| Subject: Re: Setting up of a reflection group |
Author:
Eric Chen
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Date Posted: 09:03:38 10/20/04 Wed
In reply to:
Eric
's message, "Setting up of a reflection group" on 08:14:58 09/19/04 Sun
This mail is a [very long delayed] quick update on the progress of the group from my perspective.
Somewhere near the end of August I had this idea to set up a special group called a reflection group.
It can be found at http://creation.is.dreaming.org
I have only one person helping me directly in the planning, logistics and laying the foundations of the project - Siyun. Many things would be impossible without her. I am very grateful for her help.
Some of my friends have also chipped in a bit of help here and there. Christopher was especially helpful to locate much interesting content including the shockwave files used in the presentation.
[Note: If you need to view Powerpoint files but do not have Microsoft Office, browse to http://www.openoffice.org/ and download the program. It will allow you to view and edit all most MS Office files.]
----- 15 Sep 04 (Friday) -----
I shared some of the reflection group concepts with some of my colleagues who happen to organise a get together dinner at that time. I had spent one day preparing 2 PowerPoint slides.
The first slide is about "Holistic Personal Mastery", a new concept for a form of Personal Mastery that includes more than just introducing new thoughts. The other slide is about "Team Champions" team roles theory which conveys in a simple form how to create a well balanced team using team roles.
Although made in a great rush, they seem good enough for use. While preparing the materials I take note to recycle parts of them for the reflection group.
During the meeting, the usual problem of people giving me too little time to cover everything and then running off early occurred again. I covered the information as quickly as possible without sacrificing too much quality. The ideas interested the audience but they still remain unsure about implementing these. They did not contact me to discuss more on this.
These are the slides I shared with them:
http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/reflection/Organising/PM_Champion_Sharing_-_040915.ppt
http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/reflection/Organising/Team_Champions.ppt
Note: You must login as a member to view these slides
----- 12 Sep 04 (Sunday) -----
During our discussion, we decided to set the target date of doing a presentation on 26 Sep for a select audience. This seems like a suitable challenge to us, setting the date to be hopefully for a presentation in mid October.
----- 26 Sep 04 (Sunday) -----
26 Sep was the conclusion of days of intensive conversations over the phone about the shape of materials and what to cover. Basically we abandoned most of the other work that would take up our time to concentrate exclusively on this.
On 25 Sep (Saturday), we met and worked from afternoon all the way to midnight with Siyun on the slides.
As the clock ticked down, we found ourselves still staring at a confusingly hopeless collection of slides. On a spontaneous instinct, I tore up some waste paper and wrote down all the concepts on these. Then I shuffled them until I got the concepts aligned. Then we split the remainder of our work.
Siyun continued to align the text and I would go home and compile all the background music into categories of emotions. This time, I missed the last MRT train and had to take a bus.
The next day, I arrived late at Siyun's home due to an unexpectedly heavy workload.
I ran through the slides quickly and reorganized them into a logical order. We looked through some of the videos and macromedia shockwave materials to be presented, discussed which ones to present and got the timings for the parts. Siyun also went through each background music to get a feel of them.
Then, tired and weary, I put the finishing touch on the slides just 10 minutes before the presentation in the evening.
I hooked up my notebook to the large screen television set and started configuring the video output. [We have yet to find any sponsor for a computer projector even as of now.] The presentation started after we served the food and as the filler shockwave files finished playing. I jumped into it without a rehearsal. The time has came to make or break and I was determined to make it work.
Then I found some unexpected responses. Some of the people have certain perception and thinking that I did not expect. Often enough, I would be interrupted because someone wants to make a counterpoint or to clarify something that they don't understand.
I would later hear some comments that I was being "going against the teachings" of some motivation and NLP trainers while my intention was to point out the flaws in their ways of working and how the reflection group aims to address that.
