The World Cafe

World as Cafe

by Michaela Sieh | Oct 29, 2017 | Poetry, World as Cafe

Early Dawn

Awaken to the world-as-café.

Humanity breathing, sounding

Networks of conversations

Vibrating in resonant waves,

Connecting human consciousness,

Greeting a new day.

Here, sit at your table.

We welcome you.

Anne Dosher

This is the first in a series of blog posts to honour Anne Dosher, Guardian of the Soul of The World Cafe. Anne has been a wonderful guide and steward since the World Cafe was born in 1995.

To celebrate Anne’s 95th birthday, we collected stories and greetings from the global World Cafe community.

Introduction to Magic in the Middle – Part Four

by Amy Lenzo | Oct 25, 2017 | Finn Voltofte, Stepping In

By Finn Voldtofte, 2005

Transformative Power
To be in a field with magic in the middle transforms those that make up the field. In principle two things are transformed: my ability to be myself, and my ability to be completely present in a meeting with other people. It is always possible to become better at being myself, and it is always possible to become better at meeting with others. Maybe the two are prerequisites for each other.

The transformation takes shape as a gradual degeneration of whatever keeps me from being myself completely, and whatever keeps me from being completely present in a meeting. What that might be for the individual, and how it is gradually degenerated, dissolved and overcome, I do not know – I only claim that it happens.

The power to transform may reach further than to the people that make up the field, if we place the ability to think together for a cause, and something wise results from it. To be able to engage the magic in the middle of people in an organization is a means to transform that organization.

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This is the fourth of six weekly posts taken from an Introduction to Magic in the Middle written by the late Finn Voldtofte in March of 2005 (click the following links to go directly to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5, or Part 6).

Finn was one of the original co-founders of the World Café. He worked tirelessly with Juanita Brown to distill and articulate the World Café Design Principles that underlie all World Café practice. Finn was an amazing human being who inspired and touched many, many people on a profound level. His articulation of the “Magic in the Middle” is still one of the most evocative descriptions of what makes World Café “work” and we are honored to publish his words here in this crucial time, when they ring as truly & eloquently as ever.

Parent Cafes: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

by Michaela Sieh | Oct 23, 2017 | North America, Stories, Wiser Together

Lina Cramer, one of our Stewardship Council Members, shares her experience with World Cafe in her work with parents and families:

I was introduced to the World Cafe a little over 10 years ago. I was searching for a way to impart information to parents that honored their commitment, respected their knowledge and encouraged them to keep loving and learning. I knew a lot about child development, had studied various parenting curricula – even written a couple, yet I was never truly satisfied with the many approaches that assumed that parents need to be ‘trained’ or ‘taught’. And, as a parent myself, I was well aware that parenting is a continual on the job training opportunity. Kids are different, times are different, family life is often a ‘juggling act’.

Parents know a lot, do a lot and care a lot. Yet, no parent has it all figured out all of the time. Most parents always carry a long ‘to do’ list in their heads – only to be matched by a ‘worry list’ about all the things that aren’t working or what they should have done. In truth, we parents are our own worst critics.

I wanted something different. Something that would engage parents in ways that foster learning and sharing. In Summer 2006, I invited a colleague and friend Lisa to work with our Design Team of Parent Leaders who had accepted the challenge of creating an innovative way to share information about protective factors with parents. Protective Factors are qualities in families that contribute to keeping children safe and families strong. Early in our work together, Lisa suggested we create Parent Cafes to share our information. She held up her book: The World Cafe: Shaping Our Future Through Conversations That Matter and said we could adapt the World Cafe to work with parents, i.e. Parent Cafes. We were intrigued; none of us were familiar with World Cafe. That same day, Lisa hosted a Cafe with our team to explore the protective factors. We were amazed – we laughed, we cried, we shared stories, worries and hopes for our families. We had never had such a deep conversation together! Inspired, we set about designing conversations that would elicit the wisdom and desires of parents about keeping their children safe and their families strong.

Introduction to Magic in the Middle – Part Three

by Amy Lenzo | Oct 18, 2017 | Collective Intelligence, Collective Wisdom, Europe, Finn Voltofte, Stepping In

By Finn Voldtofte, 2005

Collective Intelligence – Collective Wisdom
Intelligence here simply means the ability to think – that is to reflect, consider, examine, learn, be absorbed, distinguish … .

The shift in awareness, from the individual to the magic in the middle of a group of people, is also a shift towards paying attention to the emerging ability to think together, the collective intelligence of the group.

A collective intelligence has the possibility of thinking at a different level than we can individually. The characteristics of a collective intelligence can be described intuitively with the words “higher”, “deeper”, “broader”, “bigger” … .

