See also the 7 Café principles in action for your own reflection and sharing: How have they been used during this CCI?.

Results of coco café (Notes of Marlies)

How do we harvest inspiration?

New formats in coco!!

Bring in coco-café next year in Hungary

Become aware of new developments

• Innovation
• Experiment
• Exchange
• Agreements
• Create space
• Design
• Who is willing to support this for next CCI 2011?
• Coco organization = learning organization
• How do we take decisions?

 Effects in general (summary of a phone call between Marjan T and Rudolf, August 2010

• Enlarge CCI practice
  In addition to sessions and workshops with a focus on the own inner process of the I a process of dialogue of the We can be a self developing force of Co-Counselling itself as well as it can connect people with their strengths and various abilities for benefits of all.
  Strengthening the skills of using dialogue and interaction outside of sessions.

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  • Co-reflection about what has been happening during the CCI
  • Meaning generated in time and space focused and concentrated at Coco workshop gets  shared and widespread in the structure of CoCo Cafés

• Shared experiences

  Common interest and statements, feeling connection perceived relevance communal sense of topics in the CCI network, eg. aging, sense of community/belonging in the CCI network

• Process: as collective and practical

  Outcome is rewoven in the themes of the workshops, program offering and tablecloths.
  Enfolded and easy going process to settle needs and support groups accordingly in opening circles, announcements, etc.  EG. No tension of using alcohol during the CCI it has come to a natural place in the larger scheme of the week that was well founded in the collective of the community

• Skills participants:

  • Stimulated interpersonal competence: social cooperation by dynamic listening and active listening, stimulation of convert and invert thinking
  • Stimulated cooperative behavior: intersubjectivity* of community interest, exchange of ideas, feelings, information
  • Stimulated emotional regulation,  involvement and social responsibility, open attitude

• Coco Café follow up outcomes in the week:

  • Workshops:  Dialogue offering of the D.Bohm kind
  • Table conversations during lunch, tea
  • Support groups: culture setting, theme,
  • Business meeting

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  •  
    • Decision-making in the network
    • Using next year Coco Cafe at the CCI: temperature check

• Program > Coco Café

  Theme and information teachers' meeting > table clothes
  Workshop à insight, questions at tables clothes

Some reflections on the Need and value to combine and interweave of Dialogic processes with Co-Counselling International ( by Agota Ruzsa )

Part 1

I got to learn co-counselling from Mary Corr and John Heron in 1986. It took place over two x 3 days with the weekend of the Chernobyl catastrophe in between ,when the information reached the public awareness only 3-4 days after the event! This in itself was very symbolic of the need to develop a sense of collective responsibility, the need to share exact and correct information, and also the realization that for nuclear pollution there is NO Iron curtain whatsoever! This realization in the time of Global Climate Change is even more obvious on a large scale.

CCI in Hungary then and there - in the 80s - was a very innovative and subversive process to develop individual responsibility for our selves as well as to develop peer group based communities. Co-Counselling sessions of the peerness between the two self-workers while developing awareness and skills for self directed personal work, thus enforcing the idea of self responsibility has been essential for all my practice since then.

Part 2

In 1988, after CCI Ireland I was offered a course run by a spiritually focused intentional community in Mickleton, England and Mary Corr came with me as well. Why do I bring up The Emissaries?  Because after CCI and its free and individual spirit of the participants we found ourselves in a community of a hierarchical leadership, of an ideology of spiritual  hierarchy somewhat manifested by the communities’ internal structure as well, where the course involved 4 hour long lectures in the morning, work in the community in the afternoon, reflection space in the evening with attunement and care for the collective.

I must admit, then and there it was a pain for both of us to stick to... ( Mary actually left the room once feeling truly imposed upon by a talk...)

And yet, this community hosted one of the very first Dialogues with David Bohm in the 80s, which gave rise to the book The Implicate Order.

In 1992 I was invited by the same community in the US and after 3 months stay there - on my way home - I went to the USA CCI.  When I said mentioned to some community members  in LA that CCI was close to Boston, and that I did a lot of work on facilitation at Surrey with ideas and principles from J.Heron, they immediately offered me the opportunity to join a new initiative at MIT, Learning Organisation Center, called The Dialogue Facilitation Project, coordinated by William Isaacs, who originally gotto know Bohm in England. This shared work of inquiry then went on for almost 2 years with ca. 18 of us in the group, including only two foreigners and also including Juanita Brown who later developed with her partner, David Isaacs The World Café.

