Wheatsville Co-op Austin, TX

[Dan gillotte <dangillotte AT gmail.com>]

Hi folks,

we are having our annual business meeting and Owner gathering this Thursday from 7-9pm here at Wheatsville in our Large Meeting Room in the Office behind the store at 3105 Gudalupe.

We'll start promptly at 7 with a short business meeting and then get on with the exciting and engaging program described below!

PLEASE RSVP for this event rsvp AT wheatsville.com

Fall Owner Gathering is a World Cafe

Join our general manager, the Board of Directors and candidates for the Board and fellow owners for hors d'oeuvres and a spirited conversation about where our Co-op is headed.

 What difference does Wheatsville make in our community?

What could the Co-op look like 20 years from now?

And what values should guide us as we make important investments in Wheatsville's future?

On Thursday, October 22, Wheatsville hosts its Fall Owner Gathering where you can join the general manager, the Board of Directors and candidates for the Board and fellow owners for hors d'oeuvres and a spirited conversation about where our Co-op is headed. For this year's gathering, we're planning a "World Cafe" style discussion-- a high-energy collaborative brainstorm (Read more about the format at theworldcafe.com-- and we hope you'll help us design it.

We're looking for questions that will engage and inspire us as we imagine our future and define our core values. For instance: Suppose that twenty years from now, Wheatsville is so successful that people come from all over the world to learn from our experience. What do we look like?

Here's another: If Wheatsville disappeared tomorrow, what difference would it make to our community?

Or try this one: What values should govern the investments the Co-op makes in the next ten years? Suppose we have to limit the list to three?

The conversation promises to be rich and fun--and a great chance for the Co-op's leaders to learn about the community's priorities--and we hope you'll plan to participate. Please RSVP to Steven at RSVP AT wheatsville.coop--and if you've got a question that could inspire a thoughtful debate, please share it! Once you're on the RSVP list, you'll get occasional updates about how the session is coming together and what questions your fellow owners are asking.

Please mark your calendar for Thursday, October 22: We'll gather at Wheatsville at 7pm for a brief business meeting and introduction to the candidates for the Board. The World Cafe kicks off promptly at 7:30pm and brainstorming continues until about 9:30pm. We'll wrap up before 10pm to give you time to swap e-mail addresses with new friends. We look forward to seeing you there!

What is the World Cafe?

As a conversational process, the World Cafe is an innovative yet simple methodology for hosting conversations about questions that matter. These conversations link and build on each other as people move between groups, cross-pollinate ideas, and discover new insights into the questions or issues that are most important in their life, work, or community. As a process, the World Cafe can evoke and make visible the collective intelligence of any group, thus increasing people's capacity for effective action in pursuit of common aims.

The integrated design principles have been distilled over the years as a guide to intentionally harnessing the power of conversation for business and social value. When used in combination, they provide useful guidance for anyone seeking creative ways to foster authentic dialogue in which the goal is thinking together and creating actionable knowledge.

As a living network pattern, the World Cafe refers to a living network of conversations that is continually co-evolving as we explore questions that matter with our family, friends, colleagues, and community. The metaphor of the "World as Cafe" helps us notice these invisible webs of dialogue and personal relationships that enable us to learn, create shared purpose, and shape life-affirming futures together.

In this sense, the World Cafe is also a growing global community of people, groups, organizations, and networks using World Cafe principles and processes to evoke collective intelligence and link it to effective action in pursuit of common aims.