Our RL community conference

Our real life Intentional Community board met over Easter in a two day conference. The aim was to get to know each other better, to agree and align our vision and work on practicalities.

I have heard it is best to get an outside facilitator in. We have several members who have been trained to be "focalizer". We took exercises from the Book ”Creating a life together”.

talking stick

We also used the talking stick (only the one with the stick talks, passes on to the next when done) and did open rounds of reflection during the day. We are getting quite good at this .. in balancing ”air time” and depth.

It took awhile, we looked into ourselves about where we got the idea that being part of a group could be rewarding. We looked into the values and situations that were part of the group experience.

We added our concern for Mother Earth and finally started to write a vision statement.

Whilst this all takes time, I feel it was worth going through more touchy feely stuff. Partly because we got to know each other on another dimension, partly because it demonstrated how in line we are with other.

We cooked and cleaned together, and in the evening had fun with singing and dancing.

dance to mother Earth

I can recommend any group starting out to do this, it builds understanding and good feelings that will help you later.