About

June 2015 saw us pack our bags and head for the UK, well specifically Ribby Hall, Wrea Green Lancashire in England’s North West for the 2015 ABCD Festival.

We had read the program, in fact assisted with writing the program with the ABCD team. We were looking forward to meeting very skilled ABCD practitioners and of course welcoming newbies to ABCD from around the world. Yes, we were excited.

From the moment we arrived we knew we were in the right place at the right time. We got straight into the spirit and helped deliver participants food hampers, what a great way to get to know fellow participants. It became evident that the festival had attracted people from diverse backgrounds and countries. In fact, almost 200 festival goers from 21 countries. The opportunity to immerse ourselves in 5 day learning environment with like-minded people with diverse experience and knowledge was one we were definitely going to embrace.

As the festival got underway the opportunity to hear from an amazing line up of presenters including John McKnight, Jody Kretzmann, Cormac Russell and our Aussie colleague Peter Kenyon allowed us to reflect on our practice, understand where ABCD came from and where the future may lead and listen to some entertaining stories. Colleagues from South Africa, Canada and England shared stories of ABCD application in a variety of settings.

Topic tents was the real “GOLD” of the festival, Dee did an amazing job of co-ordinating the sessions to allow participants to explore issues important to them or join a discussion that appealed to them. As always the best learnings and connections were made over discussions during the breaks, meal times and evening activities.

The festival embraced the “community” spirit, providing us with the opportunity to cook an evening meal for other festival goers and have others prepare an evening meal for us. A highlight and pleasure of the festival was to hosting our Vietnamese neighbours and to be hosted the following night by our Dutch colleagues for dinner. A great opportunity to swap stories and learn from each other.

Highlights for Michelle were abundant although being able to connect with John and Jody in person gaining a deeper understanding of the history of the Asset Based Community Development movement, meeting Jody’s talented wife Ingrid and the expert team from Coady and having the opportunity to spend some time with Peter Kenyon were definite moments of total gratitude. Michelle was inspired by the passion of all delegates for community and the collective understanding that communities have the skills and passion to lead change for things that they care deeply about.  As John McKnight noted in his presentation “It’s about democracy” and for Michelle, ABCD is all about valuing and listening to everyone in communities. Leaving the festival was difficult after having 5 days of total immersion in ABCD however on a high note, Michelle’s tool kit is overflowing with knowledge, stories and experiences from the ABCD collective.

Highlights for Dee were also many! Being able to connect face-to-face with practitioners who had previously only been faces on Skype or names in an email was the best experience. Catching up with Jody Kretzmann, after many years since his last visit to Australia, was a wonderful way to start the week and learning more about Ingrid’s inspiring work was a bonus along with spending time with John and Marsha! Facilitating the Topic Tents and Open Space sessions are always a blast but this one was special; it’s not often that so many ABCD practitioners are in the one room together so, “organising the organisers” was definitely a highlight! Team Coady’s input from many different countries assisted in a rich sharing of knowledge and wisdom and, as is usual, the evening gatherings, after a big day of work, were where deeper connections were made over a pint or two! The success of the festival guarantees the likelihood of future gatherings and we are looking forward to being part of the team again and meeting more like-minded people through our participation.

As Jody said, in his closing remarks, “[ABCD practitioners] are Defenders of the Small. The smaller we remain [in practice], the more we are able to focus on the local and the more powerful the movement is.”

With this said, we invite you consider to start thinking big about thinking small and join us on the wave of change!

Yours in community,

Michelle and Dee

ABCD Asia Pacific Facilitators

By Michelle Dunscombe

When you walk into your local Op Shop what do you see? Probably just a range of second hand goods at a bargain price.

You may be aware that you are supporting a charity or a local community organisation but what you don’t see or consider is the great social impact and community building roles your local op shop plays in your community.

Many Op Shops are not just a social enterprise supporting community through the sale of goods, did you know they

• provide a place for our retirees to come together to “give back” to their communities
• support mums returning to work get their mojo (confidence) back
• are a place for long term unemployed to gain training, new skills and confidence when embarking upon returning to the workforce
• encourage young people and uni students gain valuable work experience
• work with local disability services to provide local volunteering opportunities for their clients
• up skill their volunteers through training
• give social support people with mental health issues

A local shop recently had an impromptu performance by a customer purchasing a guitar to the delight of volunteers and other customers.

 

Op Shops are in the business of building a sense of community, connecting people, creating opportunities for residents to explore possibilities and providing a common purpose for their volunteers.

Definitely, more than just a 2nd hand shop – they provide opportunities.

When you shop at your local op shop you are not just getting a bargain you are recycling, supporting community building activities and contributing to real grassroots asset based community development in your town.

ABCD & : productive and powerful together!

By Dee Brooks

There’s a key area of ABCD community building and/or asset mapping which I emphasise strongly in workshops and it’s one of the powerful, blended areas between ABCD and Art of Hosting work which helps with turning ideas into actions!

In Connect! Don’t Collect: The Art of Community Mapping, we looked at the 3 key steps of asset mapping:

• Discover the assets
• Join the assets together
• Create opportunities for these assets to be productive and powerful together

Discovery:ABCDoffers a way for communities to discover their untapped resources, uncover individual talents, skills and abilities and link to organisational or service supports. It’s the discovery of these often hidden treasures that gets people super excited and keen to move forward looking through the glass half full lens!

Join the assets together:ABCD offers frameworks to discover shared talents and skills, where can they be joined together in a physical environment and what (if anything) can organisations or services offer to strengthen what communities are already doing? New ideas emerge from reciprocal community conversations and practitioners, by building community capacity, lead by stepping back!

Create opportunities:Opportunities create more opportunities! Through the Art of Hosting’s participatory leadership practices and processes, the new ideas, which are emerging, can take concrete shape. The following are some, but by no means all, of the practices which community members can learn how to facilitate, self-direct and support each other in moving forward:

Circle Practiceis the basic form underlining all other forms of participatory process.  In every type of organization or group, we meet in circles (even if they are around a boardroom table) to plan for the future, handle crisis, and listen to each other.Meeting in circle can be especially helpful when getting to know each other and the issue at hand, or as a means for deep reflection or consensus making.

 World Café is a facilitated dialogue process for anywhere from 10 to 1000 people and imitates a café setting where small groups (4-6 people per group) are in conversation about an issue to find out what a community is thinking and feeling about a topic.

 Open Space Technologyis a powerful tool for engaging large groups of people in discussions to explore particular questions or issues. It can be used with groups from anything between 10 and 1,000 people.Convened around a calling question, the space is opened for anyone to pose a session topic.  Over the course of the meeting, people are free to choose which session(s) they most want to attend, bringing maximum enthusiasm and commitment for conversation and action.  Personal buy-in and committed action can be achieved in a remarkably short time.

Theory U is a framework (or way) to understand and design social change. It’s an approach that focuses as much on the inner condition of participants as the outer work of changing systems and culture.Theory U can be useful for building community, finding fresh solutions and redesigning service approaches.

By creating the opportunity for people to engage with each other around conversations that matter, combined with the identification of the myriad of community strengths and assets, powerful engagement and productive work can thrive ascommunities discover; their own potential to address local challenges, their ability to learn from shared successes and their unique power when tapped into their collective wisdom!

If you would like to join us for some Art Of Hosting Training please register here