Communities Magazine #164 (Fall 2014) - Community Conversations

Community Conversations

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• Publisher’s Note: Enhancing Community Where You Are by Laird Schaub
• Stephen Gaskin Dies at 79 by Laird Schaub
• Notes from the Editor: Talking about Community by Chris Roth
• Deepening Community: The joy of togetherness by Paul Born
  Community grows when we make time to share our stories, enjoy one another, take care of one another, and work on building a better world together.
• Creating a Movement by Rachel Brnjas
  Seeking Community and other initiatives of the Tamarack Institute aim to catalyze a community revitalization movement.
• Community Conversations Campaign: Final Thoughts and Next Steps by Derek Alton
  In an age when prioritizing community is itself radical, self-awareness, self-care, and storytelling are essential to deepening our connections.
• A Community Conversation at Whole Village by Sylvia Cheuy
  For intentional community members, community comes with added benefits, unique challenges, and a call to authenticity.
• The Community We Built by Carly Fraser
  Residents of Guelph, Ontario, build community with intention in an existing suburban neighborhood.
• Village Conversations: Delburne’s Story by Nora Smith and Karen Fegan
  Nearly half of a Canadian town’s residents, from “all sides of the street,” participate in its Community Conversations initiative.
• Sharing Stories and Rituals by SILC Guelph
  By sitting down to talk, a forming intentional community reconnects with its reasons for coming together..
• Kawsmos: The Unintentional Community by Mary Wharff, Elizabeth Schultz, and Deborah Altus
  After 11 years of gathering, a group of Kaw Valley’s cosmic explorers realizes that community has happened to them.
• Love and Bucket Brigades, Interdependence and Evolution: A Community Conversation at Lampa Mountain Community by Sara Donna
  A small communal family discusses how they got good at cooperating, and other essentials of collective life.
• A Welcome Intimacy, or Too Little Privacy?: Community Conversations at Lost Valley by Macy Osborne
  Is community living the best thing since sliced bread, or the worst thing since sliced bread? It depends who—and when—you ask.
• Meta-Conversation: an Exercise in Whimsical and Critical Facilitation by Melanie Meltzer and Mollie Nisen
  When they crave an especially deep or challenging discussion, Gesundheit!’s meta-conversers excuse themselves (from the mundane)—then stir the collective pot, lie down, or go for a walk.
• Conversations, Continuity, and Community by Paul Freundlich
  Dancers learn to embrace change, cooperation, and the physical component of communication.
• Conversations Take Wing: The RareBirds Housing Cooperative Story by Mary Jordan
  Friends explore their visions and shared purpose, and an intentional community is born.
• From Conversation to Community: How a Bunch of Mates Bought Some Land Together by John Hepburn
  “Wouldn’t it be great to buy a block of land together in the bush?” Dinner party conversations yield unexpected fruit.
• On the Ropes at Harbourside Cohousing by Margaret Critchlow
  When creating community becomes a literal tightrope walk, how do the actively aging fare?
• Oakleigh Meadow Cohousing Hard at Work “Building Community, One Conversation at a Time” by Cindy Nickles
  Members of a forming community learn about empathy, understanding, conflict-handling, and other elements of healthy communication.
• Jewish Intentional Community Building in the US by Rachael Cohen
• Agriculture, Wild Foods, and the Future: a story about how changing community changed my perspective by Wren Vile
• It Is My Turn by Marianne Gueymard
• Koh Panyee: A Thriving Community, Defying the Odds by Peter McGugan
• The Investment’s Fine—Join the Pool! by Richard Grossman
• Radical Governance Changes in Two North American Ecovillages by Diana Leafe Christian
• Creating Cooperative Culture—Seeing the Good in the World, Part II: Transformative Learning Experiences at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage by Morgan Middlebrooks and Joshua Lockyer