LearningCommunities LO6054

ParetoKid@aol.com
Fri, 8 Mar 1996 13:43:18 -0500

Learning Communities LO6030

Alan Mossman asks:
>Do you know anywhere that has happenned or might have happenned ?

Alan two citations that I think might be of help to you as you work with
Stroud.

One is an article on a search in an area called the Macatawa Area in
Wisconsin, USA.

The Macatawa Area regional planning group sponsored the search which
includes several communties. The article is quite good in describing both
the search process used and what has been accomplished in the two years
since the search was done. The article is by Frank Heckman and appeared in
the journal I edit (The Journal for Quality and Participation) If you have
access to the worldwideweb, you can access the article at:
http://newciv.org/worldtrans/comqual.html

The JQP is also available through the British Library (Vol 18 #7 December
1996 Heckman article). There is another article in the same issue by
Merrelyn Emery which talks about 20 years of community searches in
Australia. That article is available at the same http address.

The other approach and articles are much closer to the UK. Tom Lyons of
the Irish Productivity Centre in Dublin has developed a process, which he
terms Shared Learning, that has worked well in involving 10 separate rural
communities (in the north and south of Ireland) in simultaneous community
economic development planning and implementation. The same process has
been used to facilitate learning, planning and implementation of large
change processes among 10 public and private organizations (again in both
the north and the south of Ireland) and more recently among multiple
unions and the Airport Authority.

Mr. Lyons has written two previous articles about the multi-company and
multi-community for our Journal and has an article in our March Journal
summing up what they have learned about shared learning over the past 10
years. All three projects were supported in part by EU grants, as well as
participant fees for the multi-company project.

Mr. Lyons just completed a presentation on Shared Learning at a seminar at
the London School of Economics. I don't know if they recorded the
presentation.

I recommend these articles to you and hope they help in some way.

I would be interested in learning more about what you are doing at Stroud,
as I am planning a special issue on applications of systems improvement,
as well as quality and participation processes within geo-politcal
communities.

Ned Hamson, editor: The Journal for Quality and Participation
Association for Quality and Participation, 801-B W. 8th St., Suite 501,
Cincinnati, OH 45203
Tel: 513-381-1979 Fax: 513-381-0070
e-mail: ParetoKid@aol.com
"This is the time... We are the people... Let's work together... Now!"
http://newciv.org/worldtrans/comqual.html
European liaison: Peter Beerten, Belgium Consultancy Group: Tel:
011-32-02-569-0222/Fax: 011-32-02-569-7480
e-mail: Peter.Beerten@ping.be
Fri, Mar 8, 1996

-- 

ParetoKid@aol.com

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>