What we gain by making use of this ability to think together, we could call collective wisdom. Collective wisdom is thus a form of knowledge that we, in principle, do not have access to individually, but that can only arise in our common field. As such it is not knowledge that we have in common; it is knowledge that only emerges in communities.

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This is the third of six weekly posts taken from an Introduction to Magic in the Middle written by the late Finn Voldtofte in March of 2005 (click the following links to go directly to Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5, or Part 6).

Connecting Heart to Heart

by Michaela Sieh | Oct 16, 2017 | Community, Community, Online, Stepping In, Stories

This blog post was written by Tony Pfeiffer – who was a member of the all-volunteer hosting team for the online Community Cafes when he contributed this post. Tony lives in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

World Cafe is not what I thought it is. World Cafe is much more! My first exposure (2014) was in the book “Mapping Inner Space” by Nancy Margulies. There was a graphic of the World Cafe on page 43. My first impression was “Hmmm, what is this about?”. I found the World Cafe site. As I moved around the site I was intrigued. My logic was that seems like it would work. And, I saw it as merely a physical event.

Fall 2016, I took a fresh look at World Cafe. Oh, there is an online Cafe monthly. When I looked at the time commitment of 2.5 hours I thought how can I do that? Then, in December I attended my first ever World Cafe. It felt like a home coming reunion. Each break out session gave me 3 new people to interact with people from all over the world. It felt safe, sacred, and special.

Next Generation Stepping In

by Michaela Sieh | Oct 11, 2017 | Africa, Community, Stepping In, Stories, Wiser Together

On this International Day of the Girl, we share words from an eighteen-year-old girl – about her experiences of participating in circles and World Cafe and her wish to host conversations that truly matter. What a joy it is to witness our next generation of hosts stepping in!

I’m Dorothee, an eighteen-year-old girl from Belgium. I graduated from a Waldorf High School in June 2017 and I decided to take a gap year.

Now I’m currently living in a community in Zimbabwe, Kufunda Learning Village. I arrived mid-August and I will stay until mid-December. I’m here as a volunteer teaching in the small Waldorf-inspired Primary School.

Kufunda Learning Village is a rural community where people live and work together, driven by their passions. There is a permaculture garden, they harvest and process food themselves. Besides that, Kufunda is also a learning center and they host workshops and modules or go out into other communities to host modules. Art of Hosting is not only the core of their hosting activities, it is also deeply present in the way they live. It is not my first time to get in touch with Art of Hosting, Circles or World Cafés but I’ve never been surrounded by so many hosts nor have I been in a place where it is practiced in everyday life. I feel it in the little things.

Just some days after I had arrived, I joined the teachers’ 3-day-workshop. How amazed I was the first day, that we did a check-in at the beginning of the day and check-out at the end. Also, the following two days we started and ended every time in a circle, sharing how we felt, what questions came… We really took our time for it and I felt that this was NOT AT ALL a waste of time. It was even the opposite, it seemed to be having a really good influence. There was a (stronger) connection between us – people I had never met before – and I loved the ‘whole’ that was created this way. Not just quickly gathering together, listening to the host and then going back to our own lives. No, instead we took time to arrive, to open and to leave, to close.

A little flame had started inside me, my love and awareness for the power and magic of circles, check-ins, and check-outs.

By now, almost two months later, this little flame has become a stronger, bigger one. Every meeting we start with a check-in and end with a check-out. No matter how many we are, no matter how much time we have. And I love it. It is so precious and valuable and I feel that taking time for this could be done for whatever meeting or gathering you have. I have experienced it now in Kufunda Village Circle, the weekly gathering where Kufundees sit together and talk about everything that needs to be talked about. Also, every meeting amongst the teachers starts and ends with this taking time to talk, but most importantly to listen to each other. With the children in school, we also have a weekly circle. And then there are the bigger Kufunda meetings, like planning sessions. Not only circle, check-in and check-out, but World Cafés are involved! I like this way of thinking and talking together, creating ideas for the future. You’re in a small group, which gives everybody the chance to share his/her voice. When it’s time to change the groups, you see how other people have been thinking and talking about the same question. And there can be such differences! You share what has been said at your table and there’s time to think and talk again. This way, you hear what has been said in all (most of) the other groups. To close the World Café, there’s a big circle and per table, there is one presenting what has risen. This overview per table makes sure that everything that has been said, is now also shared in the big group. I’m convinced that this is a very efficient and creative way to plan things when you’re in a big(ger) group. All voices are heard without taking hours and hours.

The flame of hosting meaningful conversations is growing inside me. And I truly believe that it will become a fire one day, able to light the flames in others too.