Working towards a Common Sense....
of purpose
of direction
of meaning
of vision
of culture
of organisation
of structure
Why the 2nd Inaugural Conference?
In October 1995, 43 people came to Stanford Hall in Loughborough to
consider the possibility of setting up an association of people committed
to working with clients, customers and colleagues in a client-centred way.
We wanted to form an association which:
o is committed to helping members grow, develop and learn.
o transcends professional boundaries and is concerned with how we work
rather than our technical expertise.
o enables us to explore what client-centredness is by doing it.
o gives us the opportunity to work with client systems of many sizes,
from 1-to-1 individual consultations and small groups
to organisations.
Out of the conference came a wealth of ideas about the shape, aims
and activities of the association, who would be members and its underlying
values and principles. This was achieved in an atmosphere of
collaborative inquiry, which, although difficult and uncomfortable at
times, attempted to remain true to the values of client-centredness and
thus resulted in a lot of learning.
The work of this second conference is to complete the task of
bringing the association into being, to end up with working agreements
about the form of the association, membership, core values, how the
co-ordinating group works, roles and responsibilities, and ways forward
for the next year. We want to approach this task with fresh energies and
continue to experiment with ways of working that build relationships and
enable learning and growth to occur naturally whilst we do so.
We would like to work with as many people who attended the last
conference as possible and to extend a special welcome to those who could
not come last time and so can be ready to critique what has been done so
far from a fresh perspective.
The last conference empowered the co-ordinating group to make
sense of the data that was generated. The group will be sending out the
results of its deliberations to everyone who came to the conference and to
those who want to come this time. We will need to give some attention to
the suggestions the co-ordinating group has made and make sure that we end
up with an organisation which will continue to meet the needs of its
members. We need to come up with a vision for the future, to arrive at
that co-operatively and decide upon a structure which will allow plenty of
room for growth and development.
Transitions
Ours is an organisation in transition, the transition from not existing to
existing, the first of all known transitions. The potential for learning
about transition thus given to us is huge and so very relevant to the work
we all do with our clients. At the root of all the work we do is helping
ourselves and others to thrive in the ongoing, accelerating process of
learning, development and change that our turbulent times require of us.
What We Will Do
For all of the issues we address we want to allow time and space to
reflect on what we are learning for ourselves individually, for the group
we are working with, for the association as a whole and to consider the
implications for our practice with our clients. It may also feel right
for us to spend time sharing consulting dilemmas, e.g. how to work with
cultures in chaos, creating and sharing visions, inclusion/exclusion
issues, and integrating new learnings with existing ones. We may also work
on common problems and set up regional groups of the association.
The conference will give another opportunity to build
relationships, work on what is important to us and learn more about what
it means to be client-centred . All this whilst living our values and
hopefully having some fun too. It sounds like quite a tall order from
such a new grouping of people, but we learned last time that if we stick
with the uncomfortable bits and stay committed to client-centred values,
we achieve extraordinary results.
Venue and Cost
We are delighted to be able to return to Stanford Hall, The International
Co-operative College in Loughborough, Leicestershire, UK. The Conference
will be from FRIDAY 21st to SUNDAY 23rd JUNE 1996. We shall start with
dinner on Friday evening at 7pm and end with tea at 3.30pm on Sunday.
We have kept the cost stable at Pound135.00 inc.VAT per person.
This covers conference fees, standard residential accommodation for Friday
and Saturday.
Booking Form
Client-Centred Association Conference 21st-23rd June 1996
PLEASE BOOK A PLACE AT THE CONFERENCE FOR:
_____________________________________________________________________
ORGANISATION or COMPANY: ______________________________________
ADDRESS:__________________________________TEL No.________________
____________________________________________POST CODE: ___________
I ENCLOSE A CHEQUE FOR:___________PAYABLE TO PETER COCKMAN
PLEASE SEND ME A VAT RECEIPT: YES/NO
PLEASE BOOK ME A ROOM WITH EN SUITE FACILITIES: YES/NO
PLEASE INVOICE MY COMPANY AS FOLLOWS:
____________________________________________________________________
I HAVE THE FOLLOWING SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS:
______________________________________________________________________
Please send form and payment by 20 May to:
Peter Cockman, 17 Elm Tree Walk, Shippon, Abingdon, Oxon. OX13 6LX
Tel & Fax 01235 559919
--"Matzdorf, Fides" <F.Matzdorf@shu.ac.uk>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>