I am determined to take my reflective practice to a new level this year. This means becoming alert to the messages that come in subtle and surprising ways. It also means being curious with myself.
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An early passage in Paul Born's book, Deepening Community: Finding Joy Together in Chaotic Times, reflects on how the act of bringing your neighbour soup is the single most important thing people can do to make a difference in this world.
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A Model Reflecting a Decade of Experiences and Successes
For more than ten years, minority English-speaking communities in the province of Quebec have been engaged in collective efforts to improve their health and vitality. As a minority linguistic community (13% of the total population) they face many challenges such as difficulties accessing essential services in their language; a sense of being socially excluded and stereotyped; and a lack of community leadership to affect change in a coordinated and proactive way.
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How can the community be active agents of change? What's the process of creating an effective story? What's the best way for a story to motivate action? In an age of fast communication - of snippets, of 140 characters, of 7 seconds to grab attention - it is easy to reach people, but how can we use stories to truly connect?
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Brenda Zimmerman, dear friend to Tamarack and a champion of community change and innovation, died verysuddenly in mid-December. She will be deeply missed and she leaves a lasting mark on us all. Like many of you, I was inspired and honoured that Brenda chose to share her newest idea - the concept of “snap back” - with us at the 2014 Collective Impact Summit. Her thinking offers guidance for moving forward despite being surrounded by resilient systems, and we now must share her thinking broadly so that it can live on.
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Have you ever wondered what cherry blossoms in Vancouver taste like? I didn’t have the imagination to even conceive of such a question let alone answer it until I attended a dinner hosted by Elementa a collective of young culinary talents in Vancouver last spring. Not only did they serve a cup of frozen aerated cherry blossoms (It was like tasting cherry bubbles) to cleanse our palette, they also offered their rationale for presenting authentic regional tastes. Elementa chefs believe in honest food that is both true to the place where it is grown or raised and true to the people who prepare it. 'Our grapes, hops, produce and game should remind us of who we are and where we come from. We shouldn't be trying to make our food taste like food from elsewhere,' said one of them.
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