Calling all hosts. Now is the time for Conversation Café hosts worldwide to join together to create a global culture of conversation. Conversation Week 2007 (March 25-April 1) is the first global outreach campaign for Conversation Cafés in partnership with two other powerful dialogue initiatives, OrangeBand and dropping knowledge. CCs are celebrating five years of magnificent evolution from the seed CCs in Seattle in Summer 2001 to a global network of CC hosts gathering people in Cafés, bookstores, conferences, meetings and trainings around the world.

Susan Partnow will be facilitating Conversation Café host trainings. The next training will be held on January 9th at 9:00 am PST (12:00 noon EST), followed by an evening training January 30 at 5:30 pm PST (8:30 pm EST). Trainings last approximately 90 minutes.

Imagine a global conversation café. Imagine if everyone in the world asked the same question, at the same time, at Conversation Café tables around the world? Imagine everyone, everywhere being invited to select that most important question via a website voting method. Imagine hearing back from every conversation - what did you learn? What did you discover? What prejudices and blinders fell away? Imagine the world as Café, for just one week and then for a week a year and then every week, every year. A world in conversation.

Through the CC network, the outreach power of our OrangeBand partner (see article by Kai Degner, founder of OrangeBand), our web-partner, dropping knowledge (see Ian Manheimer's article about dk) and aligned dialogue organizations, CW2007 will reach out to many thousands of people globally, inviting them to help select THE questions, get trained to host a conversation, spread the word to friends, attend a conversation and celebrate their experiences post CW.

What if hostels all over the world engaged in Conversation Cafés? We are excited to be partnering with Hostelling International USA, a nonprofit membership organization founded in 1934 to promote international understanding of the world and its people through hostelling. Conversation Café is working with HI-Seattle in a pilot to see how Conversation Cafés at the Hostel can help manifest their mission - to bring about a world where intercultural dialogue and responsible travel are part of every individual's experience - to build a new generation of global citizens, unburdened by stereotypes, emboldened by open minds, appreciative of their own heritage and understanding of others, through the dialogue and education that comes through hostelling. We believe the structure of Conversation Café is a perfect marriage and are excited to explore to partner with HI's vast network of nearly 80 quality hostel accommodations throughout the United States, ranging from urban high-rise buildings to small, more remote, rural settings.

We have held three pilots since last summer, all with great success (Thanks to volunteers Susan Partnow, Paul Gleiberman and HI staff, presently spearheaded by Rachel Payne, volunteer.) The first, on a July evening, brought eight people together, including individuals from Japan, Scotland, Israel and India - as well as US, including Tennessee. The conversation was rich and connecting. We learned some key ways to build on the success (i.e. work hard to make the invitation welcoming and the joining safe - people were a bit uncertain at first - and frame some deepening questions, to get beyond the banal enumeration of the day's activities and to draw out the richness of the international diversity.

"Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation." - Kin Hubbard

Isn't it ironic that what matters most can be the most difficult to bring into conversation? So often, we are wanting and willing to move our conversations deeper, but there's no easy transition or safe environment. In 2003, some friends and I were discussing this and decided to try something to change this. It's called The OrangeBand Initiative. It's simple, it's fun, it works - and it can add a meaningful dimension to your next Conversation Café!

OrangeBands are strips of orange fabric that serve as invitations to respectful conversation about issues that we feel are important. The idea is simply put an OrangeBand someplace visible, and wait for the question, "Hey, what's that orange thing for?" or even, "What's your OrangeBand?" When asked, people can freely move the conversation to what matters to them.

dropping knowledge is excited about supporting the work of Conversation Week. It is a core belief to our theory of change that knowledge is embedded in communities, but requires the proper vehicles and mechanisms to extract and harvest it for positive change. Conversation Week is an effort to bring people together from around the world to focus on a single topic - the efforts producing a biodiversity of ways to address this universal issue.

We believe that in an information age, knowledge is the most powerful resource. dropping knowledge will act as a virtual site for both determining the topic for Conversation Week's discussion as well as a place where all the content produced can be stored and made publicly accessible.

While dropping knowledge is harnessing the incredible potential of the internet, we recognize the importance of face-to-face discussion in creating community and discussion. To these ends we fully support the work of Conversation Week in an effort to promote the democratic practice of sharing and talking both on and offline.

