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March 9-15, 2003 is Conversation Week!

The first Conversation Week was strictly a Seattle event. This second time around, Conversation Week is a North American event, with over 50 Conversation Cafés in cities such as Tucson AZ, Salt Lake City UT, Louisville KY, Carmel and Indianapolis IN, Vero Beach FL, York PA, Cleveland OH, across the Bay Area in CA and a whopping 13 cafés in Toronto! And with inquiries from Argentina to New Zealand, next year could be a world-wide celebration. View the Proclamation from the City of Seattle.

Hosts from cafés across the U.S. and Canada will ask questions during Conversation Week about the theme "Stop the World-Let's Talk!". So slow down your life a little and discover the pure pleasure of sharing ideas (and part of yourself) with people you don't even know yet.Tell a friend or bring a friend, and join the conversation at a café near you.

How can you participate?

We encourage you to have fun and a little adventure with Conversation Week.

1) Start a new Conversation Cafe, either a one-time experiment just for Conversation Week, or recruit some backup support and keep it ongoing. You don't have to be an experienced host to do it. Sure, maybe too many people show up, maybe too few. Take a friend and enjoy the adventure! How many opportunities for adventure do we have in our daily lives? If you let us know about it, we'll help to publicize it. But you don't NEED publicity. You just need people. You could go to the food court in a shopping mall, put a sign on your table, and ask passers-by if they would like to join a conversation! How about on a long ferry or train commute? Waiting for a flight at the airport? We will report on any of these experiments if you share them, by publishing them on our web site and sending them to the media! Contact Leslie to report what you either intend to do or succeeded in doing.

2) Use the Conversation Week Questions. From a long list of questions generated by some long time hosts relating to our theme,we honed these three questions. There is one Thinking, one Feeling, and one Doing question. Choose one, or offer them all. Again, we would love to have some interesting feedback on the ideas and comments that these questions generate for you and your Cafe.

Thinking: "Most people struggling with their everyday lives seem to have little time or energy to really participate in democracy. If we find a way to slow down a little, what changes in the world seem possible?"

Feeling: "Has a conversation ever changed the way you feel about the world?"

Doing: "Has a conversation ever changed the way you live or caused you to do something new?"

3) Invite a celebrity to your Cafe! The leader of your church? A City Council member? An author? A musician? The owner of a local business? Here's another chance for adventure, a way to stretch out of the mundane. Sure, the mayor might say no, but he/she might say yes or suggest someone even better. If you are having wonderful success and get more than one yes, let me know and I'll find another cafe that needs a celebrity. Remember, you are asking the special guest to "participate" NOT "preside" or "present." They have no more or less responsibility than any one else. That probably will come as a welcome relief to most.

4) Attend a Conversation Cafe and bring someone new with you! And even if you are not a host or ready to be a host, you can still ask your favorite host how you can help.

Host Training

Vicki Robin will lead a special host training that will take place in Seattle on February 27th. This training will introduce new and prospective hosts to the basic principles and finer points of hosting Conversation Cafés. Spread the word that this opportunity is coming up, and let us know that you are interested. For more information, please email Leslie.

Publicity
Please help us spread the word about Conversation Week. Download the flier shown here, and print in color or black and white, and post!

Cosponsors

We have some great partners/cosponsors for Conversation Week. If your organization would like to join our celebration by helping to promote Conversation Week, recruit new hosts and cafe locations, send participants to the cafés, or underwrite a portion of the celebration, please email Larry. We look forward to partnering with you!

Antioch Center for Creative Change
Center for Ethical Leadership
Center For Life Decisions
City Club
KCTS
King County Dispute Resolution Center
Local People’s Assembly
New Road Map Foundation
PeerSpirit
Pomegranate Center
Puget Sound Network for Compassionate Communication
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods
Tools for Change
UW Evans School of Public Affairs
World Affairs Council
YES! Magazine

Cafe Owners

Conversation Cafés can create real community in your place of business! They bring in new and repeat customers, and communicate to other customers that "something's going on here." We encourage café owners (and restaurants or bookstores with a café component) to start now if you are interested in getting a café going in time for Conversation Week. For more information, please email Kat.

Special Guests

Richard Conlin, City Councilmember, Enrique Cerna, Executive Producer, KCTS, Jon Luopa, Minister at University Unitarian Church, Milenko Matanovic, artist, community organizer, and founder of the Pomegranate Center, Joe Crookston, singer/songwriter. Vicki Robin, bestselling author of Your Money or Your Life, and founder of Conversation Cafes! Continuing the tradition of the first Conversation Week, part of the excitement of coming to a Conversation Cafe during this special week is the chance to meet a well known community leader, government official, book author, or celebrity of any kind. A special guest is just another participant in the conversation, a real person talking and listening with other real people. If you would like to invite (or propose that we invite) someone as a special guest, please contact Leslie.