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@gmail.com for more information.