[Dialogue] Archives Fall Sojourn Report

[Timothy Wegner]

Marge Philbrook asked me to share the report of the Archives Fall Sojourn
2013 in Chicago with our mailing lists.



The Unfolding Story of the Archives Project

September 20, 2013

This is a brief look at an evolving, ongoing happening occurring right now.
 Some have called it the Living Archives Project since it is an initiative
led by those who have personally participated in the remarkable work of the
Order Ecumenical, Ecumenical Institute and Institute of Cultural Affairs
that began in the early 1960s.

The critical and foundational archival activity of preserving and
cataloguing the documented history of this community reflected in its file
cabinets has thankfully been going on for many years, with many colleagues
having a hand in it.  What is different today is the decision to get said
in a fresh way what we’ve been about in the major arenas of our work.  It’s
those of us who were there, who actually lived it, having this one
remarkable last chance to say, in our own words--as well as with the
advantage of a forty or fifty year perspective--what it was that we set out
to do and did, what our profound intent was in doing that stuff, and how
and why we went about it as we did.  It’s finding ways to make the treasure
of our past comprehensible and accessible to a new generation of Those Who
Care.

This is pretty exciting stuff.  Part of what’s exciting is the making sure
that we--and that especially includes ICA today and in the future--don’t
lose our stuff, that which made us the distinctive historical presence that
we’ve been.  For ICA to have a meaningful future vision, it needs a way for
its current young staff to grasp something of its incredible past, not to
replicate it, but to draw on its experience and learnings in creating its
own future directions.  Beyond that, what’s exciting is seeing the
potential new relationships and partnerings that can emerge from making
what we’ve done available to the world.

The university-focused Service Learning project and the neighborhood
Accelerate77 project both are “Living Archives” examples of the great worth
of our past wisdom available in our ICA Global Archives.  No longer is the
“Archives” equivalent to musty boxes in the basement.

We of the Fall Sojourn and the continuing Archives Team, based in Chicago
or remote, have the power to not only build a bridge from the EI/ICA/O:E
research and projects to the current projects of the ICA-USA and ICA
International, but to catapult our wisdom into the world wide web of global
communications.  Our work in these Sojourns is constantly electrified by
the white-hot heat of raw energy we all created together as a collegial
body moving together to inspire and motivate thousands upon thousands with
our programs based on our fundamental principles.  Our singing, our sharing
of stories and our reporting of new found treasures are actually just
“re-discovered” wisdom and clarity that held us together and sustained us
and others on the long march of rebuilding the Earth. Those core strategies
are our fundamental covenant or manifesto: 1) Contextual Re-Education, 2)
Structural Reformation, 3) Spirit Re-Motivation. We all confessed we took
only “Baby Steps” in learning to be Word Press website designer/builders.
 Our two weeks went by in a flash and we admitted that the state of our
published collections were really only “Starter Collections” which
nevertheless foretell immense promise to synergize profound collaborations
with all peoples doing social development with great energy today.

The Global Archives Project team sees some new near-term developments that
will help us communicate much more widely “the future of our past work”
online in fresh ways. What are the fresh ways? We will be present online
and face-to-face in 2 locations - Chicago and Minneapolis - for a YouTube
channel broadcast. We are searching for short imaginal stories of our work
for new collections like Imaginal Education, Facilitation Methods and Human
Development Projects.

We find inspiration from the outreach example of ICA-Ukraine in the way
they broadcast 2 live programs a week to a community of interest of 8000
Ukrainian subscribers in both Russian and English. We intend to produce
some live on-air prototype programs on your computer screen - like the
Imaginal Education Collection broadcast done in September by Elise Packard
and Kaze Gadway. For the Spring Sojourn 2014 we intend to create several
intact partner teams to design and startup and bring online new
Collections. Please subscribe to collections and stay tuned for some
program prototypes.

We have scheduled the Spring Sojourn for April 28 to May 9, 2014.  Please
consider joining the team.  Colleagues can also participate in this ongoing
project at any time either in Chicago or by working with a team remotely
from home.   Please contact margephilbrook at gmail.com for more information.
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