Overall, the presentation was well executed enough for those who I heard from to give a positive rating. Some rated it as very interested. There is even someone who was impressed that we did all this in a matter of just 2 weeks because he thought that it would take months for him to even get started on it.
Of course, this has not ended. We have to settle down and review what happened. It would be hard for us to commit to replicating this feat with such a serious lack of manpower as there are only 2 of us.
Siyun has also produced a 43MB PowerPoint file that I need to make into a reasonable size. It would take over a week before we found time to shrink the file to a reasonable 1.3MB.
The slides are available at
http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/reflection/Materials/040926_ReflectionGroupTrial01.ppt
Note: You must login as a member to view this slide
----- 9 OCT 04 (Saturday) -----
After a few more phone conversations and physical meetings, we still have yet to consolidate a plan of what to do. We explored many ideas, I would consolidate and prepare some new concepts that would make Siyun and her friend Cleo interested.
"
Effective Volunteerism is not just about helping people and bringing happiness into their lives, but also about transforming the world into a better place. We transform the world by showing people how to work with their emotions and thoughts.
We transform the world by putting our resources and people where it matters, creating the biggest effect with the minimum effort. Working in this way challenges us to see the picture and "think out of the box", to resolve world problems at the level as close to the root cause as possible.
Facilitated Idealism is our way of helping people put their ideals into reality. We realize that many people have dreams within them, and our role would be to act like coaches and coordinators.
We coach interested people to bring out their passions and visions. We coach them in how to work with the teachings that they like to work with. We coach them in bringing out their potential and applying their understandings to the world.
Then what it would look like - their vision applied. We show them how to deal with the issues of people, money, legalities, logistics, systems planning, etc as they start their own organisations. And how to make their dreams come true.
"
Then I consolidated the concepts into an incomplete slide presently at
http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/reflection/Organising/Remaking_Volunteerism.ppt
Note: You must login as a member to view this slide
----- 18 Oct 04 (Sunday) -----
For over a month, I am still bogged down by email backlogs and some house errands but have managed to clear most of them by now.
I went to the holistic fair at Fort Canning with Siyun, Christopher and a new friend Sijia.
I showed Siyun and Sijia the systems thinking notes related to Peter Senge's work on "Learning Organisations". [Christopher was attending to other activities.] I expanded on these, including about their limitations of current systems thinking and the potential it could go.
[
In just one of the many examples, I mentioned the mindset of our society concerning organisations. People tend to see organisations as static entities. Under Peter Senge, they have became dynamic entities capable of transformation.
Yet this can hardly compare to the concept of organisations that "form" and "deform" to take the "shape" to complete the task necessary. Then they can "recycle" into another part or break apart. In other words, an organisation is a completely dynamic system paralleling how organisms like amoebae organise themselves. For amoebae info, refer to http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/9661/108713
The concepts of "lifespan", "management" and even "leadership" is then seen from a completely differently light.
]
I encountered some unpleasant experiences including having to attend to a very pesky and persistent person. Then, when another person at the holistic lied blatantly to me, I lost my spiritual balance and grew angry. And it stuck with me for 2 days.
On hindsight, I realized that I had also felt hurt deeply. For all the work and effort I am doing to bring about a better world, people somehow "don't want it". It seems that they keep putting obstacles to make it difficult for me to help them. I felt this deep, grieving disappointment in people of this world, especially those who profess to help Humanity grow but actually may not mean what they say. And over months this grew into a huge wave of anger.
I had committed my life to make the world a better world, and launching important projects to make that happen. With myself barely able to cope with all these, is it too much for me to expect some cooperation like someone to help me out with project planning, finances, and such basic things so that the important projects can proceed? Why must I do so much of the work and then face such unappreciative responses?
I have decided and noticed that it is time for me to reflect on all these and perhaps change some of the priorities in my life. Enough is enough. I am going for a holiday to a rural area of Malaysia for a few days at the end of October.
And so, I am now going off to sleep and then waking up to serving my not so pleasant compulaory military service tomorrow morning...
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