AUSTRALIA:
Location:
Celebrating the completed life of Elaine Richmond
About 15 ICA colleagues from various parts, joined Ray, his family,
members of the West End Uniting Church family and friends in a beautiful
Memorial
Service on Wednesday, 29th September, to celebrate Elaine Richmond's
life.
We felt the presence of many others of you there as well.
The service was simple, incorporating decor and songs, prayers and hymns
representing the globality, courage, universality, caring and fun of
Elaine's wonderful gift to history.
On behalf of Ray, Bruce Robinson reflected on Elaine's life, and shared
her
final YES YES YES, Its ALL RIGHT, and the shared singing of The Rose.
The ashes were symbolically placed on the table at the front of the
church. At the end of the service Ray bowed low, and wrapped Elaine's
ashes
in the 'earthrise' cloth,
and offered them up to the mystery.
Following the service there were many connections renewed and revisited,
over refreshments.
By about early afternoon, some 15 of us adjourned to the Miesens, who
graciously hosted
us for the rest of the day. As you might imagine, there was a wonderful
amount of reminiscing and story telling.
By about mid afternoon, the conversation began to focus on the future of
the ICA
globally and in Australia. This became a profoundly caring and moving
conversation, and the group decided to share these insights by email as
well, as part of our thinking and planning. This is posted on a separate
email, for anyone else interested in participating in this ongoing
discussion.
We felt the presence of several guardian angel colleagues watching over us
all.
As the sun set, we shared the loaves and fishes and vino, more stories
around the Miesen's great collegium table (ex-Brisbane House!) and ended
the evening with a powerful medley of spirit songs, concluding with 'The
Rose', one of Elaine's favourite songs.
In love and gratitude to Ray and Elaine, and the ICA family,
John and Robyn Hutchinson rjhutchinson@optusnet.com.au
ToP Methods in Action
Robert Chaffe and his associates have been facilitating a series of meetings in the Southwestern Region of the State of Victoria on the future of the region and developing responses to changes in conditions and markets through large scale changes such as climate change, world markets and currency fluctuations. The businesses concerned included aquaculture, farming, dairy, horticulture and forestry among others. Over 600 people attended the meetings during the several months of the program, and developed a cooperative and creative collaboration with one another that lasted far beyond the particular meetings. The meetings were sponsored by the state government and during the evaluation sessions the participants affirmed strongly that the facilitation style, respecting their wisdom and enabling significant open dialog, had been key to the results of the meetings, and their ongoing cooperative efforts. The program and the meetings were a sign of how much government initiatives can enable a wide variety of vital business interests to meet the challenge of change with creativity and energy.
RIchard Maguire unfolding@smartchat.net.au
