when I lived in the mountains east of San Diego and how our little community shared fruits and vegetables that we grew with one another. Summer and fall was a time of abundance. We grew grapes, one neighbor had plum and nectarine trees, another had peach trees, and another fig trees, another apple trees. Then there was zucchini and crooked-neck squash, lettuce and tomatoes. With everyone contributing what they grew, we all had quite a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the summer and fall.

I was recently sent the attached picture by a friend. I keep it on my desktop because it reminds me of how we all feel when given a gift.

Start weaving your own good neighbor network locally.  Join me for 90 minutes as I walk you through the specifics of signing up as a Good Neighbor and starting your own Good Neighbors network in your neighborhood, school, faith-based community or group.

Join me on me onTuesday, September 4th at 8am PT / 11pm ET.

The call in number and pin are:

619-309-1058  Pin # 400758

Email me to confirm your interest to be on the call at cheryl@communityweaving.org. You can reach me at 206.240.2241 if you can't get on the call with the numbers I provided for some strange reason.

As the pioneer of Community Weaving, I specialize in designing innovative community building strategies.  These strategies increase community capacity and engage citizens to work together in order to improve quality of life while creating a more civil society.

You are also invited to join the Occupy Cafe group within the good neighbor network so you can fully participate as a virtual member of our community. Sign up as a good neighbor on http://www.goodneighbors.net/gnr.html within the Occupy Cafe good neighbor group using the group ID "CWOC".  If you have questions, please join Cheryl's call on Tuesday or email her at cheryl@communityweaving.org .

Join the good neighbor network and experience the powerful and nurturing effect of being a good neighbor.  It will touch you deeply.

Cheryl

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Weekly Cafe Calls

Regular Calls are no longer being held.  Below is the schedule that was maintained from the Fall of 2011 through Jan 10, 2013.

Mondays
"Vital Conversations" 

8-10a PDT | 11a-1p EDT | 3-5p GMT 

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"Connect 2012"

1-3p PDT | 4-6p EDT | 8-10p GMT


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"Occupy Heart" 

3-5p PDT | 6-8p EDT | 10p-12a GMT

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