What could our Learning Village be?
What does it take to come into conscious community together? What benefit can our collaborative learning bring to the whole? What good work can we do together to build capacity in the local community, ourselves and our own communities?
We hope to create a place where people of all ages and backgrounds belong - a safe space to explore new and different ways of collaborating and co-existing. We hope to build on what we have already learned, and create a strong intergenerational community and build on and create lasting community connections and capacity. Our dream is to share hope, ideas, energy and new ways of working with each other, the local community and our own communities, and offering the chance to collaborate on real world projects that matter to us. |
We know, from previous years, that there are many different reasons for people to feel called to come to a Learning Village.
Here are some of the things the Learning Village could be:
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How will we live, work and learn together?
We will be using Art of Hosting / Participatory Leadership practices and methods that build on collaborative wisdom and solutions, inspiration and fun, as our shared ground for our time together. It is not necessary for you to know about this approach – everyone is welcome!
The Hosting Team will open the gathering and host the design and space during the time we have together. All participants will create the program together.
We will have the opportunity to work together on projects, challenges and questions we all bring, and with locals on community projects that are important to them. What we do together depends on what each of us offers and what we need!
This year we will focus even more on what we can learn by working and co-creating together. What does it mean to be a community? How can the Learning Village serve us and the world this time? What do we want to leave behind at Statenberg and in the local community when we leave?
Everyone is invited to create our time together. Please bring:
The Hosting Team will open the gathering and host the design and space during the time we have together. All participants will create the program together.
We will have the opportunity to work together on projects, challenges and questions we all bring, and with locals on community projects that are important to them. What we do together depends on what each of us offers and what we need!
This year we will focus even more on what we can learn by working and co-creating together. What does it mean to be a community? How can the Learning Village serve us and the world this time? What do we want to leave behind at Statenberg and in the local community when we leave?
Everyone is invited to create our time together. Please bring:
- Passion and responsibility – your energy and passion for what you love, and responsibility to help create our time here together
- Curiosity and authenticity - your curiosity about what’s happening in yourself, in your community and in the world, and your willingness to show up as who you truly and fully are
- Generosity and vulnerability - An openness to step forward and offer your unique contribution with generosity – and to ask for what you need. Allowing others to witness our vulnerability can bring transformation and healing for all
- Your projects – bring along your ideas or projects for good work in your community, organisation, family or the world, and ask for help to co-create them together
- Songs, stories, books, art supplies, musical instruments, costumes, props or anything else to support creative expression or celebration.
Who is the Learning Village for?
We want to work closely together with people from the region where we are being hosted: from Makole and surrounding villages, from Slovenska Bistrica, Ptuj, Maribor, Ljubljana and all over Slovenia.
We invite people of all ages and from all over the world to join us - anyone interested, curious or committed to being in a space of co-created learning. This invitation comes from the Art of Hosting Community, but we’d like your help to spread this invitation to go much further - everyone’s invited! We’d like to see our mates from other communities there too: World Café, Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry, Circle work, Theory U & presencing, Holacracy, Deep Democracy, Dynamic Facilitation, Spiral Dynamics, Contact Improvisation and all other forms, those who practice story, music, dance, or any engaging artforms. We invite anyone who cares and is engaged at this time. It’s time to come to the Learning Village together and see what happens. We hope to see you here! We encourage you to come for the whole week. You are also welcome to join just for several days, or even just one day. |
Families are welcome!
Hosting life as a whole, we invite young and old to co-create a simple structure and process to make this experience fun and meaningful also for the younger ones joining us. We will have an experienced host holding the children’s space offering a frame to co-create a programme with and for the children, and invite everyone in the village to be part as much as we feel called to. What we offer is the learning edge of what it means to live life whole in family structures, and flow well together meeting the needs of everyone involved, rather than “organising child care”. We look forward to surfacing the incredible gifts children bring into community, and to learn how to hold community space so children can weave themselves in well and satisfying. Dear parents, we ask you to accept and honour that children are ultimately your responsibility at all times during the gathering: giving the young space to live in open space means that they may take the decision of wanting to be with you, not other people :) and we expect you to welcome and respect your child(ren)s decision. Wheelchair access will unfortunately be very difficult as most workshop rooms are situated on the first floor – accessible only via stairs. However we will have more spaces on the ground floor this year, so we are working around this. If you have access challenges, please get in touch and we would love to talk with you about meeting them |
What projects can we work on?
We plan to collaborate on real world projects that matter to us. So - bring your projects! Bring your ideas and deep questions!
Bring unsolved challenges and underused solutions! And let us explore how they all fit together.
There will be a couple of local projects that we can work together on – including some practical work. Come back to discover more details as they are identified and developed with the local community. Read about the local project we worked on in 2012 - clearing the chapel at the Manor, a project that continues to bring the local community together, and inspire visitors
We invite locals and all participants, to bring their projects to work on, using the wisdom of everyone in the Learning Village. This includes the possibility of a co-design day or sessions throughout the week. This is a chance to build capacity in ourselves and others to do good work, and to move projects forward.
There is also a local call to build capability and confidence to continue hosting an annual Learning Village at Statenberg, as it develops further as a place of community, learning, good work, creativity and fun all year round!
Bring unsolved challenges and underused solutions! And let us explore how they all fit together.
There will be a couple of local projects that we can work together on – including some practical work. Come back to discover more details as they are identified and developed with the local community. Read about the local project we worked on in 2012 - clearing the chapel at the Manor, a project that continues to bring the local community together, and inspire visitors
We invite locals and all participants, to bring their projects to work on, using the wisdom of everyone in the Learning Village. This includes the possibility of a co-design day or sessions throughout the week. This is a chance to build capacity in ourselves and others to do good work, and to move projects forward.
There is also a local call to build capability and confidence to continue hosting an annual Learning Village at Statenberg, as it develops further as a place of community, learning, good work, creativity and fun all year round!
When will it happen?
- The Learning Village will begin in the afternoon (around 5pm) on Saturday 23 August, and finish after lunch on Saturday 30 August. We encourage you to come for the whole week. You are also welcome to join for several or even just for one day. We will meet in circle, share our stories, questions and experience, live in Open Space for the week.
- For some days before the official start of the Learning Village (20-23 August), there is the chance to arrive, settle in, and join with the hosting team to create the space for good work together. We can also do some practical projects in and around the Manor, get to know the local area, and share meals and fun together (and all of this can continue during the week!)
- For the week afterwards (31 August – 6 September), there is an opportunity to take it slow in sLOVEnia – an offer by local community members who would love to show us more of their wonderful and very hospitable land. Get in touch and we can help create a self-guided or authentic hosted experience for you!
Building on what we have already learned
To experience a little of the past Learning Villages at Statenberg, take a look at these:
- 2013 Slovenia Learning Village website
- 2013 Strengths of Slovenia website
- 2012 Together we cleared the chapel Joint harvest by Ria Baeck & Helen Titchen Beeth
- 2012 - Helen’s pictures
- 2012 Simone’s pictures