Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.....If you wish to SEND a report...send to your ICA contact person OR...go to the members section on the ICA International website

Week ending: Saturday 2010 06 05

AUSTRALIA:

The organizers of an international conference, “From Global Crisis to Green Future,” held May 28-29 in Sydney, wanted a conference format that gave participants a greater opportunity for involvement and collaboration on this important topic, rather than the usual format of speeches followed by questions from the floor. They invited Richard Maguire to develop a facilitation model with them to use during the three plenaries and two sets of seven workshops. Each plenary was scheduled to have six 10 minute presentations in a theatre style lecture hall, followed by conferee discussion and input. The workshops were arranged to have three 10 minute presentations followed by discussion in seminar rooms. In the plenaries, alternate rows formed groups, held an ORID based conversation, and created a question for the speakers. They each reported back key points and asked the questions. In the workshops, the participants as a whole group asked two questions of each speaker and then contributed to listing what stood out for them, what the key points were and possible actions. They asked Richard to facilitate the first plenary as a demonstration, and then the other sessions were facilitated by people who had attended a planning session or who had agreed to follow the agreed facilitation pattern. 
 
The conference members participated enthusiastically, and during the plenary discussions the presenters took the chance to have a small group discussion with one another. The participants, presenters, and conference organizers were pleased with the sense of engagement and enthusiasm for the topics, the depth of the questions, and possibilities for action that emerged. One trade union official from Toronto, Canada told the conference how delighted he was to experience the collegial collaborative atmosphere during the two days and that he planned to make use of what he had experienced in his organisation in Canada. Through their experiences, all involved found new spirit and hope for creating a human future in response to the many crises facing humanity today.

Best wishes

Richard           unfolding@smartchat.net.au

ITERLENG ICA South Africa:

Location: Johannesburg

Greetings from ICA South Africa

We have changed our email addresses. We can now be contacted at the following addresses:

info@ica-southafrica.org
fisser@ica-southafrica.org
muzi@ica-southafrica.org

Regards

Fisser

ICA International:

Location: Montreal

This past week found us busy with final preparations for the Tour to Transform Lives, which was held on Sunday, June 6. We created a press release, which we distributed to local media and circulated on online newswires. Click here to view the press release on the event website. We also received our t-shirts, which were printed by a local company. We were very pleased with the shirts and wore them proudly during the Tour. If you are interested in purchasing your own, at a cost of $20 each, please contact Chelsea at cmatheson@icai-members.org.

Team members put a final push on their personal fundraising. We have concentrated our efforts on collecting donations online through personal giving pages. This system allowed participants to create their own pages and collect donations from their friends and family. Our giving pages were hosted by CanadaHelps.org, a Canadian NGO.

The Tour to Transform Lives was a wonderful success. It was an excellent teambuilding event for our staff and a great opportunity to meet some of our local supporters. The route was challenging, particularly given the cold and rainy weather, but we finished strong and are excited to do it again next year! We enjoyed exploring Montreal and promoting ICA in the community. Thanks to everyone who came out on Sunday and offered their support.

Also this week, we produced a World Environment Day email, which was distributed to ICA members and supporters. The email celebrated June 5 as a special day to stimulate action on the environment and to empower people from every corner of the globe to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development.

If you still haven’t seen the most recent issue of the Network Exchange, click here to view it online. If you have comments on any of the articles, or suggestions for future articles, we’d love to hear your feedback at info@ica-international.org.

Lambert visited Chicago to meet with the director of ICA USA and members of the Board.

Staff           info@ica-international.org