another perspective

Tue Aug 11 00:00:14 CDT 2009

Hi Regina and Adam and others at Grouptalk,

I aim with my work to create spaces that others can use for the purpose of building better community.  Most of the spaces that I create are for farmers, but not exclusively. In all my work I am focusing on raising consciousness, encouraging others to participate, working towards positive social change .. big picture, political stuff rather than personal therapy. Here are three areas that I have been working on today:

Farmday - creating a national public open day on farms across New Zealand where farmers (and others in rural community) invite non-farmers to come out and walk across their land, hear stories and ask questions. The aim is to bridge the increasing gap between farmers and non-farmers. We held the first open day this year (www.farmday.org.nz<http://www.farmday.org.nz>) and had 25 farms and 3,500 people. I am having some discussions with people working with disengaged youth about how they can link into this day and provide city kids with a nature/farm experience. I don't know yet if we can help them (next year) but for sure we both want a better community.

Leadership courses - I facilitate courses in agricultural leadership with the aim of supporting/coaching people to become agricultural lobbyists. Farmers and rural community generally need a stronger voice. I create a learning space for farmers. This course does not even try to engage with people at a therapeutic level - even if I could do this well, I suspect that the farmers would be out the door pretty damn fast. Never-the- less where I can/am able to, I use sociometric tools - it is all about action vs passivity isn't it?

www. chatrooms - I have started to build chat rooms for farmers where they can come together and discuss issues relevant to their industry and form local views/responses and in doing so contribute towards a more cohesive stronger rural community. These are great for people who live in rural areas but who want their voice to be heard. I think this work is totally about building community and working towards positive change. I am now starting to put a lot of thought into how I use Facebook (and social networks generally) as a lobbyist. While I am not yet good at this, I am moving quickly. I have as friends on my Facebook page the New Zealand prime minister and anyone else who I think is a mover and shaker that I aim to influence. It is interesting to find out who has / had not a Facebook site. I suspect that a good part of the last New Zealand election was won/lost on the different parties use of social networking sites. Some have still not learnt. If you don't think one person can be effective, you never went to bed with a mosquito.

In all my work, I constantly lean a piece of writing that Ann Hale and Donna Little did with the Toronto Centre Collective, called 'Enduring Traits'. I liked this so much that I went to the Sates last year and did a workshop with them. I wish New Zealand was not so far away or I would be back again this year for more. I have tried to write something similar for New Zealand farmers - it is work in progressive.

I enjoy the discussion on group-talk and I learn a lot from it but I sometimes think that people who work with disengaged people are in danger of forgetting that there are a lot of people who would fall in the middle of the bell curve (myself included) that quite like using Moreno for social change. I am into quite normal things (like farming and producing food, and the environment and rural community) and I am trying to make these communities bigger/richer  - buy hey, do what smokes your tyres!

Regards, Ali

ALI UNDORF-LAY
New Zealand

ALI UNDORF-LAY
PROVINCIAL COMMUNICATIONS CO-ORDINATOR

Federated Farmers of New Zealand
PO Box 1992, Christchurch, New Zealand

P    03 357 9461
F    03 357 9451
M   0274 722 544

www.fedfarm.org.nz

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P THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT

From: list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org [mailto:list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org] On Behalf Of REGINA SEWELL
Sent: Tuesday, 11 August 2009 4:12 p.m.
To: Edward Schreiber
Cc: List at grouptalkweb.org
Subject: Urgent.....

Ed,

I do not disagree with you about the urgency of the situation.  Personally, I am horrified.  Politically, I am active.  And, I also know from personal experience, on both ends of the bat used to beat our points in with, that beating a point in doesn't work.  People get angry.  Ronald Reagan was once a Roosevelt Democrat.  He was somewhat socialist... the head of a union... the Screen Actor's Guild.  After getting death threats and condemnation from the more radical actors union (I can't remember the name off hand) he became the Ronald Reagan who we all know and love for his reactionary conservative political policies, not to mention his callous dismissal of the AIDS epidemic.

More close to home, I have been stumping about saving the whales and the elephants and the earth since I was a small child.  I rode my bike or took the bus to school and work for years.  I don't now because it is a 40 mile drive and there is no way to get there that is safe.  And I won't move because it's not that safe to be queer in the town where I work.  I buy organic.  I buy local.  I recycle.  Whatever...   I have a housemate that recently discovered the environment and every time I fail to avoid him, lambasts me about the importance of biking to work, taking cold showers, being vegan, not using the lights and lately, washing clothes by hand.  He sounds pious, judgmental and condemning.  My reaction:  I go to the "dark side" and wish to beat him to a bloody pulp with the axe handle I have in the attic for self defense.  I imagine maggots eating him from the inside out.  I want to buy a Hummer, park in the drive way with the engine running, listening to my $5000 stereo or watching movies on my surround sound HD big screen TV in the back.

It's basic counseling 101...  joining....   I have to "be with the peeps" where they are in order to lay the path made up of  little crumbs of bread to get them pointed in the direction of where I'd like them to be.  To tell people what is, what they should think, how they should be is, I think, is arrogant, condescending and devisive. And it pisses people off.

This is why, I think, urgency is highly over rated.  It drives people to act without being connected to our shared humanity.

Slowing down allows us to be present.  It gives us time to look at and let go of the fear, guilt, shame, and anger that gets in the way of action.  Joanna Macy has some really good stuff on this.

So yes, we need to act as if our lives depend on it.  And we need to be absolutely present in each moment because our lives and our planet depend on it.  Note that the buddhists do a very slow walking meditation rather than a running meditation.

celebrate whirled peas,

regina sewell, Ph.D.

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This email communication is confidential between the sender
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Please notify the sender immediately and erase all copies of the message and
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