Day of Heart

The purpose of the Day of Heart is for members of the Educo community that are considering volunteering or working at Educo in 2010 to get together and have a meaningful dialogue about what we want to create together as a community this year. It will be a day of heart-to-heart sharing, creative visioning and celebrating the uniqueness that we bring individually, and as a collective, to our work with youth.

Who is running this?In short, we all are! It is generally an open dialogue and it is important that we discuss only what is relevant and important to the people that show up (or are participating from elsewhere).

The day has being set-up by Stu and Brodie, with some help from Dave and Ingrid. Some basic structure has been set up and will be facilitated by one of us.

When?The date for this gathering and dialogue is February 27th, 2010 from 9am-5pm. LUNCH IS INCLUDED!

Where?The location is the West Vancouver Community Centre Youth Lounge, in West Vancouver, which is situated between 21st St. and 22nd St. on Marine Drive. Directions to the centre are at the bottom of this email.

How should I prepare?

All that is needed to prepare for this is to spend the week exploring a reflection question described below. It is simple and hopefully rewarding. Beyond that, you are required only to show up and be prepared to be present, listen and share from the heart and explore your connection to Educo and its work!

Reflection Question:

First - a metaphor: Educo is a giant puzzle....

Each year, Educo begins again. A diverse group of caring, creative and fun-loving people gather at Holden Meadows to build a beautiful and bold vision together: how we live in community and how we work with each other and youth is designed and built by those that show up year and after year. This vision comes together much like a giant puzzle would. It begins with thousands of pieces (the

pieces represent all of the individual skills, knowledge, experiences and values of all of its people), and with time, patience, and care, the pieces all fit together to create something greater than all the individual pieces combined. It is generally unknown what the finished product will look like exactly, but part of the joy of building the puzzle is to find out what amazing things take shape. It seems overwhelming and near impossible at times, yet somehow it always comes together in a powerful way.

Each year we have the exciting and challenging opportunity to put together a whole new puzzle than the year before. Over the winter we have each found new puzzle pieces - we have had new experiences, learned new skills and gathered new perspective on ourselves and the world - and we bring in these new pieces yearly. And sometimes completely new people come to our community and bring a whole new set of puzzle pieces we haven't had before.

As we build the puzzle, our community vision and work takes shape, and we begin to "see" it. Once we see it, our excitement and connection to it grows in meaning, and we excitedly engage even more in the building process. It starts of slow, but builds momentum and becomes powerfully in flow by the summer. Our students experience the "Educo" that we build; each year it looks and feels a bit different, yet one thing that remains the same is that we share in a near-magical community process that profoundly impacts our lives and our students' lives in a positive way.

The reflection question for the week is:

Based on:- what you have learned about yourself in your life so far, and- what your are learning from your life right now

What puzzle pieces are you bringing to the Educo puzzle this year?

another way of putting it is: what are your unique contributions that support the building and sustaining of a powerful community and powerful work?

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Please reflect on this from now until our gathering next Saturday. Enjoy where this reflection takes you! It is not necessary that you come up with lists of definitive answers to share or anything like that, but rather that you have an opportunity to creatively explore the vision of Educo 2010 and your part in it. We hope that this will make our time together that much more richer:)

If you have any questions please email us or call Stu at 604-346-5558

Lots of love! See you on Saturday!

Stu and Brod

----------------Directions to the West Vancouver Community Centre

- From Hwy 1, heading West towards Horseshoe Bay, exit at Taylor Way (exit 13)

- after exiting, keep left and go back under the hwy and onto to Taylor Way

- Turn Right onto Marine Drive. Marine is at the bottom of the large hill, at the lights.

- Follow Marine Drive until you reach 21st Street

- The community centre takes up the whole block on the left (north) side of Marine between 21st St. and 22nd St.

Link to a map: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Taylor+Way&daddr=2121+Marine+Dr,+West+Vancouver,+BC,+Canada&hl=en&geocode=FajS8AIdBhyp-A%3BFaC38AIdUpio-ClJZTvjDW6GVDGgJJx7SClXVg&mra=me&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=15&sll=49.334771,-123.133049&sspn=0.015269,0.038581&ie=UTF8&ll=49.335023,-123.138542&spn=0.030538,0.077162&t=h&z=14

Meeting Place - In the middle of the complex is a large, mostly glass, atrium . We will meet inside the atrium entrance area at 8:45-8:55am. If you're late then ask someone to show you to the youth lounge.