Susan Partnow facilitates Conversation Café host tele-conference trainings on a quarterly basis. The next training will be held on Jan. 9, 2007 at 9:00 am PST (12:00 noon EST). Please see the announcement below for registration information.

A number of questions reflect the great leap of courage and faith it takes to go from 'cold feet' to hosting your first Conversation Café. For example, How do I control the conversation when someone is dominating? How do we stimulate discussion? And how do we move it from a superficial level to a more meaningful level? The most reassuring and important response is: follow the process! The structure we have distilled is so powerful and robust, it will prevent and mitigate most of your concerns.

The process of using the Talking Object in two rounds will ensure your conversation moves beyond a superficial level. It will invite every voice in to the circle. If you, as host, begin each round and model the depth (yet brevity) of sharing, and offer some vulnerability, you will find the rest of the group will follow in that vein, and you will have a deeply connecting, heartfelt and generative conversation.

If, during the middle of the conversation you find the energy and juice lagging, you can stimulate the conversation by poising a vital question. You can play devil's advocate, "What would ____ say? (someone with an opposing view)," or challenger, "What makes that important to you?", or weaver, "How does that relate to ____?" Or my favorite question, "What is the deeper question?" !

Invite a friend to co-host with you. And remember each conversation is an experiment. There is no Right Way or Perfect Way. And it's always fascinating. So "Just Do It." !! Good luck. Enjoy.

We often feature excellent articles we've collected about conversations that matter. We welcome readers to forward powerful articles to us. Send your submission to: [email protected].

THE POWER OF WORDS
Author Unknown
There was once a wise sage who wandered the countryside. One day, as he passed near a village, he was approached by a woman who saw he was a sage, and told him of a sick child nearby. She beseeched him to help this child. The sage came to the village, and a crowd gathered around him, for such a man was a rare sight. One woman brought the sick child to him, and he said a prayer over her.

"Do you really think your prayer will help her, when medicine has failed?" yelled a man from the crowd.

"You know nothing of such things! You are a stupid fool!" said the sage to the man.

The man became very angry with these words and his face grew hot and red. He was about to say something, or perhaps strike out, when the sage walked over to him and said:

"If one word has such power as to make you so angry and hot, may not another have the power to heal?"

And thus, the sage healed two people that day.

A MANNER OF SPEAKING: WORDS THAT HEAL, WORDS THAT HARM
By Jude Acosta
opednews.com
December 7, 2006

A Manner Of Speaking -- therapeutic Suggestion And Verbal First Aid

I sit down with you across a table. I tell you about my vacation in Argentina. I begin with a journey across the pampas, describing the endless fields of grass, a parting sea of sepia between the hooves of horses, tumbling and tearing up the dry soil as we gallop towards the mountains in the distance. I tell you about the cold water we drink as we come up to a mountain stream leading to a cave and the strain in our muscles as we get off the horses. You are with me as we swing our flashlights up to see the top of the cave, 50 feet up, and the thousands of bats sleeping quietly there.

Every conversation is based on the power of suggestion. I tell you about my journey so that you can experience it with me. I share my joys and sorrows with you so you can feel what I feel.

What I say changes how you feel. What you say changes how I feel. It is the purpose of language, is it not? To convey with words a feeling, a point of view, a change of perspective.

And just as words can take you around the world- through pampas or down the Seine-to enjoyment, words can bring you pain.

We all know this instinctively: a harsh word is heard as a "knife through the heart," a frightening word, a "kick in the gut," and a kind word, a "ray of sunlight on my face." As adults we have been conditioned to deny and modify the way our bodies respond. Children have not yet acquired those defenses and the effects of our words are readily apparent in their faces and their postures.

Join our own Susan Partnow, professional trainer and CC co-founder, for a telephone training on January 9th at 9:00 am Pacific Standard Time/12:00 noon Eastern Standard Time or January 30th at 5:30 pm Pacific Standard Time/8:30 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Sign up yourself, or (and!) forward the newsletter along to other folks you know who would enjoy a jump-start into CC hosting. $12 for 90 minutes.

To register contact [email protected]

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