I do remember how the two processes, Dialogue for a week and  soon after that a week at CCI USA,  shaped and formed my awareness, skills and deepened my commitment for self and collective work.

To me both are essential and complementary work in personal and social transformation  as well as in the dimensions of the transpersonal.

In 1999? at CCI Hungary, I did introduce Bohm and his dialogue as an exciting contribution to what we have been about, yet then I just used a more theoretical model of my understanding...yet Ildiko Kaminszki from Hungary really got fired up and thanks to her encouragement in 2004 I started my Dialogue facilitator program  so when I was drawn back to CCI in Germany in 2009, I - together with many - could sense readiness for a collective shift in our approaches, thus I initiated a Dialogue workshop and its off shoots again...a lot more interest this time...so much that in 2010 McCoco and  CCI Ireland has beautifully wet the ground and generated experience for those us us who want to go on with the merging of individual and collective inquiry.

My understanding

The core idea and principles of peer work, shared responsibility and processes and space to allow for inquiry are equally valid. Just as the necessary prerequisite for deep work we need to have the balance of attention, which to me in the Bohmean dialogue translates into the competence to suspend feelings and opinion in order to be able to generate aware and mindful attention in the whole group to inquire into generative pattern.

The ability to develop sustained attention to be able to hold feelings and patterns of thought as long as they unfold is also a prerequisite of the ability to see and hold and - if needed - to discharge feelings so that deep patterns could be perceived and observed ( the idea so strongly emphasized by Krishnamurti! ). and transformed.

The realization that in the course of deep personal work you touch on and dive into collective patterns that you might be working with, not necessarily for your own sake but to release patterns in the collective is also a shared understanding in dialogue.

Last week on the 23rd of October, a Hungarian national Day since 1956  some of us initiated a Social Transformation group where we work with and harmonize The World Cafe, and Open Space with deep Dialogue and Systems constellation as well as rituals and ceremonies connected to the heart and aim to end this 2.5 day program with systemic change design leading to some personal and collective action.

i feel so excited! In this process co-counselling will need to be integrated and I think to run a programme like this with co-counsellors makes it even more powerful.

yet,  the traditional approach to fundamentals seem to act as a stumbling block at times so the other excitement for me is the idea of the CCI Learning Log which in a more flexible yet controlled and organic way can introduce fundamental skills for people interested in the transformation work?

Probably that is it for now.   I rejoice and feel inspired by the direction we are taking as it seems to be able to cherish what we have while let is grow in new branches and directions as well. 

 

 

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For Reflection: The 7 Café Principles in Action?

How have they been used during the CCI?

1. Set The Context

   When you have a clear idea of the what and why of your Café then the how becomes much easier.

2. Create Hospitable Space

   Consider choosing warm, inviting environments with natural light and comfortable seating. Hospitable space begins with the invitation to attend a Café. Include the theme or central question you'll be exploring in your Café in the invitation. State it as an open-ended exploration,

3. Explore Questions That Matter

   Knowledge emerges in response to compelling questions. Find questions that are relevant to the real-life concerns of the group. Powerful questions that "travel well" help attract collective energy, insight, and action as they move throughout a system.

4. Encourage Everyone's Contribution

   People engage deeply when they feel they are contributing their thinking to questions that are important to them. Encourage all participants to contribute to the conversation. As Meg Wheatley says "Intelligence emerges as a system connects to itself in new and diverse ways."

5. Connect Diverse Perspectives

   Ask members to offer their individual perspectives and listen for what is emerging "in the middle of the table." Use the tablecloths and markers to create a "shared visual space" through drawing the emerging ideas.

6. Listen Together and Notice Patterns

   Listening is a gift we give to one another. The quality of our listening is perhaps the most important factor determining the success of a Café.

7. Share Collective Discoveries

   Conversations held at one table reflect a pattern of wholeness that connects with the conversations at the other tables. The last phase of the Café involves making this pattern of wholeness visible to everyone.

 

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