You may have noticed the conversations hosted by AB Seed and ABSI in partnership with each other over the past few months. These conversations each invite a facilitated conversation on a given topic, which is published in advance. We’re pleased to welcome Innovate Calgary as a partner in these conversations as well. All three of our organizations share the duties of surfacing topics of conversation as well as facilitating the process.
So how do these conversations work? We have several rounds of questions which we take into breakout rooms. Everyone is given three minutes to talk about their thoughts on each question, and listen in turn to the others in their room. Then we surface the themes we’ve noticed in the main area. There’s some interesting and juicy conversation which surfaces. It inevitably leaves participants with more questions than answers, and usually a bit of enthusiasm to chase up links, readings and other suggestions by fellow colleagues - or perhaps to partner with someone they met in a different way.
One way of harnessing what happens in the conversation is by writing down what we hear. When we held a conversation with the facilitation team to bring Innovate Calgary into the fold, I recorded the sentences which stuck out to me to create a ‘found phrases’ poem. Since our conversation topic was about these conversations, this poem talks about the process of sharing our thoughts and feelings together in these conversations. If you like the poem, you’ll enjoy our conversations too.
Anyone interested in the topic is welcome to come participate, so please do sign up! These are designed to spark curiosity, so they work for any type of changemaker interested in the topic. To sign up and see our latest topics, visit this link.
Found Phrases in a Curious Conversation
Always host with the harvest in mind
Muster up the courage to share what you have developed
You can’t share your yes if you can’t mean your no.
Looking to cultivate each person’s voice
Show up with grace and beauty
Get curious about other ways of doing things
Dig in to new ways of doing and interaction, listening and being.
Intention and purpose in a different way than we are used to.
Listening in the busyness of life
How do you put everything on hold?
You’re creating space, not taking it
It’s really hard to sit in silence.
Descend into conversation.
I feel energized
Dialogue means the flow of meaning
Hold space for witnessing others do the same
Resonance can’t occur unless there’s diversity
Like a tuning fork
Stand up in all your strength and beauty
Hold what you hear in tension to hear the resonance
Creates a generative, energetic field.
You might find a little more wisdom around the sides
There’s so much more to dig in the hole
There may not actually be an end
It still feels ambiguous and unknown
If it scares you, you’re probably going in the right way, if it’s the excitement part not the danger
That’s the energy we want to hold as long as we can
Confronting us with our freedom and our agencies
Anxiety is only an illness if it’s not acted upon
This idealism may be a barrier to the kind of work I do now
Maybe I won’t go
My goal is not to stay comfortable
It takes extra effort to give a voice for those not in power
We are doing this alongside each other and bear witness to each other
There is something ancient and human in this
I feel I have always had good intuition
I need to allow the wiggle room and benefit of the doubt i give to others for myself
It’s something when we host spaces where we are invited to be our whole selves.
