Barry K. Weinhold
I'd had an intense day completing projects and almost did not go to the Open Space Meeting with Col. Bowman. Then I got lost and ended up arriving a half hour late. Col Bowman was truly inspiring and I was glad I had decided to attend.
In the Open Space portion of the evening I remember saying to myself, “I’m tired and I’m just going to sit in on these discussions and listen,” thinking I would not contribute much. As I looked over the posting of the topics only one seemed interesting at all to me. That was the one posted by Daniel Barber on “Bringing Heart, Soul, Creativity and Bliss to Politics.” Daniel shared about being a political activist for 15 years and feeling he wasn’t having much fun in the process. Several others shared a similar theme but there were only a few general ideas about how to have more fun. In that moment, I decided to share the Kindness Campaign project that I directed in Colorado Springs for ten years and how it spread to other cities in the U. S. and over 700 schools in the U. S. and Canada.
After sharing how much fun I had doing the Campaign and what a positive impact it had on the community, someone in the group said to me, “Why don’t you help us do this in Asheville?” Others seized the idea and began to talk excitedly about doing something similar here. What could I say? I agreed to explore the idea, if others were interested in doing this.
In the Action Phase of the evening, I posted the notice about having another meeting to discuss the idea. Six others said they would like to do that. I agreed to convene that meeting. We held that follow-up meeting June 20 at Earth Fare with about six new people joining some from the Open Space group. The consensus of the group was to hold another meeting and invite the community to consider the idea. Grant Millin agreed to organize the notes from the follow-up meeting and help publicize the July 12 community meeting. Others began to brainstorm the agenda for the meeting and even what the next steps could be after that meeting. Each agreed to invite some of their friends.
I came home that evening excited that I might be able to contribute to this community in a positive way. So I began to pull together some of the information that I thought might be useful if a group of people wanted to start a similar project in Asheville. As a result of Sunday’s community meeting, a core group of interested individuals appeared to support the idea and ran with it for almost three years.
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