Book Club (should be on Oprah!)

A diverse collection of women, great food, fantastic conversation - a successful book club event.

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www.raisingthevillage.ca

Community Development

Mix two thought-provoking days in the GORGEOUS First Nations Longhouse at the University of British Columbia with a gaggle of people all passionate about community development - extraordinary! The conference was hosted by SPARC BC (www.sparc.bc.ca ) - a bunch of dynamic men and women who really modeled innovative community building throughout the conference.

There was a graffiti wall, there was a ‘sandbox’ to unearth shared topics of interest that diverse people could “play with”, there were numerous high and low tech ways for social networking...and the workshops themselves were highly constructive.

Of note for me was an activity done in a workshop on digital storytelling. One of the facilitators, Suzanne (http://suzanneahearne.wordpress.com/ ), had us do a writing activity. She passed around a box of assorted trinkets and people chose one that set off some kind of story line or memory. We each had 5 minutes (or so) to write, write, write....on an index card. NO other rules! What was unique and different for me was the inclusion of SCENTS in the box. I had never written a story that was inspired in the moment by a scent. (Certainly, smells are invoked when I read and write. My fellow conference participants embraced the challenge and shared our stories. They were all so unique! After each story was read - there was wonderful opportunity to interact and find the shared aspects of peoples memories associated with the scent. Definitely one of the 5 senses we tend to forget - but one that I will certainly now keep in my community building tool kit! Take the story in our book (Raising the Village) on page 27 that Tammy wrote - I can almost TASTE the hotdogs!)

Tracy