London Community Day - June 29th 2024
an afternoon of fun and connection - all with a nonviolent communication twist
Register for 2025 HERE
We are back after 5 years!!! This was the first London NVC Community day since the pandemic, since 2019 in fact, and we all left hungry for more. (So watch this space for a winter event and of course, next year’s big summer blast.)
This was the biggest community day yet, with over 60 people joining us and contributing to the community vibe. Some people have been with us every time we have done this, and some people were coming for the first time. As one person commented, ‘it shows there is a community, we keep coming back’.
(photo credit Gerry McCulloch)
2024 Theme - Collaboration
We have always had a theme; in 2016 we integrated the Brexit referendum result, in 2017 and 2018, we explored Community and Belonging. In 2019, we focussed on Play.
For 2024, the theme was Collaboration. How can we collaborate in this dominant, "patriarchal paradigm of powerlessness, separation and scarcity", as Miki Kashtan puts it, drawing on Marshall Rosenberg's exploration of what life is like in domination cultures.
Questions to discuss
In groups, at work, in your family and friend groups (we all collaborate in different contexts).
What are my collaboration successes? What works well?
What do I mourn? What doesn’t work so well?
Collaboration challenges that we are socialised with. Choose one of these things, how does it show up in me, in my collaborations:
Competition?
Divisions and factions?
Trying to get your way?
Giving up on your needs?
How might we transform this into something life-affirming?
The theme was explored in Listening Circles
(Photo credit: Swarnika Tiwari)
This is what Sam said about the event
“Olden Community Gardens, where the event has taken place for years, has a very unique and beautiful feel to it. The shape of the space, with the main lawn enclosed by walls and trees (with more to explore beyond the trees), somehow makes the whole thing feel even more held. And it was wonderful to see faces I hadn't seen for years - or only ever seen on a screen in the case of several people I knew from the Listening Hour!
Among other things, we had listening circles on the theme of collaboration, and it was interesting and connecting to discover that the topic brought up similar sub-themes (and struggles) for various different people.
There was a very natural flow: between breaks for conversation and food, and hour-long workshops on a great range of NVC topics which the team had put together. I attended ones by Emma Buggy (on feeling into the prospect of sharing something vulnerable - with slowness and care) and Ceri Buckmaster (on inner and outer work, and how NVC might create or support social change), and both were fascinating and very valuable. Mini intermediate workshops which met my need for a sense of growth.”
(Photo credit: Gerry McCulloch)
(photo credit: Maria Cardamone)
Register for 2025 HERE