Paul Born has been exploring the phenomenon of community for most of his 25 years of professional life. He grew up in a somewhat cloistered Mennonite community in Abbotsford, BC, where he experienced a deep sense of belonging and core meaning. He reflects that as he got older he lost some of that deep connection. And he adds that when he talks to others he gets a similar sense of sadness, and even confusion as to what we mean when we talk about community in the contemporary world.
In this seminar he shares his thoughts on community and invites friends from all across Canada to join him in exploring some of the key questions and issues that emerge.
Learning Objectives:
To learn about Tamarack’s Seeking Community initiative
To hear participants’ thoughts and feelings about community
Paul Born is the President and Co-founder of Tamarack and has worked with many organizations and communities to develop innovative and sustainable ideas that motivate people to collaborative action and change. Read more here.
The Seeking Community initiative has a number of components including the following:
An exciting new tele-learning series, Seeking Community in Chaotic Times, designed to engage participants in a better understanding of the purpose and value of community in their lives and in the lives of those they serve.
A new website using the latest in Web 2.0 technology. Watch for Seeking Community.ca, which will be launched soon.
A new book by Paul Born on seeking community in chaotic times is scheduled to be released in December 2009.
The Waterloo Centre for Community Life will provide a space for local groups who want to meet and talk about building community, or where policy makers can meet to talk about what builds up community life and what breaks it down. We hope this initiative will spread across the whole country.
Paul asked those who were listening to send him an email answering the questions, “Why did you show up today? What was it about the title and description that resonated with you?”
Listen to Paul as he talks about his experience with community and invites others to share their own:
He received over 60 emails from participants involved in a wide variety of community initiatives. A few are reproduced below. The remainder can be found in the in the attached document that follows.
“We registered because we are interested in learning how to strengthen the sense of community during these challenging times in order to facilitate cooperation, collaboration, and create a common vision for our community.”
“I showed up today because I am keenly interested in your work and how it can inform the community mobilization/development work that we are doing in our organization. The opportunity to talk about community with people of common interest is an opportunity I can’t miss! I want to stay current with new trends and practices.”
“I signed up for many reasons. One is that I work as a writer for many social network groups, websites, and NGO's that work in various ways with community. But I think even more compelling for me was that I just moved to a rural area, where I don't know a single person (or at least I didn't when I first arrived) and I have been thinking a lot about what community means, why it is important, and most significantly to me right now - how to develop strong community ties among people.”
“I hold the belief that creating community is a sacred act. I feel it is the only way that we can move forward to mend our world together, in relationship with each other.”
“I am interested in learning more about community initiatives... and the relationship between building resilient communities and specific government policies and programs (at all levels) that can help achieve this goal.”
By seeking community, we can learn to develop deeper connections in our lives with our families, friends and neighbours. We can create a better world.
These are times of massive change, fueled by financial uncertainty, environmental destruction, terrorism, globalization, war, and a world food crisis. It is natural to reach out to each other for security, sense making and belonging.
Yet, many years of not really needing each other, relying on government intervention and embracing individualism and consumerism have left us without the skills or resources for community.
Many people are seeking to remedy this and are relearning the skills of community.
Tamarack’s Seeking Community initiative is intended to help them on that journey.
We say that it is our natural state to seek community, to reach out and connect with others. We believe that together we can be more and do more than we can on our own.
Many of us have community in our lives. For some it is a place where they live or a feeling they have when they go to church.
Each of us is different and each of us experiences community in our own way.
Sometimes seeking community is a search for purpose or meaning.
Paul talks about his struggle to find a definition of community:
What are the experiences in my life that called me to live and/or work in community?
What would it mean to me to “relearn the skills of community?” How might I make that kind of learning available in the communities of which I am a part?
What could I add to an interactive website like Seeking Community.ca?
Are there speakers I’d like to hear as part of the Seeking Community tele-seminar series? Email us your ideas!
How does working in community shape the person I am becoming?
To reflect on these and other important questions, refer to the Resources and Links below.
Community Engagement at Tamarack- At Tamarack, we think community engagement means people working collaboratively, through inspired action and learning, to create and realize bold visions for their common future. Read more here.
Robert Putnam on the Decline of Civil Engagement- Robert Putnam has been described as one of the most influential academics in the world today. Read about his contribution and its significance for informal educators and animateurs here.
Charter of the Human Services Planning Coalition - This document lays out the organizational structure and sector representatives for the Human Services Planning Coalition (HSPC). HSPC ensures that every perspective is considered – not just the viewpoints of experts or those supported by large budgets. A defining characteristic of the human services sector is this inter-relatedness. Read the Charter here.
Governance Options - This document presents three models for the organization of leadership in a comprehensive community initiative (CCI) – top-down, bottom-up and hybrid. It offers a consideration of where each model is most effective, and how the models combine with different sponsorship strategies to produce different results. Learn more about the models here.
Paul Born has been exploring the phenomenon of community for most of his 25 years of professional life. He grew up in a somewhat cloistered Mennonite community in Abbotsford, BC, where he experienced a deep sense of belonging and core meaning. He reflects that as he got older he lost some of that deep connection. And he adds that when he talks to others he gets a similar sense of sadness, and even confusion as to what we mean when we talk about community in the contemporary world.
